"Impediment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... the box, desiring that the presence of himself and his companions might be no impediment to General ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... 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 |
