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More "Impediment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... permafrost over much of Siberia is a major impediment to development; volcanic activity in the Kuril Islands; volcanoes and earthquakes on the Kamchatka Peninsula; spring floods and summer/autumn forest fires throughout Siberia ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... with times, and of sparing persons, is the great impediment of biography. History may be formed from permanent monuments and records: but lives can only be written from personal knowledge, which is growing every day less, and in a short time is lost for ever. What is known can seldom be immediately told; and when it might be told, it is no longer ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... In one of the largest laboratories of America, and within ten years, an experiment equally cruel, equally useless, has been performed. The modern defender of unrestricted vivisection distinctly insists that no legal impediment should hinder the performance of any investigation desired by any experimenter. It was the editor of the British Medical Journal who once declared that "whoever has not seen an animal under experiment CANNOT FORM AN IDEA OF THE HABITUAL ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... fear of the enactment of the Bland bill, and the limitation of the amount of silver dollars to be coined, removed the great impediment to the sale of four per cent. bonds, for refunding purposes, and the progress toward ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... green, any loose impediment (not being in or touching a hazard) which is within a club length of the ball may be removed. If the player's ball move after any such loose impediment has been touched by the player, his partner, or either of their caddies, the penalty shall ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... produced by the capitalist system to the injury of the workingman and of society, will, at a higher grade of civilization, prove itself a benefit. Moreover, a population as large as possible is, even to-day, not an impediment to but a promoter of progress—on the same principle that the existing over-production of goods and food, the destruction of the family by the enlisting of women and children in the factories, and the expropriation of ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... belly on hers. "Oh! you are heavy, you smother me," said she rousing herself, "you're going to hurt me,—don't sir, it hurts," all in a groggy tone and in one breath. I inserted a finger between the lips of her quim, and tried gently to put it up, but felt an impediment. She had never been opened by man. I then put my prick carefully in the nick, and gave the gentlest possible movement (as far as I can recollect) ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... one's mind often amuse me. We used, as good Episcopalians, to go every Sunday to the little English Church on the rue des Palmiers. Alas, I can remember only one thing about those services. The clergyman had a peculiar impediment in his speech which made him say his h's and s's, both as sh. Thus he always said shuman for human, and invariably prayed that God might be pleased to "shave the Queen." He nearly got me into trouble once or twice ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... That impediment, however, which had hitherto retarded his departure being removed, he now set out for Eton, under the conduct of the abovementioned kinsman, who placed him in a boarding-house very near the school, and took his leave, after having given him such admonitions as he thought ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... should have been left to grow in front a la Plutus, or have been long at the sides a la Nazarene, which is the mode most of our Sicilian gentlemen prefer." We were about to rise, wash, and depart, but an impediment is offered by the artist. "Non l'ho raffinato ancora, Signor, bisogna raffinarlo un poco!" and before we could arrive at the occult meaning of raffinare, his fingers were exploring very technically ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... away, and centered itself upon another. Charlie Hudson had sought her for his wife, and while confessing her love for him she insisted that she could not be his, because she was bound to me. This, however, did not prevent his seeking an interview with her father, who told him frankly the terrible impediment to Nina's marriage with any one. It was a crushing blow to young Hudson, but he still clung to her with all a brother's devotion, soothing her grief upon the sea, and caring for her tenderly until Boston was reached, and he placed her in my hands, together with a ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... of gigantic fern-leaves, sprang out horizontally from the trunk, projecting right over the house and flower-garden, to both of which they furnished a grateful proportion of shade, without — being so high up — offering any impediment to the passage ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... project visibly from his face. And this is now the third year since it has been slowly but steadily coming out. It is to be expected, therefore, that the whole barb will eventually come out, though not for a long time. But it has not been an impediment to the man in any way. So ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius
... extending from the island of Manaar, near the N.W. coast of Ceylon to the island of Rameswaram, off the Indian coast, and lying between the Gulf of Manaar on the S.W. and Palk Strait on the N.E. It is more than 30 m. long and offers a serious impediment to navigation. Some of the sandbanks are dry; and no part of the shoal has a greater depth than 3 or 4 ft. at high water, except three tortuous and intricate channels which have recently been dredged to a sufficient depth to admit the passage of vessels, so as to obviate the long journey round ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... is like he may, in case this linsey-wolsey fellow of a mercer's visit to his premises has disquieted him. But, no," he added, pushing the huge gate, which gave way, "the door stands invitingly open; and here we are within the forbidden ground, without other impediment than the passive resistance of a heavy oak ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... expectations are well grounded; and therefore detect the deceits which they are apt to occasion. But timidity is a disease of the mind more obstinate and fatal; for a man once persuaded, that any impediment is insuperable, has given it, with respect to himself, that strength and weight which it had ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... the pounde. At the reading of this the Assembly thought good to send for Mr. Abraham Persey, the Cape marchant, to publishe this instruction to him, and to demaunde[124] of him if he knewe of any impediment why it might not be admitted of? His answere[125] was that he had not as yet received any suche order from the Adventurers of the[126] —— in England. And notw^{th}standing he sawe the authority was good, yet was he unwilling to yield, ...
— Colonial Records of Virginia • Various
... the opinion of the Inspector himself, as he remarked the extreme excitement under which the Englishman was laboring. Absorbed in thoughts of his own, he was pacing the room with long strides, turning mechanically as he met some impediment, but otherwise oblivious to his surroundings, even to the point of not noting the presence of Sweetwater, who stood quietly watching him from ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... a society which is divided into classes with diametrically opposing interests. The last remnant of its revolutionary character is thus taken from his philosophy, and there remains the old cant—"love one another"—fall into each other's arms without regard to any impediment of sex or ...
— Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy • Frederick Engels
... at the bottom to empty it. But we must not thus accuse him of lack of judgment. The interior of the tube is just large enough for the passage of an acorn; but at certain points the sap is not entirely absorbed, and there might easily be an impediment which would leave a large part of the cavity empty. Hence the necessity for a number of openings. When the sun has scorched up plants, and provisions are rare, he turns to his barns of abundance. Now and every time that he has need he ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... many Bookes together: hee is furnished with my opinion, which bettred with his owne learning, the greatnesse whereof I cannot enough commend, comes with him at my importunity, to fill vp your Graces request in my sted. I beseech you, let his lacke of years be no impediment to let him lacke a reuerend estimation: for I neuer knewe so yong a body, with so old a head. I leaue him to your gracious acceptance, whose trial shall better publish his ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... the shark, as they supposed, which had but recently devoured the dead body of the sailor. Trusting to this conjecture, they plied the oars with all the little strength left in their arms. Still, notwithstanding their feeble efforts, and the impediment of pulling against the wind, they were nearing the unfortunate man, surely, ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... Croisset had taken up the trail of the man who had shot at him soon after they had separated at the gravesides. He was equally certain that the chase would be short. Jean was quick. Dogs and sledge would be an impediment for the other in the darkness of the night. Before this, hours ago, they must have met. If Jean had come out of that meeting unharmed, it was time for him to be showing up at Adare House. Still greater perturbation filled Philip's mind when he recalled the unpleasant ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... The chief impediment to the progress of the work, however, was Short, the compositor. On close acquaintance with this creature, I found that he did not belie my first impression of him as the laziest and most slovenly of men; and I soon realised the two dominant characteristics which had made of him a Socialist—envy ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... day, and when it came to saying good-bye into the bargain? Nonsense! She'd break down and howl, and he would comfort her, and take off his coat. Look here, Mollie—go to bed! I've waited all the evening to have a talk with mother, and you are the only impediment left. Take your book with you ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... having left his eyes, and the blood (the extreme loss of which, from his great agitation, had alone caused him to swoon), being stopped by an embalmed bandage, he seemed to feel no impediment from his wound; and rising, hastened to the side of Helen. Lord Mar softly whispered his daughter-"Sir William Wallace is at your feet, my dearest child; look on him, and ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... forced to depend upon the resources of his own intellect, and determined to devote his life to oratory. He chose Isaeus for his master, and though having a weakly constitution, and an impediment in his speech, yet by steady, persevering effort, and daily practice, he brought himself to address without embarrassment, and with complete success, the assembled multitudes of the Athenian people. ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... must do something," cried Glyn, who couldn't sit still for laughing. "Can't you turn his head? We are mowing and harrowing all these flower-beds with this wood-stack he's dragging at his heels. Ah, that's better!" continued Glyn, as, finding the impediment rather unpleasant, the animal turned off at right angles and reached out with its trunk to remove the obstacles attached ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... impediment still remains. It is the predominance of a popular philosophy, at once the counterfeit and the mortal enemy of all true and manly metaphysical research. It is that corruption, introduced by certain immethodical ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... answered Mrs. Huzzard, and turned around to face the speaker, who was an apologetic-looking stranger with drab-colored chin whiskers, and a checkered shirt, and a slight impediment ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... an advantage, in that their engines for sieges cooperated with them in throwing darts and stones as far as the Jews, when they were coming out of the city; whereby the man that fell became an impediment to him that was next to him, as did the danger of going farther make them less zealous in their attempts; and for those that had run under the darts some of them were terrified by the good order and closeness of the enemies' ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... greatly to Nep's delight, he began to run as fast as he could, leaping over the fallen trees, allowing no impediment to stop him. He stopped for a moment to pick some juicy fruit resembling limes, which grew on a tree in his path, on which Nep came back and gave another pull at his trousers, as if fearing that he ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... transient revolt here" he seemingly insinuates, that but for this transient revolt he would perhaps try his hand at the European game. It would look so grand to be in company with the Decembriseur. Then the only impediment would be the people's will different from yours, oh, Seward! The refusal in the dispatch re-echoes the convictions of the American people; its shilly-shally conditionality is exclusively Sewardism and only fit to catch a ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... the hotel of the equestrians, I found that our Vermont acquaintance was one of the quaintest specimens of the Yankee race I had ever seen, and not a few examples had I met previous to my encounter with him. He had a droll impediment in his speech which gave to his actions and gestures a turn irresistibly comic, and then he told an excellent story, played the trombone, triangle, and bass viol, spoke Spanish well, drove one of the circus wagons, translated the bills, turned an occasional somerset in the ring, cracked jokes in ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... Basin; hurricanes along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts; tornadoes in the midwest and southeast; mud slides in California; forest fires in the west; flooding; permafrost in northern Alaska, a major impediment to development ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... spirit of liberality. No stinting was permitted on this day, at least; the rule for each child's allowance being that it was to have about twice as much as it could possibly eat, thus leaving a reserve to be carried home for such as age, sickness, or other impediment prevented from coming to the feast. Buns and beer circulated, meantime, amongst the musicians and church-singers; afterwards the benches were removed, and they were left to unbend their ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... the world, had from afar grown attached to the man who wrote to him with such glowing love of country and freedom. He had eventually informed him of his journey, and promised to call upon him. But the hospitality which he had accepted at the Boccanera mansion now seemed to him somewhat of an impediment; for after Benedetta's kindly, almost affectionate, greeting, he felt that he could not, on the very first day and with out warning her, sally forth to visit the father of the man from whom she had fled and from whom she now asked the Church ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Oh yes, you will. You have said too much or too little, now. I must hear 'all,' then I shall judge for myself. I may be in love—still I am amenable to reason. If you can show me any just cause or impediment to my marriage—if you can convince me it will be wrong in the sight of Heaven or man, then, dearly as I love her, I will give her up. But your ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... creative wisdom, as the master-work of God; and also in extolling the first race of men as pure and upright, innocent and happy. The beings who were thus created by Brahma are all said to have been endowed with righteousness and perfect faith; they abode wherever they pleased, unchecked by any impediment; their hearts were free from guile; they were pure, made free from toil by observance of sacred institutes. In their sanctified minds Hari dwelt; and they were filled with perfect wisdom by which they ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... studying these illustrations it can be readily seen how an over-distended rectum may produce such an impediment to the circulation that there will be congestion of all the neighboring parts. Or, the intestines themselves may become over-distended with faecal matter, or gas, from dyspepsia, and the pressure induced thereby may be sufficient to interfere with the free circulation of these parts, ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham
... not mislead us into supposing that Maori women were free, as a rule, to marry the husbands of their choice. As Tregear's own remarks indicate, the advances were either of an improper character, or the girl had made sure beforehand that there was no impediment in the way of her proposal. The Maori proverb that as the fastidious Kahawai fish selects the hook which pleases it best, so a woman chooses a man out of many (on the strength of which alone Westermarck, 217, claims liberty of choice for Maori women) must also ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... persecuted him. He ordered some sail to be spread, turned the prow to the sea and the poop to the wind, and himself taking the helm, let the vessel run over the wide sea, secure of not being crossed in his way by any impediment. The oars were all placed in their regular positions, the whole crew was seated on the benches, and no one else was seen on foot in the whole galley but the boatswain, who had lashed himself strongly amidship ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the whole of the day, without one single impediment excepting the heat, which was intolerable; the thermometer which hung by the clock and was exposed to the sun, as we were, was one time as high as ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... him or them erected; and exercise music, musical presentments, scenes, dancing, or other the like, at the same, or other, hours, or times, or after plays are ended,[715] peaceably and quietly, without the impeachment or impediment of any person or persons whatsoever, for the honest recreation of such as shall desire to see the same. And that it shall and may be lawful to and for the said William Davenant, his heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, to take and receive of such ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... Hundreds of brawny arms, each one of which grasped a stone, were raised into the air: while as many stooping forms were seen, crouching close to the ground, that they might leave room for the slingers to hurl their missiles without impediment. ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... observed and regarded the said grant of the said arms which I thus bestow upon the said city of Manila in the Filipinas Islands, so that they be allowed to place and possess them in the said city. And I order that no obstruction or impediment be offered to this concession or to any part of it, and that no one shall consent to place any obstruction whatever thereto, under penalty of my displeasure, and of a fine of ten thousand maravedis, to be paid to my exchequer, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair
... whole world his splendour, not only from the temporal firmament, but from the height of heaven, which surpasses every thing temporal, at the latter part, as we know, of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, by whom his religion was propagated without impediment, and death threatened to those who interfered ...
— On The Ruin of Britain (De Excidio Britanniae) • Gildas
... often used as including the parapet. Bulwark is a general word for any defensive wall or rampart; its only technical use at present is in nautical language, where it signifies the raised side of a ship above the upper deck, topped by the rail. Compare BOUNDARY; IMPEDIMENT. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... for him to rise. He dressed, made his breakfast on cold food that had been laid for him the night before; and went down to the room of his idol for the box. The door was open; a strange disorder reigned within; the furniture all pushed aside, and the centre of the room left bare of impediment, as though for the pacing of a creature with a tortured mind. There lay the box, however, and upon the lid a paper with these words: 'Harry, I hope to be back before you ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... on the other side of the screen. A bullet-headed youth, in a red coat with gold letters on the shoulder, fingering a forage-cap, slunk out round the end of this impediment, passing the two men beside the door, and a light, clear voice ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... but the remembrance of that last thing that the shepherds had showed them made their hands shake, by means of which impediment they could not look steadily through the glass: yet they thought they saw something like the gate, and also some of the glory ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... heirs, the tutor, male or female, of his minor heir, and which, if he derogated from immemorial usage, annulled his will like that of a private individual, his quality of suzerain and that of Most Christian, were for him a double impediment. As hereditary general of the feudal army he was bound to consider and respect the hereditary officers of the same army, his old peers and companions in arms—that is to say, the nobles. As outside bishop, he owed to the Church not alone his spiritual orthodoxy, but, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... such as doing what is not beneficial, and the like, do not attach to that Brahman; for as eternal freedom is its characteristic nature, there is nothing either beneficial to be done by it or non-beneficial to be avoided by it. Nor is there any impediment to its knowledge and power; for it is omniscient and omnipotent. The embodied Self, on the other hand, is of a different nature, and to it the mentioned faults adhere. But then we do not declare it to be the creator of the ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... bar and royal interview, Your mightiness on both parts best can witness. Since then my office hath so far prevail'd That, face to face and royal eye to eye, You have congreeted, let it not disgrace me If I demand, before this royal view, What rub or what impediment there is, Why that the naked, poor, and mangled Peace, Dear nurse of arts, plenties, and joyful births, Should not in this best garden of the world, Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage? Alas, she hath from France too long been ...
— The Life of King Henry V • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... he said, pointing to the hole. "Creep along that narrow passage, and it will bring you to a small loophole in the wall, not many feet from the ground. The loophole is guarded by a bar of iron, but it is moved by a spring in the upper part of the stone in which it appears to be mortised. This impediment removed, you will easily force your way through the loophole. Drop cautiously, for fear of the sentinels on the walls; then make your way to the forest, and if you 'scape the arquebusiers who are scouring it, conceal yourself in the sandstone ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... such that he is a typical figure. Indeed, he is all type; which is the same as saying that there is nobody like him. And, mentally, he produces the impression of being all force; in his writings, his mind seems to have acted immediately, without natural impediment or friction; as if a machine should be run that was not hindered by the contact of its parts. As he was physically lean and narrow of figure, and his face nothing but so many features welded together, so there was no ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... did have an impediment in his speech there was certainly nothing of that kind connected with his movements. He was known to be one of the smartest players on the high school nine; though tongue-tied, he could equal the swiftest player on the football ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... a good commodity for commerce; and the culture of it is attended with no difficulty. The only impediment to the culture of it in a greater quantity, is the difficulty of separating it from the seed. However, if they had mills, which would do this work with greater dispatch, the profit ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... ultra-personal points of view may have their natural sweetness and value. In this way, Saint Augustine was ultimately brought to appreciate the catholicity and scope of those Greek sages who had taught that all being was to itself good, that evil was but the impediment of natural function, and that therefore the conception of anything totally or essentially evil was only a petulance or exaggeration in moral judgment that took, as it were, the bit in its teeth, and turned an incidental conflict of interests ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... course, a terrible clatter; on another, twelve guests, who all had the misfortune to squint, amused their host with their ludicrous cross lights; and on a third, the same number of stutterers entertained him still more, not only by their uncouth impediment, but by the anger with which they began to sputter at one another, on the supposition that each was mocking his neighbor. A short-hand writer, behind the scenes, was employed to take down the conversation, which, says the witty essayist, ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... the chain should be weighted with a pole or small log, of a size proportionate to the dimensions of the game, its weight being merely sufficient to offer a serious incumbrance to the animal, without positively checking its movements. This impediment is called the "clog," and is usually attached to the ring of the trap chain by its larger end, the ring being slipped over the latter, and secured in place by a wedge. A look at our frontispiece will give a clear idea ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... sickness, by neglecting to shift their wet clothes in hot countries. their ignorance and obstinacy, a great impediment ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... what Spurgeon has not, an almighty, irresistible impetus in his movements,—movements which, though centripetal, forever seeking the earth, and forever trailing their mountain-weight of glory along the line of and through the midst of flesh-and-blood realities, yet never found any impediment in all their course, but swept the ground like a whirlwind. This distinction between Spurgeon and Luther in the matter of strength is an important one; and it is, moreover, a distinction which may easily be derived—even if no other source lay open to us—from a palpable difference between ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... (particularly mine, from carrying the compass with which we steered) were not so numerous as might have been wished. But, certainly, if the qualities of it be such as to deserve future cultivation, no impediment of surface but that of cutting down and burning the trees exists to ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... cause the sides almost to meet at the top. The degree of forethought that these self-taught architects possess is strikingly exemplified in the fact that, whilst building the walls, any forks or inequalities are turned 'outwards', so as to offer no impediment to their free passage when skylarking (if it is not an Irishism, using such an expression with regard to a starling) and chasing each other through and through the bower, to which innocent recreations, according to the testimony of Messrs. ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... at once get a fleet together. Louis, who has privately brought about this meeting, will of course throw no impediment in his way; but, on the other hand, the Duke of Burgundy will do all in his power to thwart the enterprise, and will, as soon as he learns of it, warn Edward. I feel new life in me, Eleanor. After fretting ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... Turmoil within the region adjacent to the Persian Gulf poses risks for the security and prosperity of every oil importing nation and thus for the entire global economy. The continuing holding of American hostages in Iran is both an affront to civilized people everywhere, and a serious impediment to meeting the self-evident threat to widely-shared common ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... seen Palmyre and loved her. Honore would gladly have solved one or two riddles by effecting their honorable union in marriage. The previous ceremony on the Grandissime back piazza need be no impediment; all slave-owners understood those things. Following Honore's advice, the f.m.c., who had come into possession of his paternal portion, sent to Cannes Brulees a written offer, to buy Palmyre at any price that her master might name, stating his intention to free her and make her his wife. Colonel ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... put in its way." The little bundle, which, to the zealot Jewish elders of that community, seemed sufficient indication that Maimon was tainted with heresy, and that his intentions were to devote himself to the study of science and philosophy, proved a great impediment to entering Berlin; and when, after a long, incredible struggle, he was finally admitted, he found himself incapable of earning a livelihood. In his childlike naivete he was betrayed by the very persons upon whom he relied most. All this could ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... S. C.,—Take it not amiss if this is a wretched letter. I am eaten up with business. Every day this week I have had some business impediment—I am even now waiting a deputation of chiefs about the road—and my precious morning was shattered by a polite old scourge of a faipule—parliament man—come begging. All the time David Balfour is skelping along. I began it the 13th of last month; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... come to Virginia. "If those of Newe England shall dislike the coldnes of there clymate or the barrenness of the soyle," wrote Harvey, "you may propose unto them the plantinge of Delaware bay, where they shall have what furtherance wee cann afford them, and noe impediment objected against ...
— Virginia Under Charles I And Cromwell, 1625-1660 • Wilcomb E. Washburn
... ahead of his ability to manufacture. He makes his own price, and chooses his customer. This operates not unkindly on the jobbers who are wealthy and independent; but for those who have but lately begun to mount the hill of difficulty, it offers one more impediment. For, to men who have a great many goods to sell, it is a matter of moment to secure the customers who can buy in large quantities, and whose notes will bring the money of banks or private capitalists as soon as offered. Against such buyers, men ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... Gates on the Last Day when the quick and the dead, called up for judgment, were streaming in through the portals—still would they behave thus. Where they met would be where they stopped to talk, regardless of the consequences to themselves, regardless of impediment to the movements of their ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... instant a second despatch announced, that General Grouchy refused to sign the treaty, unless he had the consent of the Emperor, and the Duke of Angouleme was deemed a prisoner. Upon this the Duke of Bassano hastened to transmit the first orders of Napoleon, and delayed informing him of the impediment to the ratification, till night rendered any new orders by telegraph impracticable. Being made acquainted with this noble daring of his minister, instead of reprimanding him, the Emperor dictated to ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... waters, that carried away the lighter portions of the soil. The southern shore, seen from the lake, seems to lie in regular ridges running from south to north; some few are parallel with the lake-shore, possibly where some surmountable impediment turned the current the subsiding waters; but they all find an outlet through their connexion with ravines ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... choose them. When this is the case the first consideration is not the things themselves, but the best mode of presenting them so as to recommend them to the senses. The logical sequence of conceptions of which only the strictness should have been hidden from us is rejected as a disagreeable impediment. Perfection is sacrificed to ornament, the truth of the parts to the beauty of the whole, the inmost nature of things to the exterior impression. Now, directly the substance is subordinated to form, properly speaking it ceases to exist; the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... first appearance in the part of Young Norval, in the tragedy of "Douglas." He writes: "I had provided for the purpose, before I left Edinburgh, a Highland dress, accoutred cap-a-pie with a broadsword, shield, and dirk, found upon the field of Culloden. But here, as usual, fresh impediment arose Lord Bute's administration, from causes unnecessary here to enter upon, was become so unpleasing to the multitude, that anything confessedly Scotch awakened the embers of discussion, and fed the ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... believe that I am entrusted with secrets by the English Cabinet about the Behring Straits and other vexed questions, and I openly tell him what I believe to be the dark designs of England upon a free country; in fact, I don't know what I don't tell him, and now that he is no more I see no just cause or impediment why I should not now make public his reply. It is all on ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... as good, and that might be much more naturally introduced." An anecdote or a remark will keep. We are not under the necessity of begrudging every moment that shortens our own innings; of interrupting our companion by our looks and voting him an impediment to our own ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... served, though unintentionally, by Madame Bonaventure, who succeeded in drawing back the rusty bolt at the very moment he came up; and no impediment now existing, the knight thrust her rudely aside, and sprang through the doorway just as Jocelyn leaped from ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... without warrand of authority, either civill or ecclesiasticall: and that it establisheth offices in Gods house, which are not warranded by the word of God, and are repugnant to the Discipline, and constitutions of our Kirk, that it is an impediment to the entrie of fit and worthie men to the ministery, and to the discharge of their dutie after their entrie, conforme to the discipline of our Kirk. Therefore the Assembly all in one voice hath rejected and condemned, and by these presents doe reject and ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... one was short, and heavily built, while the other, a much taller, and seemingly more nervous man, was wrapped in a long cavalry cape. It was his voice speaking, a rather peculiar voice, as though he possessed some slight impediment of speech. ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... a new channel can be discovered, or the original Nile be reopened, the centre of Africa will be entirely shut out from communication, and all my projects for the improvement of the country will be ruined by this extraordinary impediment. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... in principle the same as the arc, produced by the same means and based upon the same principle of impediment to the free passage of the current. It was first produced by heating with the current to incandescence a fine platinum wire. As stated above, electricity that quietly traverses a large wire will suddenly develop great heat upon reaching ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... into its seaward hollows. How I girded at the vapor that almost continually shrouded it. But I am now inclined to believe that the glamour which made the prospect seen from the cliff-edge so rich, was largely due to the diaphanous impediment to complete vision. This, by hiding or allowing only a bare hint of the details, gave full ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... upon the prongs Of a bad pen, whose disobedient sputter, With less of ink than incoherence fraught Befits the folly that it tries to utter. Brains, I observe, as well as tongues, can stutter: You suffer from impediment of thought. ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... kind offices! There he goes! Look at him! What a slashing pace for a heavy fellow!" This observation was made with reference to a well-known officer on the commander-in-chief's staff, whose weight—some two and twenty stone—never was any impediment to his ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... accomplishment a closer uniformity of thought and feeling than was either possible or desirable among Churches whose greatest conquest had been a liberty of thinking. As between England and Germany, one great impediment to a cordial understanding arose out of the differences between Lutheran and Reformed. So long as the English Church was under the guidance of Cranmer and Ridley, it was not clear to which of these two parties it most nearly approximated. ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... and send down those sounds which would otherwise glance off the glossy fur and never find entrance to the tiny orifice at all. If it were any larger than is absolutely necessary it would be a serious impediment to a professional diver and swimmer like the sea-lion. This is the reason why otters have very small ears, and why whales and porpoises have none ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... glory and power of the king, and will both myself adopt your customs, since the god that has exalted the Persians will have it so, and will also increase the number of those who prostrate themselves before the king. So let this be no impediment to the interview with him which I desire." "Whom of the Greeks," asked Artabanus, "are we to tell him is come? for you do not seem to have the manners of a man of humble station." "No one," answered Themistokles, "must ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... the same; for no one questions the vocation of a person who is determined, who sincerely wishes, to become a religious, if there is no impediment. ...
— Vocations Explained - Matrimony, Virginity, The Religious State and The Priesthood • Anonymous
... the army," continued the old man; "and if you'll take my advice, you'll do so without the impediment of a wife." ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... is she deaf? a great impediment. Yet remedies there are for such defects. Sweet Em, it is no little grief to me, To see, where nature in her pride of art Hath wrought perfections rich ...
— Fair Em - A Pleasant Commodie Of Faire Em The Millers Daughter Of - Manchester With The Love Of William The Conquerour • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... scarcely extricated himself from this impediment, and again commenced his researches after the clergyman, when his course was once more interrupted by a sort of pressgang, headed by Sir Bingo Binks, who, in order to play his character of a drunken boatswain ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... until last July. I asked by what means he had been able to accomplish so much? He answered, "By industry, and by hiring all the convicts I could get to work in their leisure hours, besides some little assistance which the governor has occasionally thrown in." His greatest impediment is want of water, being obliged to fetch all he uses more than half a mile. He sunk a well, and found water, but it was brackish and not fit to drink. If this man shall continue in habits of industry and sobriety, I think him sure ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... British lines at once by a charge of the mounted infantry; the measure was not sanctioned by any thing I had seen or heard of, but I was fully convinced that it would succeed. The American backwoodsmen ride better in the woods than any other people. A musket or rifle is no impediment to them, being accustomed to carry them on horseback from their earliest youth. I was persuaded, too, that the enemy would be quite unprepared for the shock, and that they could not resist it. Conformably ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... one moment with his eyes fixed upon the ground—then he turned, sprang through the doorway, vaulted on his horse, and went off from her cottage door as an arrow leaps from a bow. The fences and ditches that lay in his way were no impediment. His powerful steed carried him over all and into the forest beyond, where he was quickly lost to view. Mary tried to resume her household occupations with a sigh. She did not believe he was ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... by four horses, and, at one time, the snow accumulated around the foot of one of the leaders until it formed a huge ball, and with this impediment he was partially precipitated over the edge of a precipice. This noble animal exhibited more presence of mind than would have characterized many human beings under similar circumstances, and, with great judgment, gradually extricated the foot from its snowy burden, ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... is unseasonable and pestilent. [Greek] (to play, that we may be seriously busy), is the good rule (of Anacharsis), implying the subordination of sport to business, as a condiment and furtherance, not an impediment or clog thereto. He that for his sport neglects his business, deserves indeed to be reckoned among children; and children's fortune will attend him, to be pleased with toys, and to ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... signor, she would have imparted the discovery to me, such is the confidence and so great is the love that exists between us. For habit has rendered us so skillful and quick in conversing with the language of the deaf and dumb, that no impediment ever exists to the ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... was a great mistake in itself, a great calamity to America as well as to England, a great injustice to many thousands on both sides of the Atlantic, a great loss of human life, a great blow to the real liberties of mankind, and a great impediment to the highest Christian and Anglo-Saxon civilization among the ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... imagination may be well illustrated from the play of "Macbeth." The imagination of the hero (in him a powerful faculty), representing how the deed would appear to others, and so representing its true nature to himself, was his great impediment on the path to crime. Nor would he have succeeded in reaching it, had he not gone to his wife for help—sought refuge from his troublesome imagination with her. She, possessing far less of the faculty, and having dealt more destructively with what ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... becomes his father, a change suggested, probably, by the tradition related in Saxo's second book that Frothi was Halfdan's father, and facilitated by the fact that, in the Hrlfssaga, the father of Halfdan and Frothi is not mentioned, and, as a result, presents no impediment to the change. But to explain how Halfdan has become Frothi's son, a new relationship has to be invented, so Frothi is said to have the son Halfdan by the daughter of Jorund. According to the Hrlfssaga, Halfdan is slain by his brother. This idea, in the abstract, is retained. But, according ...
— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson
... more powerfully and bind them more closely in obedience to this apostolic chair and to us, than to see how much their pastors cherish the rights and duties of Catholic unity, than to behold them journeying from the farthest lands, notwithstanding every inconvenience and impediment, in order to visit Rome and the apostolic chair, as well as to revere in our humble person the successor of Peter and the Vicar of Christ? We have been always convinced, from the moment we beheld you approaching Peter in the person of his successor, ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... neither money nor any other kind of goods, vnder paine and peril of loosing of their liues and goods: and as you make account of the fauour of the Grand Signor our lord Sultan Murates Hottoman, so see you let him passe on his way without any maner of impediment. Dated at Alger in our kingly palace, signed with our princely Signet, and sealed with our great seale, and writen by our Secretarie of estate, the 23. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... complimentary language, the profound bowing and hand-kissing of the period, combined to mystify strangers as to its real significance. Sometimes, when there was really a lover in the question, the cavalier servente must have been a serious impediment; he was always La plante ... a contrecarrer un pauvre tiers, in the words of the witty President de Brosses, who, though he did not wholly credit the assurances he received as to the invariable innocence of the institution, was yet far from passing on it the sweeping judgment ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... the box, desiring that the presence of himself and his companions might be no impediment to General Toussaint's ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... not think of that," he answered, "leave me here. The people seem so friendly, that I am sure they will take care of me; and though I wish very much indeed to go with you, I am sure I should only be an impediment ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... barrier, impediment, obstacle, barricade, hindrance; shoal, sandbar, bank; ingot; lever, pole, rod; ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... Forest, "as I am satisfied that Fort Frontenac was not abandoned, as you wrote to me that it had been." [Footnote:Lettre du Roy a la Barre, Versailles, 10 Avril, 1684, MS.] Four days later, he wrote to the Intendant of Canada, De Meules, to the effect that the bearer, La Forest, is to suffer no impediment, and that La Barre is to surrender to him, without reserve, all that belongs to La Salle. [Footnote:Lettre du Roy a De Mettles, Versailles, 14 Avril, 1684. Selgnelay wrote to De Meules to the same effect.] Armed ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... not fail to prove ruinous to him. Of what service could the Elbe be to him, when Bohemia, the key to that river, was in the hands of his opponents? These had it in their power to turn his flank as far as the Saale, without hazard or any great impediment, as the event actually proved. Napoleon was cooped up in a narrow space, where in time, even without being defeated, he would have been in danger of starving with his army. Dresden was to him, in some respects, what Wilna had been in 1812. Leipzig, ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)
... The next experiment was sending him as a species of private envoy to the Irish Roman Catholics; but there his failure was even more conspicuous, though perhaps it was equally inevitable. Burke's imagination was at once his unrivaled gift and his perpetual impediment. Like a lover, his eye was no sooner caught, than he invested its charmer with all conceivable attractions. This susceptibility made him irresistible in a cause worthy of his powers, but plunged him into difficulties where the object was inferior to his capacity, and unworthy ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... in the wheel of the waggon employed in the removal of the Manchester College to London, one trustee opposed a decided "impediment to the movement" of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 206, October 8, 1853 • Various
... Article XII., of the Constitution, which at least confused the lawyers employed by the railroads to prevent the passage of the Stetson bill, was repealed entirely. The adoption of the amendment, would, had it been approved by the people at the general election of 1910, have removed every impediment which railroad attorneys claim to be in the way of an effective railroad regulation ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... Mr. Applegate's party, in the loss of one of their boats, which had been carried under water in the midst of the Dalles, and two of Mr. Applegate's children and one man drowned. This misfortune was attributed only to want of skill in the steersman, as at this season there was no impediment to navigation; although the place is entirely impassable at high water, when boats pass safely over the great falls above, in the submerged state in ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... with his eyes fixed upon the ground—then he turned, sprang through the doorway, vaulted on his horse, and went off from her cottage door as an arrow leaps from a bow. The fences and ditches that lay in his way were no impediment. His powerful steed carried him over all and into the forest beyond, where he was quickly lost to view. Mary tried to resume her household occupations with a sigh. She did not believe he was gone. But ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... idea. Dr. Henry McCormac, of Belfast, father of the eminent surgeon, Sir William McCormac, wrote forty years ago:—"The mainly unreasoning dread of night air, so termed, is a great impediment to free ventilation by night. And yet day and night air is the same virtually, does not differ appreciably. The air by night, whether damp or dry, is equally pure, equally salubrious with the air by day, and calls not less solicitously for ceaseless admission into our dwellings. ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... objection admits the right, in proposing an equivalent. But the power of repeal is not an equivalent. It might be, indeed, if every form of government were so perfectly contrived, that the will of the majority could always be obtained, fairly and without impediment. But this is true of no form. The people cannot assemble themselves; their representation is unequal and vicious. Various checks are opposed to every legislative proposition. Factions get possession of ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... at the bar remarkable. He never earned a large income, and died comparatively poor. There were few who cared to meet him in debate, yet his legal scholarship was not exceptional, and his political opinions may have proved an impediment to him in a city which was still devoted to Webster and Winthrop. Moreover, his kindness of heart prompted him to undertake a large number of cases for which he received little or no remuneration. As late as 1856 he was known as the poor man's lawyer rather than as a distinguished ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... consider how difficult it is for me to think of marriage. Whenever we approve, we can find an hundred good reasons to justify our approbation. Whenever we dislike, we can find a thousand to justify our dislike. Every thing in the latter case is an impediment; every shadow a bugbear.—Thus can I enumerate and swell, perhaps, only imaginary grievances; 'I must go whither he would have me to go; visit whom he would have me to visit: well as I love to write, (though now, alas! my grand inducement to write is over!) it must be to whom ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... might meet. We had little to fear from any other wild animals. As we had seen no traces of natives, we did not expect to meet with any. We soon gained the point I had reached in the morning. After this, we had to hew a path for ourselves through the forest. Sometimes we got a few feet without impediment, and then had to cut away the sipos for several yards. Now and then we were able to crawl under them, and sometimes we were able to leap over the loops, or make our way along the wide-spreading roots of the tall trees. Thus we went on, every ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... is a most grievous impediment to genius in later, or, as we term them, more civilized times, from which, in earlier ages, it is wholly exempt. Criticism, public opinion, the dread of ridicule—then too often crush the strongest minds. The weight of former examples, the influence of early habits, the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... and it surprised me from one who talked so rarely. This younger generation, as I have said, has an impediment of speech. It is not glib nor explanatory.... One of the happiest things that has ever befallen me is the spirit of the Chapel. It happened that The Abbot brought in a bit of work that repeated a rather tiresome kind of mis-technicality—an error, ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... religion, being based upon dishonesty, and that, therefore, the natives will not listen to missionaries—of course, in some cases they will; for I believe that the gospel, when truly preached, is never preached in vain—but they will throw every possible impediment in their way. I would tell them that in order to make the path of the missionary practicable, the system of trade must be inverted, the trader and the missionary must go hand in hand, and commerce and religion—although incomparably different in their nature and ends—must act ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... and the British Armies had advised that the campaign would probably be one in which swiftness in moving troops would prove the determining factor. Heavy artillery, and even any large number of the ponderous machine-guns of that period (the Lewis gun had not yet appeared), would have been a serious impediment to such mobility. What was anticipated was a series of great battles. "It was supposed by certain soldiers," says a well-informed military critic (Colonel A'Court Repington, at page 276 of his "Vestigia"), "that the war against Germany ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane
... upon the levity and ambition of William the King's son. They urged the indignity he had received in being deprived of his birthright; offered to support his title by their valour, as they had done that of his father; and, as an earnest of their intentions, to remove the chief impediment by dispatching his rival out of the world, The young prince was easily wrought upon to be at the head of this conspiracy; time and place were fixed; when, upon the day appointed, William broke his leg by a fall from his horse; and the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... Eve, when the shop was shut and the house folks and servants were making ready for the festival in kitchen and parlour, the shopkeeper took him aside into his counting-house. If he liked his daughter, said he, there was no impediment that he could see. Let him take heart and woo her, for it hadn't escaped him how she was moping about all love-sick on his account. He himself, said the shopkeeper, was old, and would ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... not immediately seek Mrs. Barker. He had already some experience of that lady's nerves and irascibility on the drive, and had begun to see his error in taking so dangerous an impediment to his flight from the country. And another idea had come to him. He had already effected his purpose of compromising her with him in that flight, but it was still known only to few. If he left her behind for the foolish, doting husband, would not that devoted man take her back to avoid a scandal, ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... Redemption as a transaction between God and man; St. Paul and the Old Testament rather than the gospels were its inspiration. Moreover, the material was viewed not as penetrated by and revealing the spiritual, but as sheer impediment blocking out the vision of spiritual things. Hence the extremer Puritans were completely out of touch with the sensuous poetry of Christmas, a festival which, as we shall see, they actually suppressed ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... the hands and faces; and alternately and in combination the whiskied breath and the carnation's scent assailed the nostrils. Suddenly the silence was broken by the Registrar, who began to read the declarations. "I hereby declare that I, James Hicks, know of no impediment whereby I may not be joined in matrimony with Matilde, Matilde—is ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... Oceanic peoples. As a rule, however, the Manbo marries within his own tribe. This is due to his environment, to the hostile relations he ever holds with surrounding tribes, and to differences of religious beliefs. The only impediment to marriage is consanguinity, but even this impediment may be removed in the case of cousins by appropriate religious ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... not fail to choose the best; but the power of uttering all and everything which passes across his mind, tempts him to say all. He goes on without thought—I should rather say, without pause. His speeches are poor from their richness, and dull from their infinite variety. An impediment in his speech would make him a perfect Demosthenes. Something of the same kind, and with something of the same effect, is Lord Byron's wonderful fertility of thought and facility of expression; and the Protean style of "Don Juan," instead of checking (as the fetters of rhythm ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... earthquake activity around Pacific Basin; hurricanes along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts; tornadoes in the midwest and southeast; mud slides in California; forest fires in the west; flooding; permafrost in northern Alaska, a major impediment to development ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... adopted father, Mr. Stanley, New Orleans; served in the Confederate army; became a newspaper foreign correspondent, to the New York Herald at length; was summoned to go and "find Livingstone"; after many an impediment found Livingstone on 10th November 1871, and after staying with him, and accompanying him in explorations, returned to England in August next year; in 1874 he set out again at the head of an expedition, solved several problems, and returned home; published "Congo and its ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... over much of Siberia is a major impediment to development; volcanic activity in the Kuril Islands; volcanoes and earthquakes on the Kamchatka Peninsula; spring floods and summer/autumn forest fires throughout Siberia and parts of ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... moment for quoting Hawker's ballad, "The Sisters of Glen Nectan," but that piece is not one of his happiest efforts, and the legend is at least dubious. Those who journey afoot from Bossiney to Boscastle will find it almost impossible to keep to the coast, as the Rocky Valley forms an impediment, especially when its stream is in flood after heavy rains. But they can find a tolerable road to Trevalga, crossing the stream at the Long Bridge, and at Trevalga they will find an interesting little church. The shore here is broken into some small creeks of great ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... and thus increase his power of doing good. On the other hand, he was not prepared to live the life of almost puritanical strictness which was then considered essential for a clergyman, and he saw that the impediment of speech from which he suffered would greatly interfere with the proper performance ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... and practised without warrand of authority, either civill or ecclesiasticall: and that it establisheth offices in Gods house, which are not warranded by the word of God, and are repugnant to the Discipline, and constitutions of our Kirk, that it is an impediment to the entrie of fit and worthie men to the ministery, and to the discharge of their dutie after their entrie, conforme to the discipline of our Kirk. Therefore the Assembly all in one voice hath rejected and condemned, and by these presents doe reject ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... deadly sick that it was feared he would die, and for Edward Tilley, who lay in the bottom of the boat in a dead swoon, while his brother John crouched beside him covered with John Howland's coat, which he declared was but an impediment to ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... widow's eldest son, or of the like evidently ruinous cases) are liable to serve; Captain of the Regiment and AMTMANN of the Canton settle between them which grown man it shall be. Better for you not to be tall! In fact it is almost a kindness of Heaven to be gifted with some safe impediment of body, slightly crooked back or the like, if you much dislike the career of honor under Friedrich Wilhelm. A general shadow of unquiet apprehension we can well fancy hanging over those rural populations, and much unpleasant haggling now and then;—nothing but the King's justice that can be appealed ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... that he had sailed along and beyond this land of New France in the employment of Henry VII. of England. He informed me that, having sailed a long way to the north-west, beyond these lands, to the lat. of 67-1/2 deg. N. and finding the sea on the 11th of June entirely open and without impediment, he fully expected to have passed on that way to Cathay in the east; and would certainly have succeeded, but was constrained by a mutiny of the master and mariners to return homewards. But it would appear ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... twinkled, "I came through the woods. Met one inquisitive young Russian. Convinced him it would be impossible for him to tell all he knew." The Treasurer touched his sword with a gesture which the men understood. "He contracted an impediment to his speech." ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... government by archbishops, bishops, their chancellors, commissaries, deans, deans and chapters, arch-deacons, and other ecclesiastical officers depending on the hierarchy, is evil, and justly offensive and burdensome to the kingdom, and a great impediment to reformation and growth of religion, and very prejudicial to the state and government of this kingdom, and that therefore they are resolved the same shall be taken away, and that such a government shall ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... in the East Indies, "tie up" the woman, in other words, impede and perhaps prevent her delivery, or delay her convalescence after the birth. On the principles of homoeopathic or imitative magic the physical obstacle or impediment of a knot on a cord would create a corresponding obstacle or impediment in the body of the woman. That this is really the explanation of the rule appears from a custom observed by the Hos of West Africa at a difficult birth. When a woman is in hard labour and cannot bring forth, they call in ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... said Eustace, and suddenly his words came clipped and harsh from between set teeth. "And you think I'm going to endure it—stand aside tamely—while you turn an attack of stage-fright into a just cause and impediment to prevent my marriage! I should have thought you would have known me better by this time. But if you don't, you shall learn. Now listen! I am in dead earnest. If you don't drop this foolery, give me your word of honour here and now to leave this matter in my hands alone,—I'll ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... for his dictum; and it is only to be regretted that he did not live to express this impudent opinion in our day. England is certainly growing more rational, whatever colleges may be. Language of that sort, used in a country which boasts that no artificial impediment can be suffered to exist in the career of genius and virtue, would quickly meet the reception merited by its arrogant absurdity. The "fiddler" was a blunder of the doctor for "fitter," the local ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... shield, Borne even or high; for this day will pour down, If I conjecture aught, no drizzling shower, But rattling storm of arrows barbed with fire. So warned he them, aware themselves, and soon In order, quit of all impediment; Instant without disturb they took alarm, And onward moved embattled: When behold! Not distant far with heavy pace the foe Approaching gross and huge, in hollow cube Training his devilish enginery, ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... said that the women undressed—they merely threw off the light scarf or bodice that covered their shoulders, but kept on the short skirts, which were no impediment to their graceful movements in the water. The jumpers, of course, were only too glad of the excuse to get out of their very meagre allowance of clothing, and the rest were, so to speak, ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... an unexpected movement of the streams opened her a new passage, and she took advantage of it boldly. When the brig stopped, the steam which escaped from the safety-pipes was condensed by the cold air and fell in snow on to the deck. Another impediment came in the way; the ice-blocks sometimes got entangled in the paddles, and they were so hard that all the strength of the machine was not sufficient to break them; it was then necessary to back the engine and send men to clear ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... infancy for four years, according to Selvatico. I have no note of this side, having, I suppose, been prevented from raising the ladder against it by some fruit-stall or other impediment in the regular course of my examination; and then forgotten to return ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... each is a hierarchy of intellect stultifiers, who explain doctrines without understanding them, or intending they should be understood by others; and true to their 'sacred trust,' throw every available impediment in the way of improvement. Knowledge is their devil. So far as antagonism to progression goes, there is no sensible difference between the hierarchies of Rome or of England, or of Constantinople. To diffuse the ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... presence the small housekeeping troubles always slipped from her; but her heart, to use a pretty French phrase, had not consciously spoken,—possibly it had murmured a little, incoherently, to itself, but it had not spoken out aloud, as perhaps it would have done long ago if an impediment had been placed in the way of their intimacy. With all her subtler intuitions, Margaret was as far as Richard from suspecting the strength and direction of the current with which they were drifting. Freedom, habit, and the nature of their environment conspired to prolong this mutual lack ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... hostile powers and precautions founded on respect for the prerogative of a friendly god. The former belong to magical superstition—the barrenest of all aberrations of the savage imagination—which, being founded only on fear, acts merely as a bar to progress and an impediment to the free use of nature by human energy and industry. But the restrictions on individual licence which are due to respect for a known and friendly power allied to man, however trivial and absurd they may appear to us in their details, contain within them germinant principles ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... to the other party, if either of the parties has been a resident of a criminal or pauper institution, if either or both of the parties are competent to financial support of the twain, if there is any "just cause or impediment" against the legal union. We may find it wise to return to the old "three weeks publishing of the banns" in order to know what the state is about in granting and what two people are about in demanding a marriage license. In the second place, there ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... closely surrounded by picturesque hills which overhang the suburbs of the city. Over these I was taken, plowing my way through a depth of mud which cannot be understood by any ordinary Englishman. But the depth of mud was not the only impediment nor the worst which we encountered. As we began to ascend from the level of the outskirts of the town we were greeted by a rising flavor in the air, which soon grew into a strong odor, and at last developed itself into a stench that surpassed in offensiveness anything that my nose ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... rode on, their numbers increasing, till they reached the confines of White Lackington Park. Mr Speke, the owner, who had been prepared for the Duke's coming, rode out with a body of retainers to welcome his Grace; and that there might be no impediment to the entrance of the multitude who had arrived, he forthwith ordered several perches of the park paling to be taken down. In front of the house stood a group of Spanish chestnut-trees, famed for their ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... find from his majesty's speech, that those appearances of hostility have ceased to exist, and that hopes are entertained that no impediment will present itself to an amicable adjustment of the question; this, however, does not deprive the transaction of the character of ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... this family impediment which is thus set up as a female disability? The family obligation is just as strong in man as in woman. It is much stronger, for the manners which compel woman to be the passive waiter on the male providence leave to him the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... replied with a smile, "I shall be there, and he ventures upon none of his mischief before me." The last impediment was thus removed; they prepared for the journey, and soon after set out upon it with fresh spirits and ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... as smooth as any other place in the River, the tide then just beginning to make and grows gradually stronger until high water, from that till two hours ebb a Vessell of 500 tons may go up or down. I know of very few Harbours in America that has not a barr or some other impediment at the entrance so as to wait for the tide longer than at St. Johns; here if you are obliged to wait you are in a good harbour out of all danger of ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... good-bye into the bargain? Nonsense! She'd break down and howl, and he would comfort her, and take off his coat. Look here, Mollie—go to bed! I've waited all the evening to have a talk with mother, and you are the only impediment left. Take your book with you if you ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... marry her with her parents' consent. Otherwise the marriage is unlawful, since whosoever steals a thing he is bound to restore it. Nevertheless rape does not dissolve a marriage already contracted, although it is an impediment to its being contracted. As to the decree of the council in question, it was made in abhorrence of this crime, and has been abrogated. Wherefore Jerome [*The quotation is from Can. Tria. xxxvi, qu. 2] declares the contrary: ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... existing among men, and characterized with incisive brevity each of the specified grades. He neither said nor intimated that the hard-baked soil of the wayside might be plowed, harrowed, fertilized, and so be rendered productive; nor that the stony impediment to growth might not be broken up and removed, or an increase of good soil be made by actual addition; nor that the thorns could never be uprooted and their former habitat be rendered fit to support good plants. The parable is to be ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... position of a bishop's wife, and how greatly you would add to his reputation, should you be disposed to honour him with your hand. Formerly there have been times when I was of opinion—and you will rightly appreciate my candour in owning it—that a wife was an impediment to a bishop's due activities; but constant observation has convinced me that, far from this being the truth, a meet consort infuses life into episcopal influence ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... figure. Indeed, he is all type; which is the same as saying that there is nobody like him. And, mentally, he produces the impression of being all force; in his writings, his mind seems to have acted immediately, without natural impediment or friction; as if a machine should be run that was not hindered by the contact of its parts. As he was physically lean and narrow of figure, and his face nothing but so many features welded together, so there was no adipose tissue in his thought. ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... little bundle, which, to the zealot Jewish elders of that community, seemed sufficient indication that Maimon was tainted with heresy, and that his intentions were to devote himself to the study of science and philosophy, proved a great impediment to entering Berlin; and when, after a long, incredible struggle, he was finally admitted, he found himself incapable of earning a livelihood. In his childlike naivete he was betrayed by the very persons upon whom he relied most. All this could not deaden his love for knowledge and truth. By chance ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... followed him with the best speed they could muster, falling over boxes and bundles, getting entangled in stray shoes, and running foul of swinging portieres. Fortunately the cars were vestibuled, so the platforms offered no impediment. The train seemed absolutely interminable, for as they dashed through sleeper after sleeper, one more always appeared ahead, and Banborough could not help feeling as he ran, hatless and in his shirt-sleeves, with his coat under ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... cloud between, out of which, at any hour, might spring discovery? Could I build our life upon a silence which must be a lie? Would I not have to face the question, Does any one know cause or just impediment why this woman should not be married to this man? Tell Rosalie all, and let the law separate myself and Kathleen? That would mean Billy's ruin and imprisonment, and Kathleen's shame, and it might not bring Rosalir. She is a Catholic, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... progress of Pope may seem to have been slow; but the distance is commonly very great between actual performances and speculative possibility. It is natural to suppose, that as much as has been done to-day, may be done to-morrow; but on the morrow some difficulty emerges, or some external impediment obstructs. Indolence, interruption, business, and pleasure, all take their turns of retardation; and every long work is lengthened by a thousand causes that can, and ten thousand that cannot be recounted. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... of fear. In these sovereign excitements, things ordinarily impossible grow natural because the inhibitions are annulled. Their "no! no!" not only is not heard, it does not exist. Obstacles are then like tissue-paper hoops to the circus rider—no impediment; the flood is higher than the dam ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... soldiers who were passing at the moment. He had recognized Maurice and Jean, trudging along with their companions, like brothers, side by side. They were near the end of the line, and as there was now no impediment in their way, he was enabled to keep them in view as far as the Faubourg of Torcy, as they traversed the level road which leads to Iges between gardens and ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... canvas into a perfect microscopic illusion of some homely scene. For my part, I wish Raphael had painted the "Transfiguration" in this style, at the same time preserving his breadth and grandeur of design; nor do I believe that there is any real impediment to the combination of the two styles, except that no possible space of human life could suffice to cover a quarter part of the canvas of the "Transfiguration" with such touches as Gerard Douw's. But one feels the vast scope of this wonderful art, when we think of two excellences ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to contest every inch of his progress. But his nature was as stern and rough as that of the land he had come to tame. Accustomed to move steadily on in the pursuit of some one great purpose, to surmount every obstacle and crush every impediment, looking neither to the right nor the left, nor even pausing to pluck the flowrets that bloomed by the wayside, there was for him no such word as fail. Here the unbounded resources and exhaustless energy of body ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... as usual, the bell ceased to clang; the paddle-wheels were vigorously applied; and in a few moments we burst our bonds, thrusting the thick flakes of ice aside, and darting into the clear river free from all farther impediment. ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... they had made great use of to prepare for a stubborn resistance: they not only having the advantage of the heights, but we the attacking party having to cross a river below by means of only narrow bridges, which was a great impediment to our progress. ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... to by the parents, on the ground of the uncertainty of the result, and the torture of the operation to the child. Now the anguish of a child dying of croup is due to two causes; first, the actual mechanical impediment to the entrance of air produced by the deposit in the windpipe, and secondly, to the spasm of the muscles in the upper part of the windpipe which that deposit produces. How large an amount of distress ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... have dared to check the amusements of a queen, young, lively, and handsome? A mother or a husband alone would have had the right to do it; and the King threw no impediment in the way of Marie Antoinette's inclinations. His long indifference had been followed by admiration and love. He was a slave to all the wishes of the Queen, who, delighted with the happy change in the heart and ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... increased oil exports and high global crude prices. Newly-elected President YAR'ADUA has pledged to continue the economic reforms of his predecessor and the proposed budget for 2008 reflects the administrations emphasis on infrastructure improvements. Infrastructure is the main impediment to growth. The government is working toward developing stronger public-private partnerships for ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... there; indeed, she did not remember having seen him go there in his waking moments. She knew nothing of somnambulism; but she imagined that he had gone in that direction by mere chance, that if he had happened to find any impediment in his way he might as easily ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... Italy, and England had all in turn been nearer than his own country; and there was the crowned adventurer, bound by his name and position to gain for France something that it did not possess, and to regard the greatness of every other nation as an impediment to the ascendency of his own. Napoleon correctly judged the principle of nationality to be the dominant force in the immediate future of Europe. He saw in Italy and in Germany races whose internal ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... had held this office forfeited thereby all right to become a candidate for any of the higher curule offices, in order that all persons of rank, talent, and wealth might be deterred from holding an office which would be a fatal impediment to rising any higher in the state. He also required persons to be Senators before ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... with you, even at the cost of plucking out your eyes, to "be as I am," surely you will hardly refuse me the same thing now in this other matter, wherein there is no such difference between us as to raise any impediment in the way of your compliance, where no such sacrifice as ye were formerly ready to make is required of you, and where all that is asked from you is to give up your false opinions and evil practices, and simply "be as I am" in believing and ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... wise man with a living or a name to make, or both, looks for a wife, he certainly does not desire a person who shall be troublesome and an impediment to him. He wants a cheerful, sensible, and decently thrifty person. He probably has no inclination for a bluestocking, nor for a lady with aggressive views on points of theology, nor for one who can beat him ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... wide open as he advanced, for if he had taken the wrong way a few miles of travel would bring him to the main camp of the rebels in the vicinity of Manassas Junction. He pursued his lonely journey for some time without impediment, and without discovering any camp, either large or small. He gathered new confidence as he proceeded. After he had walked two or three hours upon the railroad, he thought it was about time for Fairfax station to heave in sight, if he had chosen the right way—or for the ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... to look, but the remembrance of that last thing that the shepherds had showed them made their hands shake, by means of which impediment they could not look steadily through the glass: yet they thought they saw something like the gate, and also some of ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... at last risen and raised her veil. And looking at him she stammered: "Yes, I found myself at liberty earlier than I expected.... I feared some impediment might ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... studiously inoffensive. It imputed no wrong and proposed no censure, but, simply on the ground that the circumstances would embarrass him in the exercise of his office, declared it as "the sense of this General Conference that he desist from the exercise of this office so long as this impediment remains." The issue could not have been simpler and clearer. The Conference was warned that the passage of the resolution would be followed by the secession of the South. The debate was long, earnest, and tender. At the end of it the resolution was passed, one ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... this linsey-wolsey fellow of a mercer's visit to his premises has disquieted him. But, no," he added, pushing the huge gate, which gave way, "the door stands invitingly open; and here we are within the forbidden ground, without other impediment than the passive resistance of a heavy oak door moving ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... eldest son, and meant to support that position, both on his mother's behalf and on his own. As to his father's will, made in his favor, he felt sure that his brother would not have the hardihood to dispute it. A man's bodily sufferings were no impediment to his making a will; of mental incapacity he had never heard his father accused till the accusation had now been made by his own son. He was, however, well aware that it would not be preferred. As to what his brother had ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... through the snow, his tall form, shocky white hair fluttering in the storm, and evident agitation making a figure most picturesque and striking. He pulled up his horse abruptly to answer my question. A natural impediment in his speech, affecting him most when excited, caused some delay in his first vehement utterance. ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... together through the sweet shadows of companionship, by slow but sure degrees they drew near to the sunlit plain of love. For it is not common, indeed, it is so uncommon as to be almost impossible, that a man and woman between whom there stands no natural impediment can halt for very long in those shadowed ways. There is throughout all nature an impulse that pushes ever onwards towards completion, and from completion to fruition. Liking leads to sympathy, sympathy points the path to love, and then love demands its own. This is the order of affairs, and down ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... reverend white beard that flowed over the old-fashioned Elizabethan ruff; her mother's, too, with the look of heedful and anxious love which it always wore in her remembrance, and which, even since her death, had so often laid the impediment of a gentle remonstrance in her daughter's pathway. She saw her own face, glowing with girlish beauty, and illuminating all the interior of the dusky mirror in which she had been wont to gaze at it. There ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... if before he reached the rocky platform, the cleft should grow too narrow to admit the passage of his body? It was too late now to think of any such impediment. He struggled upward again, slipping back at times, clawing like a cat, with toes and fingers, fighting for his breath, but always mounting higher, his gaze upward toward a star in the heavens near the point of the scimitar. Would he ever reach the top? Bits of the rock crumbled, ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... the sentence. Jovita rose straight in the air with a terrific bound, throwing the figure from her bit with a single shake of her vicious head, and charged with deadly malevolence down on the impediment before her. An oath, a pistol-shot, horse and highwayman rolled over in the road, and the next moment Jovita was a hundred yards away. But the good right arm of her rider, shattered by a bullet, ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... was going to put one on," said Lindsay, after staring blankly at the unwelcome impediment. "Don't you remember, when he was talking to 'The Griffin' in the picture gallery, and she told him we ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... sat silent for a while, leaning on his arm. He knew that there existed some mischief, but he could not fathom it. Had he been prudent, he would have felt that there was some impediment to his love; some evil which it behoved him to fathom before he allowed his love to share it; but when was a ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... population, to be the reason of the difficulty experienced at Christmas and New Year, and other times, in bestowing gifts; since it is always so pleasant to be generous, though very vexatious to pay debts. But the impediment lies in the choosing. If, at any time, it comes into my head that a present is due from me to somebody, I am puzzled what to give, until the opportunity is gone. Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers, ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... and ignorant bookseller of the period. That "Lust's Dominion; or, the Lascivious Queen," was partly founded on a pamphlet published after Marlowe's death was not a consideration sufficient to offer any impediment to this imposture. That the hand which in the year of this play's appearance on the stage gave "Old Fortunatus" to the world of readers was the hand to which we owe the finer scenes or passages of "Lust's Dominion," the whole of the opening scene bears such apparent witness ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... as I am free from pressing engagements, so whether we are together here or in Reinfeld makes no difference in the matter. We do not mean to marry for bright days only: your ill-health seems to me an utterly frivolous impediment. The provisional situation we are now in is the worst possible for me. I scarcely know any longer whether I am living in Schoenhausen, in Reinfeld, in Berlin, or on the train. If you fall sick, I shall be a sluggard in Reinfeld all the autumn, or however long our ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... ever poured on the untiring flood, till one wondered it did not pour itself out; and the heart grew oppressed at the vast images crowding into it, swelling and pressing, as did the tumultuous waves over their impediment of granite—water, still water, till the nerves ached from weariness at the perpetual flow, and the mind questioned if the sound itself were not silence, so lonely was the spell—questioned if it were stopped if the heart would not cease to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... a blush of shame. She knew well that Flukey could perform wonderful feats which she had been unable to do. Grandma'm Cronk had told her that her dresses made the difference between her ability and Flukey's. With this impediment removed, she could turn her face toward the shining land predicted by Scraggy for Flukey and herself; she could follow her brother over hills and into valleys, ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... Napoleon at Dresden could not fail to prove ruinous to him. Of what service could the Elbe be to him, when Bohemia, the key to that river, was in the hands of his opponents? These had it in their power to turn his flank as far as the Saale, without hazard or any great impediment, as the event actually proved. Napoleon was cooped up in a narrow space, where in time, even without being defeated, he would have been in danger of starving with his army. Dresden was to him, in some respects, what Wilna had been in 1812. ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)
... most advisable for Miss Mancel to enter. This was a difficult point to determine; though her understanding and attainments were far superior to her years, yet they were sensible her youth would be a great impediment to her in any undertaking. Mr d'Avora therefore advised that she should continue a little longer at the school, and then fix in the most private manner imaginable for three or four years, by which time he hoped to be able to establish her in some widow's family, as governess to ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... a swimmer, and the stream but narrow though the pool was deep, he soon attained the summit of the opposite bank; when a hedge, almost close at hand, alone seemed to separate him from the people whose assistance he was so anxious to secure. The hedge was easily clambered over, though an impediment he had not anticipated awaited him on the other side, in the form of a small fishpond, into which he bundled, and so got a second ducking. But as this pond, or rather that portion of it into which he had fallen, was not deep, he soon splashed across it, to the amazement ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... his physical and mental disabilities Dr. Johnson was not a good social animal. Nevertheless, when it pleased his humor, he could be the cavalier, for his mind overcame every impediment. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... shadows in a painting than the figures or the scene. The imperfect landscape of the Greeks excused itself from observing none in the sacred enclosures of the temples of Zeus. The light must find no impediment in the unsubstantial ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... for restraint and the libel action have been withdrawn unreservedly by Professor G. E. Challenger, who, being satisfied that no criticism or comment in this book is meant in an offensive spirit, has guaranteed that he will place no impediment to its ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... one who very carefully attended church-judicatories, from which he was seldom absent, and that from a principle of conscience; so that almost no impediment could hinder him in his purposes; for one time going to the presbytery of Kirkudbright, twenty miles distant from Carsphairn, when about to ford the water of Dee, he was told by some that it was impassable, yet he persisted, saying, "I must go through, if the Lord will; I am going about ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... another. Charlie Hudson had sought her for his wife, and while confessing her love for him she insisted that she could not be his, because she was bound to me. This, however, did not prevent his seeking an interview with her father, who told him frankly the terrible impediment to Nina's marriage with any one. It was a crushing blow to young Hudson, but he still clung to her with all a brother's devotion, soothing her grief upon the sea, and caring for her tenderly until Boston was reached, and he placed her in my hands, ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... ["No matter for that, they must sing."] resounded from all the patriots in the house. At last, finding the thing impossible, they agreed to a compromise; and one of the actors promised to sing it on the morrow, as well as the trifling impediment of having no voice would permit him.—You think your galleries despotic when they call for an epilogue that is forgotten, and the actress who should speak it is undrest; or when they insist upon enlivening the ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... the region adjacent to the Persian Gulf poses risks for the security and prosperity of every oil importing nation and thus for the entire global economy. The continuing holding of American hostages in Iran is both an affront to civilized people everywhere, and a serious impediment to meeting the self-evident threat to widely-shared common interests, including ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... provisions for several days. With these we started for San Antonio de Bexar, a march of two hundred and fifty miles, through trackless prairies intersected with rivers and streams, which, although not quite so big as the Mississippi or Potomac, were yet deep and wide enough to have offered serious impediment to regular armies. But to Texian farmers and backwoodsmen, they were trifling obstacles. Those we could not wade through we swam over; and in due time, and without any incident worthy of note, reached the appointed place of rendezvous, which was on the river ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... drill-ground fenced with rough slabs. These slabs, a few logs, and two or three drays, represented all that had been attempted in the nature of a barricade, and could not have been expected by the least experienced of the insurgent leaders to offer any serious impediment to a charge of regulars. Two or three small companies of men were being drilled within the limited space, and Done and Burton were attached to one of these and the three Peetrees to another. At this point Jim was again sadly disillusioned. He was given no weapon but a pike—a short, not too sharp, ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... more. I think it is the last foreign Travel I shall ever undertake; unless I should go with you to see the Dresden Madonna: to which there is one less impediment now Holland is not to be gone through. . . . I am the Colour of a Lobster with Sea-faring: and my Eyes smart: so Good-Bye. Let me hear of you. Ever yours E. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... met with some impediment, and for that reason she must be enduring pain on account of it. But what delight would be afforded in a very short time! For she would come—that was certain. "She has given me her promise!" In the meantime an intolerable feeling of anxiety was gradually seizing hold of him. Impelled by ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... Ferguson diverted his thoughts by giving his companions a thousand details concerning the country they were crossing. The surface, which was quite flat, offered no impediment to their progress. The doctor's sole anxiety arose from the obstinate northeast wind which continued to blow furiously, and bore them away from ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... happy fatality, through all the summer they met with no Indians, and experienced no impediment in the way of the most successful hunting. During the season, they had collected large quantities of peltries, and meeting with nothing to excite apprehension or alarm, they became constantly ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... he argued was the British debt case, tried in 1793. The United States now had its Circuit Court, and Chief-justice Jay presided at Richmond. The treaty of peace of England provided that the creditors on either side should meet with no lawful impediment to the recovery of the full value of all bona fide debts theretofore contracted. The question was whether debts sequestrated by the Virginia Legislature during the war came under this treaty. It is said that the Countess of Huntingdon heard the speeches on this case, and said ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... London Docks. Montreal is a handsome town, well situated, and must eventually become the most important city in British North America. The river here is very broad. The Lachine rapids commence immediately above the town, which are an impediment to the navigation, now obviated by a canal terminating at the village of Lachine, I believe ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... has known no man of keener wit than the late William R. Travers, of New York. An impediment of speech not infrequently gave zest and vim to his words, when they finally found utterance. He was for a lifetime steeped in affairs of great concern and among his associates were prominent factors in the commercial and ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... bought a dozen machines found no difficulty in having as many girls taught to operate them. The makers saw to it that no impediment to their sale should occur from girls of ordinary intelligence being unable to use them; so the first sewers were taught either by the inventors themselves or by the skilled mechanics who constructed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... barracks. For the last two months he had made a special butt of a young cornet, who had recently joined the depot of the Dragoons. He was a pleasant lad, with plenty of spirit and pluck, but he had a slight impediment in his speech, although when giving the word of command he never hesitated. It was this defect that was the object of Captain Marshall's ill-natured remarks. The lad tried to laugh them off and to ignore the offensiveness of the tone, but he felt ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... a great woman; and a good woman, too. It makes me proud to think you will soon be my wife. For there is now no longer any just cause or impediment." ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... on the day we had fixed, and there would have been no impediment. You would now have been seventeen years my wife, and we might have had tall ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... a determination of the will. The being baulked of this throws the mind off its balance, or puts it into what is called a passion; and as nothing but an act of voluntary power still seems necessary to get rid of every impediment, we indulge our violence more and more, and heighten our impatience by degrees into a sort of frenzy. The object is the same as it was, but we are no longer as we were. The blood is heated, the muscles are strained. The feelings are wound up to a pitch of agony with the vain strife. The ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... When, during a fever, sweating occurs, it is usually an indication that the crisis is passed. Sometimes sweating is an indication of pain. A horse with tetanus or azoturia sweats profusely. Horses sweat freely when there is a serious impediment to respiration; they sweat under excitement, and, of course, from the well-known physiological causes of heat and work. Local sweating, or sweating of a restricted area of the body, denotes some ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... thy brother and with his friends. When he becomes accustomed to his new feelings, when he finds that art affords valuable helps to repair an accident like this, when he finds that he can pursue his usual employments without impediment, and that the affection of his friends, especially of the nearest and dearest, is enhanced by sympathy and approbation, I will even say admiration, dost thou not think that he will be happy? I think he may be quite as happy as he ...
— Principle and Practice - The Orphan Family • Harriet Martineau
... horrible apparition had showed itself in her room at St. Louis, she had begged that she might leave him,—not on her own behalf, not from any dread of the crime that she was committing, not from shame in regard to herself should her secret be found out, but because she felt herself to be an impediment to his career in the world. As to herself, she had no pricks of conscience. She had been true to the man,—brutal, abominable as he had been to her,—until she had in truth been made to believe that he was dead; and even when he had certainly been alive,—for ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... the wily tenant for portraiture; and it is, indeed, an odd fish that one may land on the surface if he be sufficiently alert in his angling. No hook or bait is required in this sort of fishing. Taking a long culm of timothy-grass, I inserted the tip into the burrow. It progressed without impediment two, three, six, eight inches, and when at the depth of about ten inches appeared to touch bottom, which in this kind of angling is the signal for a "strike" and the landing of the game. Instantly withdrawing the grass culm, I found my fish at its tip, from which he quickly dropped to the ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... let the press of the moment be ever so instant. From this I dissent altogether. The small amount of courtesy that is needed is more than atoned for by the grace of her presence, and in fact produces no more impediment in the hunting-field than in other scenes of life. But in the hunting-field, as in other scenes, let assistance never be demanded by a woman. If the lady finds that she cannot keep a place in the first flight without such demands on the patience of those around her, ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... and tonic mind of Emerson was universal in its survey of human forces, no one would claim. Certain limitations in interest and sympathy are obvious. "That horrid burden and impediment of the soul which the churches call sin," to use John Morley's words, occupied his attention but little. Like a mountain climber in a perilous pass, he preferred to look up rather than down. He does not stress ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to lay his hand upon him. And he took him aside from the multitude privately, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat, and touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, ...
— His Life - A Complete Story in the Words of the Four Gospels • William E. Barton, Theodore G. Soares, Sydney Strong
... showed promise of surpassing his father by a great measure, did not succeed further in justifying the opinion that had already been conceived of him, for the reason that, being born and bred in easy circumstances, which are often an impediment to study, he was given more to traffic and to trading than to the art of painting; which should not appear a thing new or strange, seeing that avarice very often bars the way to many intellects which would ascend to the greatest height of excellence, if the desire of gain did not ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari
... into such prominent notice that he was soon engaged to write pleadings for litigants in the courts. He devoted himself to incessant study and practice in oratory, and, overcoming by various means a weakly body and an impediment in his speech, he became the chief of orators. Of his public life we have already seen something in the history of Athens. With all his moral and intellectual force, the closing years of his life were shaded with misery and disgrace. Fifty ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... merchant: we turned o'er many books together: he is furnished with my opinion; which, bettered with his own learning, the greatness whereof I cannot enough commend, comes with him, at my importunity, to fill up your grace's request in my stead. I beseech you, let his lack of years be no impediment to let him lack a reverend estimation; for I never knew so young a body with so old a head. I leave him to your gracious acceptance, whose trial shall ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... Now take the exhortation and convert it into a commandment, and it showeth us, (1.) in what good earnest God offers his mercy to his Israel; he commands them to hope in him, as he is and will be so to them. (2.) It supposes an impediment in Israel, as to the faculty of receiving or hoping in God for mercy; we that would have God be merciful, we that cry and pray to him to show us mercy, have yet that weakness and impediment in our faith, which greatly hindereth us from a steadfast hoping ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... his troops, to encamp them on three hills which were situated very near to each other. These hills were separated by low interval lands and a small stream; but at the time when Alexander established his encampment, the stream constituted no impediment to free intercommunication between the different divisions of his army. There came on, however, a powerful rain; the stream overflowed its banks; the intervals were inundated. This enabled the enemy to attack two of Alexander's encampments, while it was ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... sending him as a species of private envoy to the Irish Roman Catholics; but there his failure was even more conspicuous, though perhaps it was equally inevitable. Burke's imagination was at once his unrivaled gift and his perpetual impediment. Like a lover, his eye was no sooner caught, than he invested its charmer with all conceivable attractions. This susceptibility made him irresistible in a cause worthy of his powers, but plunged him into difficulties where the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... same number on the east side: they are too knowing to let us have but one point of alarm for London. Supposing 200 craft, or 250, collected at Boulogne &c, they are supposed equal to carry 20,000 men. In very calm weather, they might row over, supposing no impediment, in twelve hours; at the same instant, by telegraph, the same number of troops would be rowed out of Dunkirk, Ostend, &c. &c. These are the two great objects to attend to from Dover and the Downs, and perhaps one of the small Ports to the westward. Boulogne (which I call the ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... said Carlyle was taking refuge from a hard world by bidding men grind and toil, eyes to the earth, and so forget their misery. This is not Carlyle's thought. "Fool!" he cries, "the Ideal is in thyself; the Impediment is also in thyself. Work out the Ideal in the poor, miserable Actual; live, think, believe, and be free!" It is plain what he says, that work, production, brings life out of chaos, makes the individual a world, an order; ...
— Optimism - An Essay • Helen Keller
... evidently preparing for action. Hundreds of brawny arms, each one of which grasped a stone, were raised into the air: while as many stooping forms were seen, crouching close to the ground, that they might leave room for the slingers to hurl their missiles without impediment. ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... of penetrating nature, began to see that here lay an emotional complication of some sort, and reserved further inquiry till a more convenient occasion. They had reached the end of the level beach where the cliff began to rise, and as this impediment naturally stopped their walk they retraced their steps. On again nearing the spot where Paula and her aunt were sitting, the painter would have deviated to the hotel; but as his son persisted in going straight on, in due ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... beyond this, a farther impediment to Mens obeying the Law of Nature, by vertue of the meer Light of Nature; which is, that they cannot, in all circumstances, without Revelation, make always a just estimate in reference to their happiness. For, tho' ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... is 180 miles distant from Sydney; and the road to it presents no impediment to waggons, but the descent from the mountains into the low country; and even this does not prevent the inhabitants from maintaining a regular intercourse with that town, and receiving from it all the supplies which they require. The difficulty, ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... unfolded his scheme, and whose advice and assistance he immediately bespoke. The friend had no scruples on the subject, and at once became a partner in the plot. Means were found to overcome the first impediment, and behold our two gentlemen in the presence of the fair object of their attack. The principal was immediately introduced as the son of Sir George ——, a highly respectable Baronet of the same ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... is most desirable; the point above or below the confluence of two rivers is still better, as there are then only two sides to guard. Stony ground must not be considered as an impediment; grass grows between the stones, and a dray can travel upon it. England must have been a most impracticable country to traverse before metalled roads were made. Here the surface is almost everywhere a compact mass of shingle; ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... our penitential rites Performed without impediment by saints Rich only in devotion, then with pride Will you reflect:—Such are the holy men Who call me Guardian; such the men for whom To wield the bow I bare my nervous arm, Scarred by the motion ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... seeing us were what so terribly alarmed me. The huge ship, I was told, rode immediately over us with as much ease as our own little vessel would have passed over a feather, and without the least perceptible impediment to her progress. Not a scream arose from the deck of the victim—there was a slight grating sound to be heard mingling with the roar of wind and water, as the frail bark which was swallowed up rubbed for a moment along the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... got so skeered when he was little bein carried on a hos that he los his speech and de wouldt let me see im for two days. It was a long time befor he learned to talk again". (To this day he has such an impediment of speech that it is painful to hear him make ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Maryland Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... that which ensues from it is necessarily the true consequence of that principle, unless it be impeded. Should there, however, be any obstacle, the effect which should ensue from the aforesaid principle will participate in the impediment as much or as little as the impediment is operative in regard ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... her little mind?" said he, exasperated into punishing her. "It wouldn't be a bad thing for me, remember, and she's temptingly easy to deal with—that girl has more faith than the twelve apostles. Heavens, Evie, don't look like that! My dearest girl, you don't have to worry, anyhow. If your—er—impediment hasn't stood in my way, why should ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... we're after asking, sir," said Ellen. She was always spokeswoman, for Mike had an impediment in his speech. "The childher come up yisterday and got them while you'd be down at the counting-room. 'Twas Mary Moynahan saw to them. We do be very thankful to you, sir, ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... throat and breast like water from the neck of a bottle. Here, one had a mouth plugged with shot, and a beard as stiff as though it were made of rope. Another that he turned over was a German he had once heard speak at a diggers' meeting—a windy braggart of a man, with a quaint impediment in his speech. Well, poor soul! he would never mouth invectives or tickle the ribs of an audience again. His body was a very colander of wounds. Some had not bled either. It looked as though the soldiers had viciously gone on prodding ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... activity, that they are always hastening to their own reformation; because they incite us to try whether our expectations are well grounded; and therefore detect the deceits which they are apt to occasion. But timidity is a disease of the mind more obstinate and fatal; for a man once persuaded, that any impediment is insuperable, has given it, with respect to himself, that strength and weight which it had ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... been asked whether there is any impediment to your marriage," he said, "and have answered that there is none. What you have said to me has been said in confession, and is a secret between us two. Remember that; and forget not, at the same time, the service which I shall require of you to-night, after the marriage-ceremony ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... orator. Plunkett was an indolent man, and spoke very rarely indeed. When really roused, and on a subject which he had genuinely at heart, he could rise to heights of splendid eloquence. Plunkett had a slight impediment in his speech; when wound up, this impediment, so far from detracting from, added to the effect he produced. I heard Mr. Gladstone's last speech in Parliament, on March 1, 1894. It was frankly a great disappointment. I sat then on the Opposition side, but we Unionists had all assembled to cheer ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... fits the pipe so as to enable the gland to squeeze the packing. By this construction the gland may be drawn back without being jammed upon the enlarged part of the pipe; and the enlargement of the pipe toward the condenser prevents the air pump barrel from offering any impediment to the free egress of the steam. The gland is made altogether in four pieces: the ring which presses the packing is made distinct from the flange to which the bolts are attached which force the gland against the packing, and both ring and flange ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... consequently they were still scattered from Charlotte around to Florence, then behind us. Having thus secured the passage of the Pedee, I felt no uneasiness about the future, because there remained no further great impediment between us and Cape Fear River, which I felt assured was by that time in possession of our friends. The day was so wet that we all kept in-doors; and about noon General Blair invited us to take lunch with him. We passed down into the basement dining-room, where the regular family ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... private envoy to the Irish Roman Catholics; but there his failure was even more conspicuous, though perhaps it was equally inevitable. Burke's imagination was at once his unrivaled gift and his perpetual impediment. Like a lover, his eye was no sooner caught, than he invested its charmer with all conceivable attractions. This susceptibility made him irresistible in a cause worthy of his powers, but plunged him into difficulties where the object ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... could not have taken place," he said slowly. "No Catholic priest could have celebrated it, at least. There would have been a diriment impediment." ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... controlled by considerations of self-interest alone. Heartless and merciless, it has no sentiments of pity, sympathy, or honor, to make it pause in its remorseless career; and it crushes down all that is of impediment in its way, as its keels of commerce crush under them the murmuring ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... Walter Scott has said, 'a nobleman of extraordinary talents, who must have made for himself a lasting reputation had not his political exertions been checked by painful natural infirmities.' Though deaf from his sixteenth year and though labouring under a partial impediment of speech, he held high and important appointments, and was distinguished for his intellectual activities and attainments ... His case seems to contradict the opinion held by Kitto and others, that in all that relates to the culture of the mind, and the cheerful exercise ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... and with little or no capital go on to the achievement of industrial independence. Even the homesteader on the Western prairies found it possible to work out a similar independent destiny, although the factor of transportation made a serious and increasing impediment to the free working-out of his individual career. But when the arid lands and the mineral resources of the Far West were reached, no conquest was possible by the old individual pioneer methods. Here expensive irrigation works must be constructed, cooperative activity was demanded in utilization ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... powers as 3,000, 4,000, 5,000, even 6,652,[311] which Herschel now and again applied to his great telescopes, must, save on the rarest occasions, prove an impediment rather than an aid to vision. They were, however, used by him only for special purposes, experimentally, not systematically, and with the clearest discrimination of their advantages and drawbacks. It is obvious that perfectly different ends are subserved by increasing the ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... just outside the Pearly Gates on the Last Day when the quick and the dead, called up for judgment, were streaming in through the portals—still would they behave thus. Where they met would be where they stopped to talk, regardless of the consequences to themselves, regardless of impediment to the movements of their ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... is at present occasioned by the erection of barrieres, or turnpike-bars, which did not exist before the revolution. At this day, they are established throughout all the departments, and are an insuperable impediment to expedition; for, at night, the toll-gatherers are fast asleep, and the bars being secured, you are obliged to wait patiently till these good citizens choose ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... matters concerning the third degree of prayer and completes the explanation of its effects. She also treats of the impediment caused by ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... said that he had to preach rapidly, or not at all. In youth he had suffered from something resembling an impediment in his speech, and more measured utterance gave it a chance to recur. Certainly, no one who ever listened to his fluent and limpid utterance would have suspected it. But he was far more than a great preacher. By his broad tolerance, his lofty character and immense personal ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... the most part) throughout the island is such as by reason in manner of continual clouds is reputed to be gross, and nothing so pleasant as that of the main. Howbeit, as they which affirm these things have only respect to the impediment or hindrance of the sunbeams by the interposition of the clouds and of ingrossed air, so experience teacheth us that it is no less pure, wholesome, and commodious than is that of other countries, and (as Caesar himself hereto addeth) much more temperate in summer than that ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... attributed—of all poets in the world—to Christopher Marlowe, by a knavish and ignorant bookseller of the period. That "Lust's Dominion; or, the Lascivious Queen," was partly founded on a pamphlet published after Marlowe's death was not a consideration sufficient to offer any impediment to this imposture. That the hand which in the year of this play's appearance on the stage gave "Old Fortunatus" to the world of readers was the hand to which we owe the finer scenes or passages of "Lust's Dominion," the whole of the opening scene ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... gallant people of France, and to triumph or die in their cause. Had it not been for the barrier of the ocean, there were hundreds and thousands of our countrymen who would have obeyed the impulse. Even with that impediment in our way, it was with extreme difficulty that the illustrious man then at the head of our affairs, the Father of his country, could restrain us from plunging into the conflict. No other man, and no other thousand men in the United States could have done it. And even when ...
— Celebration in Baltimore of the Triumph of Liberty in France • William Wirt
... was the opinion of the Inspector himself, as he remarked the extreme excitement under which the Englishman was laboring. Absorbed in thoughts of his own, he was pacing the room with long strides, turning mechanically as he met some impediment, but otherwise oblivious to his surroundings, even to the point of not noting the presence of Sweetwater, who stood quietly watching him from ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... is a branch of this impediment may, which is cognatio spiritualis: if you were her godfather, sir, ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... movements,—movements which, though centripetal, forever seeking the earth, and forever trailing their mountain-weight of glory along the line of and through the midst of flesh-and-blood realities, yet never found any impediment in all their course, but swept the ground like a whirlwind. This distinction between Spurgeon and Luther in the matter of strength is an important one; and it is, moreover, a distinction which may easily be derived—even if no other ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... extricated himself from this impediment, and again commenced his researches after the clergyman, when his course was once more interrupted by a sort of pressgang, headed by Sir Bingo Binks, who, in order to play his character of a drunken boatswain to the life, seemed certainly drunk enough, however little ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... eyes, large blood vessels, and a bony encasement too small to admit the full and free expansion of the lungs, enlarged by the superabundant blood, which is determined to those organs during that first half-score of years immediately succeeding puberty. Well-formed chests offer no impediment to its inroads, if the volume of blood be out of proportion to the expansibility and capacity of the pulmonary organs. Hence it is most apt to occur precisely at, and immediately following, that period of life known as matureness, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... it not, then? That is what I want to know. There's no lawful impediment why them two mightn't be made one right off! My scamp can't have any claim on her to hinder of it! Good Lord! No! I should think not! When here I am his lawful wife, alive, and likely to live! And a man can't have two wives, in this State, at least! ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... forget that you are doubtless inclined to profit by this right. I shall answer your question then when I tell you that I am aware of but one fact concerning you, which is that some demon has inspired you continually to cast some impediment in the way of ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... marriage failed, was a sufficient reason to justify the pope. The dispensation was therefore immediately granted, and sent to the nuncio of Spain, with orders to inform the Prince of Wales, in case of rupture, that no impediment of the marriage proceeded from the court of Rome, who, on the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... S. C., - Take it not amiss if this is a wretched letter. I am eaten up with business. Every day this week I have had some business impediment - I am even now waiting a deputation of chiefs about the road - and my precious morning was shattered by a polite old scourge of a FAIPULE - parliament man - come begging. All the time DAVID BALFOUR is skelping along. I began it the 13th of last ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... which we are now considering, your father still retains such possession, with such power over it, that he can sell it, and do with the money what he will, without any legal impediment. But when he extends his power beyond his own life, by settling the order of succession, the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... of laws befitting the condition of free citizens in an independent State. From his first to his last session he contended, though without success, for the faith of treaties and the honest payment of debts. The treaty with England provided that there should be "no lawful impediment on either side to the recovery of debts heretofore contracted." The legislature notified Congress that it should disregard this provision, on the plea that in relation to "slaves and other property" it had not been observed by Great Britain. Mr. Madison did not then know ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... from a short delay caused by his visit to the noble De Seso, he fell into the power of the inquisitors. But you, I trust, are not suspected, and we may in safety gain the borders of Spain without impediment. It will be necessary, however, to use caution, and above all things to trust to no one. There are guards on all the roads, and spies at every inn, ready ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston
... assuredly taken, had you not delivered me. I promised to make you amends, and now the time is come; give me your phial; I am acquainted with all the secret inlets into the gloomy cave, and will go and fetch you the water of beauty." Avenant most gladly gave the phial, and the owl, entering without any impediment into the cave, filled it, and in less than a quarter of an hour returned with it well stopped. Avenant was overjoyed at his good fortune, gave the owl a thousand thanks, and returned with a merry heart to the city. Being arrived at the palace, he presented the phial to the Fair One with Locks ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... intolerant Methodism with which I have long believed her tainted.” She wrote to the Rev. R. Fellowes; “the eminent champion in our day of true and perfect Christianity,”—“How happily have you removed that dire impediment to rational faith, the doctrine of original sin, which the revived Calvinistic school, of which Mr. Wilberforce is the head, so injudiciously presses upon the attention of the public. . . . The licentious, or giddy votaries of fashion, wish to have an excuse for persisting in their career, and think ...
— Anna Seward - and Classic Lichfield • Stapleton Martin
... desiring to have quarter-sessions, but which either had no recorder, or where the recorder was not a barrister of five years' standing, it was intended that the crown should in future have the nomination of that officer. Sir Robert Peel said that he would present no impediment to the introduction of the bill, but would reserve all consideration of its details, every one of which deserved a separate discussion, to a future stage of proceedings. The bill was read a second time, without debate and without opposition, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... woman whose beauty is lighted by the sun of the world, whose style the voice of fashion lauds, and whom a halo of aristocracy gilds with enchanting splendors. To be a woman condemned to a painful and disgraceful punishment is no impediment to beauty, but it is an obstacle to the recovery of power. Like all persons of real genius, Milady knew what suited her nature and her means. Poverty was repugnant to her; degradation took away two-thirds of her greatness. ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... often," he said to Phillis, "and note all that she feels; perhaps I shall find some way to repair this impediment, something that I may suggest to Balzajette without his suspecting it. Besides, it is reasonable to believe that the recrudescence of cold that we are suffering from now may have something to do with the change in her condition; it is probable that with the mild spring ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... indignantly). Sir! (Aside.) Stop! (Aloud.) Do you mean to say, sir, that if I should consent to this—suggestion—that, if the lady were willing, YOU would offer no impediment? ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... the populace, to drive them out of the city and their own habitations. With a democracy it quarrels with the nobles, and destroys them both publicly and privately, or drives them into banishment, as rivals and an impediment to the government; hence naturally arise conspiracies both amongst those who desire to govern and those who desire not to be slaves; hence arose Periander's advice to Thrasybulus to take off the tallest stalks, hinting thereby, that it was necessary to make away with ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... little leather scoop standing behind the ear-hole seems to be just the instrument required to catch and send down those sounds which would otherwise glance off the glossy fur and never find entrance to the tiny orifice at all. If it were any larger than is absolutely necessary it would be a serious impediment to a professional diver and swimmer like the sea-lion. This is the reason why otters have very small ears, and why whales and porpoises ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... of the elixir vitae. He then established himself as a physician in his native Switzerland at Zurich, and commenced writing works upon alchymy and medicine, which immediately fixed the attention of Europe. Their great obscurity was no impediment to their fame; for the less the author was understood, the more the demonologists, fanatics, and philosopher's-stone hunters seemed to appreciate him. His fame as a physician kept pace with that which he enjoyed as an alchymist, owing to his having effected some happy cures ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... led me to think, what a miserable business controversialists would make of it, if each had his opponent looking over his shoulder, pointing out flaws in his arguments, suggesting untimely truths, and putting every possible impediment in the path of his logic; and if, moreover, he were obliged to mend every flaw, prove every such truth a falsehood, and remove every impediment before he could advance a step. Were such the case, how much less would there be of fine-spun theory and specious argument; how much ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... always been much humored by his parents, especially by his father. He suffered from a slight impediment in his speech, and had never been made to go to school; consequently his book knowledge was very limited. I knew that his education had been neglected, but had no idea he was so deficient as the first lesson at Hyde Park proved him ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... standing in the bow of the boat, informed me that they had thrown boughs across the river to prevent our passage. I was exceedingly indignant at this, and pushed on, intending to force the barrier. On our nearer approach, a solitary black was observed standing close to the river, and abreast of the impediment which I imagined they had raised to our further progress. I threatened to shoot this man, and pointed to the branches that stretched right across the stream. The poor fellow uttered not a word, but, putting his hand behind him, pulled out a tomahawk from his belt, and held it towards ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... calling for which they can be definitely prepared and in which they may hope to rise in personal achievement and in financial compensation. On the other hand, marriage and motherhood appeal to the deepest instincts of human nature; and if the man seems worth it a woman will generally risk vocational impediment and awkwardness of economic adjustment for the sake of a congenial mate ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... with an affection renewed through a dream. At length she started up, and, wishing to hurry from a place which seemed filled with images at once lovable and terrible, she felt her foot caught by an impediment whereby she stumbled. On looking down she observed some object of a reddish-brown colour; and becoming alarmed lest it might be one of the toads with which the place was sometimes invaded, she started back. Yet curiosity forced her to a closer inspection. She applied ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... resorted to hills: where they stood in view, relying on the strength of their position, and not on their valour and arms." But the walls of Carthage, which the Roman soldiers had scaled, were still higher. That neither hills, nor a citadel, nor even the sea itself, had formed an impediment to their arms. That the heights which the enemy had occupied would only have the effect of making it necessary for them to leap down crags and precipices in their flight, but he would even cut off that kind of retreat. He accordingly ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... effects that instantly followed, their chiefs lying dead at their feet and others fast falling, threw them into a tumultuous panic. They at once abandoned every thing, arms, provisions, boats, and camp, and without any impediment, the naked savages fled through the forest with the fleetness of the terrified deer. Champlain and his allies pursued them a mile and a half, or to the first fall in the little stream that connects Lake Champlain [62] and Lake George. [63] The victory was complete. ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... therefore, the natives will not listen to missionaries—of course, in some cases they will; for I believe that the gospel, when truly preached, is never preached in vain—but they will throw every possible impediment in their way. I would tell them that in order to make the path of the missionary practicable, the system of trade must be inverted, the trader and the missionary must go hand in hand, and commerce and religion—although incomparably different in their nature ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... say that they knew any just cause or impediment why they should not forever after hold their peace?" ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... he was contemptible in intellectual ability. Moreover, the deep traces left on his face by the small-pox rendered him sufficiently ungainly. The blemish was said to be increasing, instead of diminishing, with his years.[1331] But the French courtiers might perhaps have overcome this impediment had Elizabeth been able to see it to be her interest to contract such close relations with her neighbors across the channel. As it was, an agreement was actually made that Alencon should visit England and ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... we to develop a vocabulary for oral discourse or a vocabulary for writing? It may be that our chief impediment or our chief ambition lies in one field rather than in the other. Nevertheless we should strive for a double mastery; we ought to speak well and write well. Indeed the two powers so react upon each other that we ought ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... steel, are also sent in considerable quantities to Egypt. All imports and exports pay a duty of three per cent. on their value, and until recently produce exported to the neighbouring Turkish provinces paid the unreasonable duty of ten per cent. This grievous impediment to commerce has, thanks to the efforts of the European Consuls, been abolished, and they now pay the same duty ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... of reclaiming the marshes of the Potomac adjacent to the capital, and I am constrained by its importance to advert again to the subject. These flats embrace an area of several hundred acres. They are an impediment to the drainage of the city and seriously impair its health. It is believed that with this substantial improvement of its river front the capital would be in all respects one of the most attractive cities in the world. Aside from its permanent population, this city is necessarily ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson
... had no inclination to dawdle, but the two horses were a sore impediment, and she went on some way without seeing any houses. Should she turn back to the little road leading down from Anscombe? but that was rough and difficult, and could not be undertaken quickly with a led horse; or should ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... running in his heavy riding-boots. The other man, on the contrary, appeared perfectly fresh; he wore light shoes, and had not a superfluous ounce of flesh to carry. He was all bone and sinew; the saddle resting upon his head was hardly an impediment to him. Lynde, however, was not going to be vanquished without a struggle; though he recognized the futility of pursuit, he pushed on doggedly. A certain tenacious quality in the young man imperatively demanded this ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... that I can have been thinking of the reasons For and Against, for an hour past—writing Midwinter's name over and over again—speculating seriously on marrying him—and all the time not once remembering that, even with every other impediment removed, he alone, when the time came, would be an insurmountable obstacle in my way? Has the effort to face the consideration of Armadale's death absorbed me to that degree? I suppose it has. I can't account for such ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... charge of the mounted infantry; the measure was not sanctioned by any thing I had seen or heard of, but I was fully convinced that it would succeed. The American backwoodsmen ride better in the woods than any other people. A musket or rifle is no impediment to them, being accustomed to carry them on horseback from their earliest youth. I was persuaded, too, that the enemy would be quite unprepared for the shock, and that they could not resist it. Conformably to this idea, I directed the regiment ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... human being could clamber up it. On went the marines and bluejackets in beautiful style, about to show the Chinamen a thing or two. They reached the foot of the hill. Up they climbed, as if it was no impediment whatever; but the Chinamen did their best to stop them. It was no child's work; jingall balls and round shot came crashing down on the assailants, and stink-pots and three-pronged spears; and heads and arms and legs were shot ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... never mentioned Henrietta's name in Szilard's presence again—and who knows whether there was not some impediment between these two from which no sacrament could absolve them. Who knows whether it might not after all have been as well for Vamhidy to avoid any meeting whatever with—the widow ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... essayed to look, but the remembrance of that last thing that the shepherds had showed them made their hands shake, by means of which impediment they could not look steadily through the glass; yet they thought they saw something like the gate, and also some of the glory ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... an impediment to the acquiring of useful knowledge. I am not nearly so much interested in what happened in Abilene, Kansas, in 1867—the year that the first herds of Texas Longhorns over the Chisholm Trail found a market at that place—as I am in picking out of Abilene ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... hands of his eager guide, and only became his own man again when they suddenly stepped into an open yard and he could discern plainly before him the dark walls of a building pointed out by Sweetwater as their probable destination. Yet even here they encountered some impediment which prohibited a close approach. A wall or shed cut off their view of the building's lower storey; and though somewhat startled at being left unceremoniously alone after just a whispered word of encouragement from the ever ready ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... both. He stood for one moment with his eyes fixed upon the ground—then he turned, sprang through the doorway, vaulted on his horse, and went off from her cottage door as an arrow leaps from a bow. The fences and ditches that lay in his way were no impediment. His powerful steed carried him over all and into the forest beyond, where he was quickly lost to view. Mary tried to resume her household occupations with a sigh. She did not believe he was ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... intensity, and the way it grows in winter. After a long and racy introduction, sometimes difficult to decipher, from its Fife idioms and obsolete spelling, she goes on thus: 'Did you get any heart to remember me and my bonds? As for me, I never found so great impediment within. Still, it is the Lord with whom we have to do, and He gives and takes, casts down and raises up, kills and makes alive as pleases His Majesty. . . . My task at home is augmented and tripled, and yet I fear worse. Sin in me and in mine is my greatest cross. I would, if it were the ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... quantities of land that have within our memories lain open, and in common of little value, yet when enclosed have proved excellent good land.' Why then was this most obvious improvement not more generally effected? Because there was a great impediment to it in the numerous interests and diversity of titles and claims to almost every common field and piece of waste land in England, whereby one or more envious or ignorant persons could thwart the will of the ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... your tenderness had moistened my lips to the last, affected me with sweet fancies of flowers—fantastic flowers, far more lovely than any of the old Earth, but whose prototypes we have here blooming around us. The eye-lids, transparent and bloodless, offered no complete impediment to vision. As volition was in abeyance, the balls could not roll in their sockets—but all objects within the range of the visual hemisphere were seen with more or less distinctness; the rays which fell upon the external retina, or into the corner ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... entertainment is the eminently ludicrous part played by the police. Everything passes outside their knowledge. Lupin speaks, writes, warns, orders, threatens, carries out his plans, as though there were no police, no detectives, no magistrates, no impediment of any kind in existence. They seem of no account to him whatever. No obstacle enters ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... the banks of the Malini you may perceive the hermitage of the great sage Kanwa. If other duties require not your presence, deign to enter and accept our hospitality. When you behold our penitential rites Performed without impediment by Saints Rich only in devotion, then with pride Will you reflect, Such are the holy men Who call me Guardian; such the men for whom To wield the bow I bare my nervous arm, Scarred by the motion of the ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... by Elinor and maintain her cause under her altered circumstances as if it had been the case. But notwithstanding this, she knew that John would be angry with what she had done or promised to do, and would put every possible impediment in her way: and when she sent for him, in order that she might carry out her promise, it was with a heart as sick with fright and as much disturbed by the idea of a scolding as ever ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... lay in my hammock that night, overhead I heard the slow weary draggings of the three ponderous strangers along the encumbered deck. Their stupidity or their resolution was so great, that they never went aside for any impediment. One ceased his movements altogether just before the mid-watch. At sunrise I found him butted like a battering-ram against the immovable foot of the foremast, and still striving, tooth and nail, to force the impossible passage. That these tortoises are the victims of a penal, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... through the woods. Met one inquisitive young Russian. Convinced him it would be impossible for him to tell all he knew." The Treasurer touched his sword with a gesture which the men understood. "He contracted an impediment to his speech." ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... some Disease or other.] No man amongst us so sound, of so good a constitution, that hath not some impediment of body or mind. Quisque suos patimur manes, we have all our infirmities, first or last, more or less. There will be peradventure in an age, or one of a thousand, like Zenophilus the musician in [883]Pliny, that may happily ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... far the act of 26 Geo. II. c. 33. (which prohibits all suits in ecclesiastical courts to compel a marriage, in consequence of any contract) may collaterally extend to revive this clause of Henry VIII's statute, and abolish the impediment of pre-contract, I leave to be considered by ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... decision to retire was made and acted upon. The Judge delighted in no occupation so much as the pursuit of law, and therefore distrusted his own opinion as to the moment when his infirmity should absolutely unfit him for sitting in Court. He had begged a friend to tell him the moment that the impediment became serious; and this, with some hesitation, was done. The intimation was thankfully received, and, after due consideration, ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is that on which the nature of all things is placed; and since she is possessed of this, and she presides over all things, and is subject to no possible impediment, the world must necessarily be an intelligent and even a wise being. But how marvellously great is the ignorance of those men who dispute the perfection of that nature which encircles all things; or who, allowing it to ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... tact and readiness in encountering unexpected difficulty, and defeating an opponent by interposing successive unthought-of obstacles. In the most desperate emergencies, when the full tide of success was arrested by some totally unlooked-for impediment, Sir William Follett's vast practical knowledge, quickness of perception, unerring sagacity, and immoveable self-possession, enabled him, without any apparent effort or uneasiness, to remove that impediment almost as soon as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... about such an engagement? Do you know that she has had the choice of the best matches in England? The Duke of Richmond paid his addresses to her first; but though he was in love with her, still he was mercenary: however, the king, observing that want of fortune was the only impediment to the match, took that article upon himself, out of regard to the Duke of Ormond, to the merit and birth of Miss Hamilton, and to her father's services; but, resenting that a man, who pretended to be in love, should bargain like a merchant, and likewise reflecting upon ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... of war in Virginia is the greatest impediment for rapid movements; it is the ruin of generals ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... which have prevented them from having a friendly intercourse with us. And further, we, His Majesty's Officers, &c. in Council assembled, having conversed with the said Jans Haven, and being highly satisfied with him, command that no impediment be thrown in the way of this his attempt, but rather that every possible friendship and assistance be given him, in order to promote a happy issue to his most Christian undertaking, as by this a great service will not only be rendered ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... keep near its waters; trees of the aquatic sort and reeds grew together. At one time nothing was visible to the eastward but a vast sea of reeds extending to the horizon. Where the long reeds remained unburnt, they presented a most formidable impediment, especially to men on foot and sheep, and twenty of these got astray as the party passed through. We encamped on a bank of rather firm ground, in lat. 30 deg. 53' 55" S. The grass was very rich on some parts of open plains ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... commands, for private and secret reasons, that the aforesaid lady Marie shall contract a marriage with the very illustrious prince, Louis, reigning King of Hungary. And in case any impediment should appear to this marriage by reason of the union said to be already arranged and signed between the King of Hungary and the King of Bohemia and his daughter, our lord the king commands that the illustrious lady Marie shall contract a marriage with the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... and consented to a reply. He was the eldest son, and meant to support that position, both on his mother's behalf and on his own. As to his father's will, made in his favor, he felt sure that his brother would not have the hardihood to dispute it. A man's bodily sufferings were no impediment to his making a will; of mental incapacity he had never heard his father accused till the accusation had now been made by his own son. He was, however, well aware that it would not be preferred. As to what his brother had done for himself, it was hardly ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... they had been at the moment he recalled. He accepted that reality as a proof, scarcely needed, of the already established shallowness of his own nature—a brawling stream always ready to rave round any little impediment in its path; a mere miniature of the torrent, with no resolute strength or purpose in it, but full of a fussy vivacity and self-importance which he could most heartily and bitterly despise. All his life long the same futile story repeated: ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... arable land; NA% permanent crops; NA% meadows and pastures; NA% forest and woodland; NA% other; includes NA% irrigated Environment: despite its size, only a small percentage of land is arable and much is too far north; permafrost over much of Siberia is a major impediment to development; catastrophic pollution of land, air, water, including both inland waterways and sea coasts Note: largest country in the world in terms of area but unfavorably located in relation to major sea lanes of ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... There was also another impediment,—the tucking of his shirt under his waistcoat was next adjusted. Then Lord Kilmarnock, taking out a paper containing the heads of his last devotions, advanced to the utmost stage of the scaffold, and kneeled ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... form, and for inferior purposes. According to the most recent and thorough investigations, the improvement introduced by the Van Eycks, and which they doubtless only very gradually worked out, were the following. First, they removed the chief impediment which had hitherto obstructed the application of oil-paint to pictures properly so called. For, in order to accelerate the slow drying of the oil colours, it had been necessary to add a varnish to them, which consisted of oil boiled with a resin. ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... conform; your oracles are crooked and enigmatic, and generally rely upon a safe ambiguity; a second prophet is required to say what they mean. But what is your solution of the problem? How are we to cure Timocles of the impediment in his speech? ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... scenes occur between Letchmere and his brother-in-law, Letchmere and his sister, Letchmere and Letty, Marion and Hilda Gunning. It is evident that Letty dreams of marriage with Letchmere; and for aught that we see or hear, there is no just cause or impediment to the contrary. It is only, at the end of the very admirable scene between Letchmere and Mandeville that the ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... perceived God was with them, though in that dark and dismal state; and why not, thought he, with me? though, by reason of the impediment that attends this place, I cannot perceive ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... is fond of him; and having taken the thing into her head, she would not rest until she married him. They had their banns published at St. Clement's, and nobody heard it or knew any just cause or impediment. And one day she slips out of the porter's lodge and has the business done, and goes off to Gravesend with Lothario; and leaves a note for me to go and explain all things to her Ma. Bless you! the old woman knew it as well as I ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... surprised me from one who talked so rarely. This younger generation, as I have said, has an impediment of speech. It is not glib nor explanatory.... One of the happiest things that has ever befallen me is the spirit of the Chapel. It happened that The Abbot brought in a bit of work that repeated a rather tiresome kind of mis-technicality—an error, I had pointed out to him before. ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... characterized by concealment. If the emperor had gone to Spain, a messenger, riding post-haste, could reach Charles in time to enable that monarch to interpose in the nuptials and override the confidence the free baron had established for himself in the court of Francis. An impediment offered by Charles would be equivalent to the abandonment ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... popped. Lucy declined him secundum artem: he went away blessing her, with a manly sob or two. Lucy cried a little and took a feminine spite against his rivals, who remained to pester her. Now Talboys, spurred by uncle, had often all but popped; only some let, hindrance, or just impediment had still interposed: once her pony kept prancing at each effort he made towards Hymen; they do say the subtle virgin kept probing the brute with a hair pin, and made him caracole and spill the treacle as fast as it came her way. However, now Talboys elected to pop by sea. It was the ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... from assisting, the Junta threw every possible impediment in the way. They feared that any real national effort, if successful, would get altogether beyond their control, and that they would lose the power that enabled them to enrich themselves at the expense of the people. Not only that, but they ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... perceived God was with them, though in that dark and dismal state. And why not, thought he, with me? though by reason of the impediment that attends this place, I ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... with your mention of her, and made me vow to return you a thousand compliments. She cannot conceive why you will not step hither. Feeling in herself no difference between the spirits of twenty-three and seventy-three, she thinks there is no impediment to doing whatever one will but the want of eyesight. If she had that, I am persuaded no consideration would prevent her making me a visit at Strawberry Hill. She makes songs, sings them, remembers all that ever were made; ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... parts to which the womb is fastened, as the loins, the bottom of the belly, and the os sacrum, it proceeds from the breaking or stretching of the ligaments; and a little after the pain is abated, and there is an impediment in walking, and sometimes blood comes from the breach of the vessels, and the excrements and urine are stopped, and then a fever and convulsion ensueth, oftentimes proving mortal, especially if it happen to ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... at Bathurst Plains, is 180 miles distant from Sydney; and the road to it presents no impediment to waggons, but the descent from the mountains into the low country; and even this does not prevent the inhabitants from maintaining a regular intercourse with that town, and receiving from it all the supplies which they ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... am! Even while I proffer assistance with so loud a voice, I am smitten cold with the fear of an impediment which you know a thousand times better than I do how to measure and to meet. Perhaps the woman you speak of is unworthy of your friendship and love. I can understand that to be an insurmountable obstacle. You stand so high, and have to think about your work, your ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... there is a most grievous impediment to genius in later, or, as we term them, more civilized times, from which, in earlier ages, it is wholly exempt. Criticism, public opinion, the dread of ridicule—then too often crush the strongest minds. The weight ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... pleasures young girls were continually sacrificing to their dress: In walking, running, rowing, skating, dancing, going up and down stairs, climbing trees and fences, the airy fabrics and flowing skirts were a continual impediment and vexation. We can not estimate how large a share of the ill-health and temper among women is the result of the crippling, cribbing influence of her costume. Fathers, husbands, and brothers, all joined in protest against the small ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... yesterday! I don't think I ever saw him so tremendous. Very good-natured and pleasant, in his way, but Good Heavens! how he did talk. That famous day you and I remember was nothing to it. His son was with him, and his daughter (who has an impediment in her speech, as if nature were determined to balance that faculty in the family), and his niece, a pretty woman, the wife of a clergyman and a friend of Thackeray's. It strikes me that she must ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... formed the reserves and the garrison of Gaeta. The position on the Volturno was favourable to the Royalists; the fortress of Capua on the left bank gave them a free passage to and fro, while the Volturno, which is rather wide and very deep, formed a grave impediment to the advance of their opponents. But the chief reason why there was a serious possibility of the fortunes of war being reversed, lay in the fact that the moral of these troops was good. All the picked regiments of the army were here, including ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... Congress would be in condition to determine whether through lapse of time the French company had not forfeited its property and rights. "When that time arrives," the report significantly declared, "the Republic, without any impediment, will be able to contract and will be in more clear, more definite and more advantageous possession, both legally and materially." The naked meaning of this was that Colombia proposed to wait a year, and then enforce a forfeiture of the rights and property ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... afternoon, I took the precaution to secure tickets as I came home to dinner. I would have sent the porter with a note to know whether there was any thing to prevent your going to-night, but he has been out all the morning, and I concluded that, even if there should be some slight impediment in the way, you could easily ...
— Married Life; Its Shadows and Sunshine • T. S. Arthur
... grant him this favour, leaving himself entirely in His hands. And when he had thus prayed he took the tooth between his fingers, and it came out at once without the slightest pain or wrench, and he found himself freed from the impediment to his speech which it had caused. This tooth he carried about with him for a long time as a reminder of an act of Divine loving-kindness such as he was anxious not to forget, for forgetfulness is the mother of ingratitude; he wished it, too, to move him ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... her attention to two soldiers who were passing at the moment. He had recognized Maurice and Jean, trudging along with their companions, like brothers, side by side. They were near the end of the line, and as there was now no impediment in their way, he was enabled to keep them in view as far as the Faubourg of Torcy, as they traversed the level road which leads to Iges between gardens and ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... close the river for perhaps three months by suspending a rattan rope on which were hung many spears of wood, tail feathers of the great hornbill, and leaves of certain trees. After a head had been secured the impediment was removed, but the government ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... complete. His voice is commanding, for it has been long his duty to give the word of command. Above all, he has a mania to become a member. Yet, alas! one trifling deficiency ruins his prospects; he has an impediment in his speech, which debars him from the use of the W's. Like the French alphabet, that letter is denied to him. When he comes to a syllable it begins, he is spell-bound; though he longs to go on, he pulls up quite short, and sticks fast. The first W he meets ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 18, 1841 • Various
... the banns of marriage between William Blee, Bachelor, and Mary Coomstock, Widow, both of this parish. If any of you know cause, or just impediment, why these two persons should not be joined together in holy matrimony, ye are to declare it. This is for the first time ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... Malay bed; but my share of the responsibility for them was comparatively limited. Doubtless his thoughts strayed, as mine did, to the days of traveling "without encumbrance." There was another encumbrance of a literal kind. They had a trunk! This indispensable impediment had been left at Malacca in the morning, and arrived in a four-paddled canoe just as we were about ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... profit having, when an operation in three-month bills is contemplated, to be divided by four, whereas the percentage of expense has to be wholly borne by the one transaction, a very slight expense becomes a great impediment. If the cost is only 1/2 per cent, there must be a profit of 2 per cent in the rate of interest, or 1/2 per cent on three months, before any advantage commences; and thus, supposing that Paris capitalists calculate that they may send their gold over to England for 1/2 per cent ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... favourable circumstance attended the whole of the day, without one single impediment excepting the heat, which was intolerable; the thermometer which hung by the clock and was exposed to the sun, as we were, was one time as ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... was not without a witness: one of the keeper's assistants, who had lagged behind, gave the view-halloo in a loud voice. Luke pressed forward with redoubled energy, endeavoring to gain the shelter of the plantation, and this he could readily have accomplished, had no impediment been in his way. But his rage and vexation were boundless, when he heard the keeper's cry echoed by shouts immediately below him, and the tongue of the hound resounding in the hollow. He turned sharply round, steering ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to lay his hand upon him. And he took him aside from the multitude privately, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat, and touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, he sighed, ...
— His Life - A Complete Story in the Words of the Four Gospels • William E. Barton, Theodore G. Soares, Sydney Strong
... Fyzoola Khan in the following remarkable words. "With respect to Fyzoola Khan, he appears not to merit our consideration. The petty sovereign of a country estimated at six or eight lacs ought not for a moment to prove an impediment to any of our measures, or to affect the consistency of ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the Oxonian, after a violent exertion to express himself, caused by an impediment in ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... quiescence in the air the tendency of his sterilized infusions to produce organisms was increased. The conclusion from all these experiments is to show the importance of laying out the general plan of dwellings in a town so that currents of air shall be able to flow on all sides with as little impediment as possible, by which means the air will be continually liable to renewal by purer air. The dwellings which have been constructed in the place of the very defective dwellings condemned by the medical officers of health ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... months ahead of his ability to manufacture. He makes his own price, and chooses his customer. This operates not unkindly on the jobbers who are wealthy and independent; but for those who have but lately begun to mount the hill of difficulty, it offers one more impediment. For, to men who have a great many goods to sell, it is a matter of moment to secure the customers who can buy in large quantities, and whose notes will bring the money of banks or private capitalists as soon as offered. Against such buyers, men of limited means and of only average ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... officials, termed, I believe, "flappers" by disrespectful sportsmen, but whose duty, it appears, is to keep the chase in view till it either beats them off for pace, or leaves them "planted" at some large awkward impediment, the latter obstacle generally presenting itself in about three fields. On this occasion I saw the deer trot quite composedly up to a high thorn fence of at least six feet, and clear it without an effort; whereon its pursuers, looking blandly around for gate or gap, and finding ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... from the "Consultation" chiefly; it rests on the following passages of Holy Scripture:—Gen. ii. 24; Matt. xix. 5; Eph. v. 22-33; John ii. 1-11; Heb. xiii. 4. No impediment being alleged, the Espousal or Betrothal follows. The joining of hands is from time immemorial the pledge of covenant, and is here an essential part of the Marriage Ceremony. The words of the betrothal are agreeable ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous
... certainly, among all persons upon earth, make your choice; because I never saw that person whose conversation I entirely valued but hers; this was the utmost I ever gave way to. And secondly, I must assure you sincerely that this regard of mine never once entered into my head to be an impediment to you." He had thought Tisdall not rich enough to marry; "but the objection of your fortune being removed, I declare I have no other; nor shall any consideration of my own misfortune, in losing so good a friend and companion ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... their peculiar tastes or their incorrigible viciousness, they have, however, heightened their individual excellences. No human opinion can change their self-opinion. Alive to the consciousness of their powers, their pursuits are placed above impediment, and their great views can suffer no contraction; possunt quia posse videntur. Such was the language Lord BACON once applied to himself when addressing a king. "I know," said the great philosopher, "that I am censured ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... increased from being an ordinary room full of books, to a collection numbering about 10,000 volumes. From his earliest years Dr Burton had been a collector of books, and Craighouse led to the increase of his collection in two ways. The distance from the town was an impediment to the use of the Advocates' Library in his historical studies, and there was space at Craighouse for any number of books. There were always rooms which could be taken into occupation when wanted; and to his life's end it was a favourite amusement of Dr Burton's to construct and ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... of Father DePeneranda. He had very little to do with us—if I remember right he had only for a while taken the place of one of the masters of our class. He was a Spaniard and seemed to have an impediment in speaking English. It was perhaps for this reason that the boys paid but little heed to what he was saying. It seemed to me that this inattentiveness of his pupils hurt him, but he bore it meekly day after day. I know not why, but my heart went out to him in sympathy. His features ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... cannot follow them, up steep mountains, exposed to the heat of the sun, in dust, over rocks, and without water, toils the hunter, who accounts himself lucky if, by tramping scores of miles through this sort of impediment, he succeeds, after days of toil, in killing his deer. Perhaps he has been without fresh meat for a week or a fortnight, and often on short commons; is it to be wondered at that when a shot offers he avails himself of the opportunity even if it be a doe that he fires at? How can the deer ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... conduct has been sent up from Malaga, and a copy of one of his writings. Sir George blushed when he saw it, and informed Count Ofalia that any steps which might be taken towards punishing the author would receive no impediment from him. ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... uncommon energy. To the former obstacles were now added the pleadings of parental and conjugal love. The struggle was long and vehement; but his sense of duty would not be stifled or enfeebled, and finally triumphed over every impediment. ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... himself over the rocky edge of the table-land to find the ground plentifully sprinkled with barbed wire entanglements. Although this form of defence had been badly knocked about by shell-fire there was still sufficient wire, either in tension or else in snake-like coils, to offer serious impediment ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... England and American in a language that he acquired when he had already passed the middle period of life. The weight of this impediment he felt when he said, "Spirit of American eloquence, frown not at my boldness that I dare abuse Shakespeare's language in ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... ennoble a rational being, and a rough, inelegant husband may shock her taste without destroying her peace of mind. She will not model her soul to suit the frailties of her companion, but to bear with them: his character may be a trial, but not an impediment ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... admiration, but it poisons the depths of her own spirit, and breaks the peace of her associates. Few are they, who have not some foible or personal defect, on which this vice may fix itself. One is an object of taunts for her ignorance; another for a plain face; a third for an impediment in her speech; and how many suffer this infliction for some article of dress proscribed by that mistress called fashion. Too often are we reminded of the fabulous Melusina, to-day, a theme of wonder, for her grace and eloquence, ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... greatest impediment to recovery is usually found in the mind of the patient. His hopeless despair, melancholy, sullen apathy in many cases, want of energy, and fickleness of mind, thwart all attempts that are made for him. In other cases, the want of willpower, or neglect to exercise ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... self-possession was now quite restored, needed no second bidding, but with his drawn sword in his hand, and his cloak so muffled over his left arm as to serve for a kind of shield without offering any impediment to its free action, suffered them to lead the way. Through mud and mire, and wind and rain, they walked in silence a full mile. At length they turned into a dark lane, where, suddenly starting out from beneath some trees where he had taken shelter, a man appeared, having ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
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