"Obstruction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was something to make you feel as you do on a hunting morning, when there are half-a-dozen riding-habits speckling the field—a whole glorious day your own among them! This view appeared to me very captivating, save for an obstruction in my mind, which was, that Goddesses were always conceived by me as statues. They talked and they moved, it was true, but the touch of them was marble; and they smiled and frowned, but they had no ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the step which Hume had recommended. There was a chance that, by decamping secretly, and hastening all night across heaths and morasses, the Earl might gain many miles on the enemy, and might reach Glasgow without further obstruction. The watch fires were left burning; and the march began. And now disaster followed disaster fast. The guides mistook the track across the moors, and led the army into boggy ground. Military order could ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... that France, which for several centuries had exercised a ruling influence on Scotland, and which in this union of the two crowns might have seen a disadvantage if not a danger for herself, allowed it to take place without obstruction. This conduct may be explained principally by the violent opposition which existed between Henry IV and Spain even after the peace of Vervins, and by the hostile influence incessantly exercised by that power upon the internal relations of his kingdom, in the pacification of ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... a tempest of orange, gold and red, and the other half warm and calm with roseate reflections. Over the spot where the focus point of all this glory was sinking into darkness, a purple cloud hovered like a shred of the monarch's glory caught and torn away on the jag of some invisible obstruction. Its edges were white flame, as though part of the sun's fire were ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... receive an excuse if the thing was not done; listening to no reasoning for it, be it good or bad. But then I told him, what he confessed, that he would however give the man, that he employs, orders for removing of any obstruction that he thinks he shall meet with in the world, and instanced in several warrants that he issued for breaking open of houses and other outrages about the business of prizes, which people bore with either for affection or fear, which he believes would not have been borne with from the ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... found that the course of true love ran not smooth; and yet how little would any one have suspected that from such a cause as that which now oppressed his mind, any obstruction would arise. ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... But, unfortunately, the commanding general of that department was absent from his command, where superior military capacity was so much needed at that time. Although the troops west of the Mississippi had been engaged for a long time, under the President's orders, in overcoming the unlawful obstruction of railroad traffic above referred to, the general appears not to have anticipated any emergency which would in his judgment require or justify such use of troops in his own department, and hence remained in the Eastern States, where ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... for the loophole at the back, through which, if you stoop low enough, you can catch a glimpse of the library hearth and its great settle. With these in view, slip your finger along the wall on your right and when it touches an obstruction—pass it if it is a handle, for that is only used to rewind the apparatus and must be turned from you until it can be turned no farther; but if it is a depression you encounter, press, and press hard on the knob concealed within it. ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... at that time, was a long irregular row of wooden sheds and penthouses, occupying the centre of what is now called Farringdon Street. They were jumbled together in a most unsightly fashion, in the middle of the road; to the great obstruction of the thoroughfare and the annoyance of passengers, who were fain to make their way, as they best could, among carts, baskets, barrows, trucks, casks, bulks, and benches, and to jostle with porters, hucksters, waggoners, and a motley crowd of ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... Lee had thus become the last rallying-point for the troops under Washington's immediate command, and in that sense, also, a menace to the full and free control of the lower Hudson, which the guns of the fort in part commanded at its narrowest point. Howe determined to brush away this last obstruction without delay. ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... saying, 'I am a ministerialist.' Men in office generally try to do their best, whatever their party. But men in opposition aim chiefly at thwarting all action, good or bad, and a parliamentary system gives the advantage to obstruction. Part of his vexation, he admits, is due to his disgust at the treatment of the codification question. Coleridge, it appears, had proposed to him 'months ago' that he should be employed in preparing ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... his boat again, saying he would send some men off to warp the vessel into the castle dock, as the fuel was required by the garrison there. As the barge was making its way towards the watergate, it struck upon a hidden obstruction in the river and began to leak rapidly. The situation of those in the hold was now terrible, for in a few minutes the water rose to their knees, and the choice seemed to be presented to them of being drowned ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... there may be some natural obstruction in singing birds while they are mute, and that when this is removed the song recommences, is new and bold: I wish you could discover some good grounds for ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... lane into a blind alley, but a narrow right-of-way passed along the side and round to the back where the street began again under a new name. The position of the place was quaint, and often it had been intended to remove the obstruction, but the owner, an eccentric person of great wealth, had hitherto refused to allow it to be pulled down. But the owner was now old, and it was expected his heirs would take away the building and allow the lane to run freely through to the other street. Still it would last Professor Le Beau's time, ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... articles may be in great demand at certain periods, and unsalable at others; but if there be a variety of articles, it can scarcely happen that they should all be at one time in the latter predicament, and on this account the operations of the merchant would be less liable to any considerable obstruction or stagnation. The speculative trader will at once perceive the force of these observations, and will acknowledge that the aggregate balance of the commerce of the United States would bid fair to be much more favorable than that of the thirteen States without ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... professionally, that the legality of the mode of fishing practised by your friend Joshua is greatly doubted by our best lawyers; and that, if the stake-nets be considered as actually an unlawful obstruction raised in the channel of the estuary, an assembly of persons who shall proceed, VIA FACTI, to pull dawn and destroy them, would not, in the eye of the law, be esteemed guilty of a riot. So, by remaining where you are, YOU are likely to be engaged in a quarrel with ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... rocks, one touch against whose jagged sides would rip the canoe into tatters and hurl you into eternity. Your ears are full of the roar of waters; waves leap up in all directions, as the river, maddened at obstruction, hurls itself through some narrow gorge. The bowman stands erect to take one look in silence, noting in that critical instant the line of deepest water; then bending to his work, with sharp, short words of command ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... resistance of a circuit including the spurious resistance due to counter-electromotive force. It may be made up of true resistance and partly of an inductive reaction, as it represents the net factor, the entire obstruction to the passage of a current, and not merely a ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... conceived as resulting directly from an increase of solar heat which the fire has magically generated; it is merely an indirect result obtained by freeing the reproductive powers of plants and animals from the fatal obstruction of witchcraft. And what is true of the reproduction of plants and animals may hold good also of the fertility of the human sexes. The bonfires are supposed to promote marriage and to procure offspring for childless couples. This ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... you'll have to pick him up again. It may have been through overwork or underfeeding, or it may have been all his own fault that he has broken his knees and smashed the shafts, but that does not matter. If not for his own sake, then merely in order to prevent an obstruction of the traffic, all attention is concentrated upon the question of how we are to get him on his legs again. Tin load is taken off, the harness is unbuckled, or, if need be, cut, and everything is done to help him up. Then he is put in the ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... liberalizing of the Australian constitutions is entirely a matter of time, but the direction is pretty well indicated. The length of each step depends mainly upon whether it is made with the goodwill of both Houses at a time when there is no urgent demand for reform; or whether it is affected by obstruction on the part of the Upper House; or whether, as seems likely to be the case in New Zealand, it is brought about by the apathy of the Second Chamber. I doubt, however, whether even Victoria has reached finality in its ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... from potentiality to actuality, the agent that caused this must be outside the thing. For if it were inside and there was no obstruction, the thing would never be potential, but always actual; and if there was an obstruction, which was removed, the agency which removed the obstruction is the cause which caused the thing to ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... sanctuary's light, and ye shall say, "He hath done all well." Join the end with the beginning, and behold they agree very well. Many things among us seem out of order, many things uncomplete, The reformation of England, how great obstruction was in the way of it? Is that now a perfect work? Yes, certainly; for if we knew his end and purpose, it is very well, and could not be bettered by the art of all men; "his thoughts are far above our thoughts." The prosperous ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... was not seriously alarmed, but felt that it was due to some little local trouble (as that the manager had fallen down the main shaft and was preventing the gold being shot out properly), and that, when the obstruction had been removed, Jaguars would go up ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... Constitution. Acting on these premises, as I conjecture, whether consciously worked out or not, Mr. Roosevelt's next step was to begin the readjustment; but, I infer, that on attempting any correlated measures of reform, Mr. Roosevelt found progress impossible, because of the obstruction of the courts. Hence his instinct led him to try to overleap that obstruction, and he suggested, without, I suspect, examining the problem very deeply, that the people should assume the right of "recalling" judicial decisions made in causes which involved the ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... no sheltering bar here. The only obstruction to the fierce onslaught of the North Pacific waters was the almost submerged legion of cruel rocks which confined the deep water channel. It was a deadly approach which took years of a ship's captain's life to learn. And when he had learned it, so ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... know that it need. Ye're an obstruction—the like of you—ye're in my path. And anyone in my path doesn't stay there long; or, if he does, he stays there on my terms. And my terms are chimneys in the Centry where I need 'em. It'll do ye a power of good, too, to know ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... beloved. And it is certain, reader, that to gain the affection of your fellow-men is one of the surest steps in the direction of success in life. To be too much concerned in conversation about yourself, your affairs and your opinions will prove to be a mighty obstruction in your way. Perhaps one of the best methods of fighting against this tendency is to resolve, when meeting with friends, never to begin with self, but always with them. But it is hard to crucify self! This mode of procedure, be it observed, would not be a ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... being wheeled in a perambulator. This apparently cynical avowal of the new premier's own attitude towards Home Rule accurately stated the facts of the situation, and fairly reflected the mind of the British electorate, after Irish obstruction had given them an opportunity of studying the bearing of the Irish Question ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... use, and avoid the inconveniences which might be attendant upon that use. A vote of the House of Commons, declaring a withdrawal of its confidence, has always sufficed for the purpose of displacing a Ministry; nay, persistent obstruction of its measures, and even lighter causes, have conveyed the hint, which has been obediently taken. But the people, how is it with them? Do not the people in England part with their power, and make it over to the House of Commons, as completely as the American people part with it to the President? ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... behold the active intervention of a superior though perhaps imprudent will, which offers irresistible obstruction to the intelligent will of a life. In the insect world such interventions are comparatively frequent, and much can be gained from their study; for this world being more densely peopled and more complex than others, certain special desires of nature are often more palpably ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... eagerly looked for; but the trouble of correcting the press, and the destruction of a theatre by fire which had been built under the poet's direction, did his health no good in its rapidly declining condition; and after suffering greatly from an obstruction, he died, much attenuated, on the sixth day of June, 1533. His decease, his fond biographers have told us, took place "about three in the afternoon;" and he was "aged fifty-eight years, eight months, and twenty-eight days." His body, according ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... survival of the last idea in the "Selections," and in Clause X. of the conditions under which, in 1873, the first leave to mine was granted by the Government of Mysore, it is declared that, "In the event of the grantee causing annoyance or obstruction to any class of the people, or to the officers of Government, the chief commissioner reserves the power of annulling the mining right thus granted." But such apprehensions, I need hardly say, have long since passed away, and certainly within my long experience they never existed ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... opportunity, and he was over the obstruction in a twinkling. But the fates seemed against him. Just as he left the top rail, it broke with a loud crash; and, feeling that everything now depended on his fleetness, he made his legs do their duty. ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... delayed the fliers until the main body of the pursuers came up; but the presence of the "Agamemnon" controlled the departure of the intended expedition from Genoa, upon which alone, as an organized effort, the projected obstruction depended. Thus she was the efficient cause, as Nelson claimed, that many thousands of Austrians escaped capture. As it was, they lost in this affair, known as the Battle of Loano, seven thousand men, killed, wounded, or prisoners. The entire Riviera was abandoned, and they retreated ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... extreme form, this slowing down reminds us of the obstruction of light as it enters the atmosphere of the earth, of the further impediment which the rays encounter if they pass from the air into the sea. In the main the causes which hinder a pulse committed to a cable ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... think that the peculiar form of it may be plainly accounted for from the shallowness and shelving of the beach. When a swell draws near to such a beach the lower parts of the water, meeting first with obstruction from the bottom, stand still, whilst the higher parts respectively move onward, by which a rolling and involved motion is produced that is augmented by the return of the preceding swell. I object that this solution is founded on the supposition of an actual progressive ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... this the good Pantagruel fell sick, and had such an obstruction in his stomach that he could neither eat nor drink; and, because mischief seldom comes alone, a hot piss seized on him, which tormented him more than you would believe. His physicians nevertheless helped him very well, and with store of lenitives and diuretic ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... very difficult for Macgregor to get a crew, and had he not been an astute man of affairs, great loss and inconvenience would have ensued. The local union was very strong, very active and intensely popular. All its official machinery was thrown into the policy of obstruction, and all its efforts were abortive, for the Hebe was towed out of port with a full crew in spite of a continual shower of stones ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... supporters of the See of Rome' in public and political affairs. The ultimate failure of their diplomacy and intrigue over the whole field of modern statecraft inclines historians of the present epoch to underrate their mechanics of obstruction, and to underestimate the many occasions on which they did successfully retard the progress of civil government and intellectual freedom. It were wiser to regard them in the same light as fanatics ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... earliest examples of canal navigation in the country. "But why", it may be asked, "did the need for cutting a canal arise when the river flowed up to the heart of the city?" The need arose in consequence of the obstruction of the natural waterway near Topsham, by Isabella de Fortibus, Countess of Devon, with the result that no ships could proceed beyond Countess Weir, at Topsham, 4 miles below Exeter. The first obstruction was placed in the river by Isabella de Fortibus, about the year 1284, owing ...
— Exeter • Sidney Heath
... their goods, upon any terms whatever, and this strictness was especially used with them in Spain and Italy. In Turkey and the islands of the Arches indeed, as they are called, as well those belonging to the Turks as to the Venetians, they were not so very rigid. In the first there was no obstruction at all; and four ships which were then in the river loading for Italy—that is, for Leghorn and Naples—being denied product, as they call it, went on to Turkey, and were freely admitted to unlade their cargo without ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... being some hundred and fifty feet; that from the same island to the southern shore, a league and a half. We passed also near a river large enough for canoes. All the northern shore is very good, and one can sail along there without obstruction; but he should keep the lead in hand in order to avoid certain points. All this shore along which we coasted consists of shifting sands, but a short distance in the interior ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... action does not start with reflection upon pleasures, or, for that matter, upon anything else. Action is fundamentally initiated by instinctive promptings, or the promptings of habit. Satisfaction or pleasure attends the fulfillment of any inborn or acquired impulse, and dissatisfaction or pain its obstruction or frustration. Apart from the satisfactions experienced in the fulfillment in action of such impulses, pleasure does not exist. Actions, situations, persons, or ideas can be pleasant to us, but "pleasure" as a separate objective entity cannot be said to exist at all. The Utilitarians, ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... spoke is about 400 to 450 feet long, and that on this occasion a partition about ten feet high was drawn across it, some 300 feet from the spot on which I stood, so that my voice had to travel all through the entire length of the building before it met with any obstruction, whilst behind me there was at least another seventy feet. The Press estimate the crowds at 10,000; but, that is an exaggeration. There would be 7,000, at least. I had taken the precaution to send an Officer to the ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... perfection, he who knows how to direct and to profit by it should be able to discover all that he desires to know for the guidance and preservation of his own life. He will be forewarned of every danger, forearmed in the means by which danger is avoided. For the eye of the true Pythoness matter has no obstruction, space no ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... rope. Before long the bight of this rope found the obstructing tubs, stones, warp, and anchor, and that having occurred, the two boats rowed close together, and a heavy iron ring was dropped over the two ends of the rope, and thus sank and gripped the rope at the point where it met with the obstruction. All that now remained, therefore, was to pull this double rope till the obstruction came up from the bottom of the water. And in this manner the articles which the Mary ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... the obstructive waggon. A dozen persons or so were between them and the yelling coachman. If they succeeded in passing the waggon there might be a chance of escaping in the darkness. But the onlookers crowding between the obstruction and the shops—there were in those days no pavements—were too much interested in what was going on to move, and the two found themselves wedged ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... registered, and subject to semi-annual visitation by public officers, who shall have power to remove any female who desires it. Concealment of any part of the premises, or of any person therein, false lists of the inmates, and any obstruction to the visitors, are to be punished as misdemeanors. Measures are also proposed regulating legacies made for ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... held at Spires in the summer of 1526 witnessed the strength of the new party, for in it the two sides treated on equal terms. Many reforms were proposed, and some carried through against the obstruction by Ferdinand, the emperor's brother and lieutenant. The great question was the enforcement of the Edict of Worms, and on this the Diet passed an act, known as a Recess, providing that each state should act in matters of faith as it could answer to God and the emperor. In effect ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... inconveniences, and made them adhere to it with insurmountable obstinacy, so that the captain himself, though he never changed his opinion, was yet obliged to give way to the torrent, and in appearance to acquiesce in this resolution, whilst he endeavoured underhand to give it all the obstruction he could, particularly in the lengthening of the long-boat, which he contrived should be of such a size that, though it might serve to carry them to Juan Fernandez, would yet, he hoped, appear incapable of so long a navigation as that to the ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... stop, and the burden which the latter was bearing had made it impossible for the other to pass upon the right-hand side. Three sturdy oaks, new felled, one of them full fifty swaying feet in length, all of them girt by chains on to the trolley's back, made a redoubtable obstruction. The chauffeur had taken the only possible course and dashed for the narrowing passage on the left. A second too late, the car had been pinched between the great wain and the unyielding bank, like a nut between the jaws of the crackers. But for the action ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... furious personalities, Lincoln's spokesman kept his poise. It was sorely tried by two things: by Sumner's frank use of every device of parliamentary obstruction with a view to wearing out the patience of the Senate, and by the cynical alliance, in order to balk Lincoln, of the Vindictives with the Democrats. What they would not risk in 1862 when their principles had to wait upon party needs, they now considered safe strategy. And ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... country, where the punishment of offenses was so forgotten or almost never administered. For that reason, and to lessen my grief over the execution by being farther away from it, I left the city and went up the river. The proceedings of Doctor Don Alvaro de Mesa, in procuring the obstruction of what he and his associates had ordered, were of such nature that some clamor might have occurred, had not the people been satisfied at the justification of the case, and had they not had some confidence in me, mixed with sufficient respect ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... preparing for departure when a party of gentlemen unconnected with the Gardens begged to see an experiment, and finding them able to appreciate his endeavours, he got up steam and started the model down the wire. When it arrived at the spot where it should leave the wire it appeared to meet with some obstruction, and threatened to come to the ground, but it soon recovered itself and darted off in as fair a flight as it was possible to make at a distance of about 40 yards, where it ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... corns and warts, there are all gradations to the serious tumours which, by their mere size and the mechanical obstruction they cause, destroy the organism out of which they are developed; while, finally, in those terrible structures known as cancers, the abnormal growth has acquired powers of reproduction and multiplication, and is only morphologically distinguishable from the parasitic ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... was clipped smooth on the belly, so that he wore a jacket and long stockings of brown fur, stand kissing each other in the wintry morning by the church-yard wall. Everything delighted her, now he was gone, the insulator, the obstruction removed, the world was all hers, in connection ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... the back of the Turk, he pointed the weapon downward toward his own breast and pulled the trigger. In most cases the bullet would have passed through both bodies, but, fortunately, the ball encountered some obstruction and did not reach the imperiled American. He shoved off the bulky form, which rolled over on its ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... Whether it were better, or more proper, to Begin with Sallets, or End and Conclude with them? Some think the harder Meats should first be eaten for better Concoction; others, those of easiest Digestion, to make way, and prevent Obstruction; and this makes for our Sallets, Horarii, and Fugaces Fructus (as they call 'em) to be eaten first of all, as agreeable to the general Opinion of the great Hippocrates, and Galen, and of Celsus before him. And therefore the French do well, to begin ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn
... which had been requisitioned and moored just inside the bar for the purpose, and here we remained while the gunboats went on to the assault; Admiral Hope leading the advance in person and hoisting his flag on the little Plover, which showed the way to the rest, moving onward to the first obstruction in the river, a long row of iron piles linked together ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... was soon cut up into city lots, and the man became a millionaire, but he got no benefit from it. Before he died, the chaplain told me that he became a child of God. It may not have taken him more than an hour to lay the obstruction on the railroad, but he was over thirty years reaping the result of that ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody
... pursued, in Peking as in Washington, a policy of his own, never disguised, and as little in harmony with his chief as with Hay; he made his opposition on fixed lines for notorious objects; but Senators could seldom give a reason for obstruction. In every hundred men, a certain number obstruct by instinct, and try to invent reasons to explain it afterwards. The Senate was no worse than the board of a university; but incorporators as a rule have not made this class of men dictators on purpose to prevent action. In the Senate, a single vote ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... he had stretched one hand towards Nellie; the other he had laid on his heart, where it seemed to encounter some sort of hard obstruction. This he vaguely fingered, wondering what it might be, while he gave his order to Barrett. With a sudden cry he dipped his hand into his breast-pocket and drew forth the bottle he had borne away from Mr. Druce's. He snatched out his watch: ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... lose a great deal of their time by laziness; they loll and yawn in a great chair, tell themselves that they have not time to begin anything then, and that it will do as well another time. This is a most unfortunate disposition, and the greatest obstruction to both knowledge and business. At your age, you have no right nor claim to laziness; I have, if I please, being emeritus. You are but just listed in the world, and must be active, diligent, indefatigable. If ever you propose commanding with dignity, you must serve up to it with ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... regards things of sense as made luminous by the spirit of which they are the envoys and the ministers. It is enough for him to declare his own creed which treats any intermediary between the human soul and the Divine as an obstruction or ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... at Santiago, but the fact that we had not a battleship in the home ports that could in six months be made ready to replace one lost or seriously disabled, as the Massachusetts, for instance, not long afterwards was, by running on an obstruction in New York Bay. Surprise approaching disdain was expressed, both before and after the destruction of Cervera's squadron, that the battle fleet was not sent into Santiago either to grapple the enemy's ships there, or ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... whistle-handles. One whistle is small, and very shrill, to warn people on the line, and to tell people the train is coming. The other is a deep-toned booming whistle which tells of danger perhaps, and when blown means "Stop the train, there is obstruction ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... it away. This turned out to be the liveliest time that I have had since we began fighting. It was very dark when we started off, the Comet leading, and the Shaitan and Sumana following. When we got around the head of land the Turks opened fire with rifles, but we steamed up steadily to the obstruction. The Turks were then close enough to us to throw hand bombs, but luckily none reached the deck of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... show no signs of menstruating. They are poorly developed sexually, through deficiency of blood. If, on the other hand, a girl should have all the symptoms of menstruation every month, but no flow, she should be examined by a physician to determine if there is any obstruction to the escape of blood. Total absence of any symptoms of menstruation extending into adult life, may indicate an absence of the sexual organs. During the first year after puberty it is quite natural ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... Raasay's followers, seeing his young chief treated thus, stabbed Murdoch through the body with his dirk. Mackenzie finding himself wounded, stepped back to draw his sword, and, his foot coming against some obstruction, he stumbled over it and fell ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... adequate to the occasion. His mind was too analytic to overload his sentences with ornament, and too definite to be obscure. He had the same aim in his style as in his subject matter,—to secure an effect with the least obstruction. ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... them blind to all its inconveniences, and made them adhere to it with insurmountable obstinacy. The captain was therefore obliged to give way to the torrent, though he never changed his opinion, and had, in appearance, to acquiesce in this resolution, though he gave it all the obstruction he could, particularly in regard to lengthening the long-boat, which he contrived should be of such a size, as, though it might carry them to Juan Fernandez, he yet hoped might appear incapable of so long a navigation as that to the coast ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... Act was to continue in force till the 1st of August, 1834. It led of course to many scenes in the House between English and Irish members, although the Irish members of that day, to do them simple justice, had not graduated in the aggravated system of obstruction they have since developed, and thereby earned for themselves the character of political nuisances. One of these scenes led to the sketch entitled Prisoners of War, which has reference to a serio-comic interlude, in which the ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... but because they condense the vapours by the effect of nocturnal refrigeration, occasioned by the radiation of heat from the ground, and from the parenchyma of the leaves. The mercury was at 21 inches 5.7 lines. We shaped our course direct to the eastern summit. The obstruction caused by the vegetation gradually diminished; it was, however, necessary to cut down some heliconias; but these arborescent plants were not now very thick or high. The peaks of the Silla themselves, as we have several times mentioned, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... gate was a large building, with houses on each side, dividing or forming a barrier between the High Street of Edinburgh, and the street in continuation still known as the Canongate, where the French troops were quartered during the Winter 1548-9. The building alluded to was removed as an obstruction to the street, in ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... while, having first sent notice by the messengers, I took advantage of the time, and ascended in my gig, without any great difficulty, above the obstruction they had been so busy throwing across the river during the night. The news that hostilities were to cease was not long in being communicated; and, by the time I had got up, the greatest confidence appeared to be ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... while walking, divide so as to pass an obstruction one on one side and one on the other, they will quarrel. Children avert this catastrophe by exclaiming, "bread and butter," which is a counter charm. On the other hand, if they say "pepper and salt," the quarrel is made doubly certain. So universal is the ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... in a voice that had risen to a shriek with the effort to make himself heard, when the crisis came. We did just touch a projecting ridge, but the wind, howling past it, carried us in an instant round the obstruction. ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... redoubt, the sappers and miners, who formed the first rank, attacked the abattis with their axes; but the troops, mad with long waiting and fretted by the galling fire of the foe, would not wait, and, pushing them aside, clambering, boosting, and tumbling went over the obstruction. Not pausing to form in the ditch, they scrambled up the parapet and went surging over the crest, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... prisoners had been rescued and stood together without the castle, while the yeomen ran through the apartments seeking to save from the devouring flames such valuables as might be found. They were soon driven out by the fiery element. The towering flames surmounted every obstruction and rose to the evening skies one huge and burning beacon, seen far and wide through the adjacent country. Tower after tower crashed down, with blazing ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... Bellmore. "You needn't try to save any of the boards," he added significantly to the cowboys who were destroying the obstruction. ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster
... rotundity and compactness so remarkable in the edifices of that little architect. Again, the regular nest of the house- martin is hemispheric; but where a rafter, or a joist, or a cornice, may happen to stand in the way, the nest is so contrived as to conform to the obstruction, and ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... the Cuirassiers of the garrison go away in the evening. The massive platoons of young-faced horsemen, whose solemn obstruction heavily hammered the stones of the street, were separated by horses loaded with bales of forage, by regimental wagons and baggage-carts, which rattled unendingly. We formed a hedgerow along the twilight causeways and watched ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... He knows not how, by force demoniac dragg'd To earth, and through obstruction fettering up In chains invisible the powers of Man; Who, risen from his trance, gazeth around Bewilder'd with the monstrous agony He hath indured, and, wildly ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... necessarily be subjected to modifications in order to meet changed conditions. If we stand still while Russia is going fast ahead, we are perforce left behind. The policy of drift, which we seem to favour, is bound to lead us to disaster, and when we couple with it inefficacious resistance and bigoted obstruction we cannot be surprised if, in the end, it only yields us bitter disappointment, extensive ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... crowd was close in, noisily depriving other bearers of their standards. The Internationale had become blurred and discordant, like a bad phonograph record. The parade still came to break and flow about the obstruction. ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... along the banks of the river, to watch the huge masses of ice which came floating down the stream. Sometimes they would glide calmly by, in almost unbroken sheets; then they would meet with some obstruction—either a narrow part of the stream, or a promontory, or a rock—and then they would leap and rush over each other, as if imbued with life, and eager to escape from the pursuit of an enemy. The rushing and crushing and grinding of the ice, and roar of the waters ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... to the factory. I had my pony saddled at once, and galloped off for the burning village. It was a long, straggling one, with a good masonry well in the centre, shadowed by a mighty peepul tree. The wind was blowing the fire right along, and if no obstruction was offered, would sweep off every hut in the place. The only soul who was trying to do a thing was a young Brahmin watchman belonging to the factory. He had succeeded in removing some brass jars of his own, and was saving some grain. One woman was rocking to and fro, beating her ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... far end of the frame, and totally enclosed in dust-proof casing. The set-on handles, for moving the belt from the loose pulley to the fast pulley, or vice versa, are conveniently situated, as shown, and in a place which is calculated to offer the least obstruction to the operative. The machines are made with what are known as "two heads" or "three heads." It will be seen from the large pressing rollers that there are two pairs; hence the machine is a "two-head" ...
— The Jute Industry: From Seed to Finished Cloth • T. Woodhouse and P. Kilgour
... The silvery globe stretched from the base almost to the tops of the trees. Slowly and serenely she climbed on her upward way, the tree tops now marking the line of her diameter; then in a few minutes she was free from their obstruction and hung above the earth a great, shining ball, sending upon river, forest, plain, and plantation a light so full and soft that one standing in it would become charmed by her ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... suddenly arose, evidently from natives whom he had thus accidentally disturbed. He nevertheless pressed forward amongst the reeds, and soon reappeared on the green hill beyond, thus showing us there was no obstruction, and the carts proceeded through. These reeds enveloped a small creek or hollow through which the floods of the river supplied the lake. In one part was a pool of water, and in another the bottom was so soft that the united strength of two teams was necessary to draw out the ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... the current of air running through the tunnel and blowing away the obstruction at this end," said ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... annihilation seemed at hand. The Spanish admiral now swung his ship around and started hastily back. Just as she had fairly started in the reverse course an 8-inch shell from the Olympia struck her fairly in the stern and drove inward through every obstruction, wrecking the aft-boiler and blowing up the deck in its explosion. It was a fatal shot. Clouds of white smoke were soon followed by the red glare of flames. For half an hour longer the crew continued ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... up and down the stream at the turn of the Maraposa golf course, Shag following at a discreet distance, and, after trying out several places had settled down under a shady tree at an eddy where the waters, after rushing down the bed of the small river, met with an obstruction and turned upon themselves. Here they had worn out a place under an overhanging bank, making a deep pool where, if ever, fish ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... cross-timbers, had been partly carried away by the flood. To make good the damage, a number of large schooners had then been anchored in the gap. On the morning of the 21st of April this formidable obstruction was cleverly and in a most gallant manner broken through ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... dredging, and a ship drawing thirty-five feet can now enter New York at any state of the tide. For ocean bars, the old system of taking the material out to sea and discharging it still survives, though a jet of water from force-pumps directed against the obstruction is also often employed with quick results. For river work we have discovered a better method. All the mud is run back, sometimes over a mile from the river bank, where it is used as a fertilizer, by means of wire railways strung from poles. These wire cables ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... of July, the Armada having completely refitted, sailed again for the Channel, and reached it without obstruction or ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... progress at the rate of a mile an hour was difficult. Along the north and east shores of Graham Island, I saw but little timber of sufficient size and in bodies large enough to warrant the erection of a saw mill. The smallness and obstruction of the streams and the absence of harbors, renders its profitable utilization difficult. There is but little of the yellow cedar or cypress growing in the forest ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden
... activity. For it must be remembered that the belt has a shorter rotation-period than the red spot, which, accordingly (as Mr. Elvins of Toronto has pointed out), breasts and diverts, by its interior energy, a current of flowing matter, ever ready to fill up its natural bed, and override the barrier of obstruction. ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... N. closure, occlusion, blockade; shutting up &c. v.; obstruction &c. (hindrance) 706; embolus; contraction &c. 195; infarction; constipation, obstipation[obs3]; blind alley, blind corner; keddah[obs3]; cul-de-sac, caecum; imperforation[obs3], imperviousness &c. adj.; impermeability; stopper &c. 263. V. close, occlude, plug; block up, stop up, fill up, bung up, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... Stream. Without doubting the influence of this natural agent, it is necessary to add the effect of a parallel atmospheric current to the oceanic current coming from the same region—a true aerial Gulf Stream. This great energetic current meets with no obstruction in coming to us, or to Norway, but passes over the level Atlantic without interruption from mountains. It cannot, however, reach France without crossing Spain and the lofty range of the Pyrenees, and the effect of these cold mountains in reducing its temperature ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... him, but immediately saw an all-important reason for the command. For we were now about entering the ice of the sounds; and as the boat flew in its midst, her stiff, tight sail drove her through the stubborn obstruction as easily and in much the same manner as the steam plow rips up the matted bosom of the prairies. In due season we reached the landing where we usually disembarked from the sounds, and where we found a wagon awaiting us, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... pleasurable high spirits into deep despondency, to exchange in an instant bright mental sunshine for cloud and gloom. All, therefore, must sympathise with poor Jasmine, who believing the road before her to be smooth and clear, on a sudden became thus aware of a most troublesome and difficult obstruction. She had scarcely finished calling down anathemas on the heads of "The Dragon" and his wife, and cursing her own folly for bringing them with her, than the inn doors were thrown open, and a servant appeared carrying a long red ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... high o'er Hell, that turns to a rapture Pain—and despair's murk mists blends in a rainbow of hope? What is beyond the obstruction, stage by stage tho' it baffle? Back must I fall, confess 'Ever the weakness I fled'? No, for beyond, far, far is a Purity all-unobstructed! Zeus was Zeus—not Man: wrecked by his weakness I whirl. Out of the wreck I rise—past Zeus to the Potency o'er him! I—to ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... divine rites at an altar above which fluttered the banner of the Holy Ghost. In a few moments the Christian fleet would have been at the mercy of the Moors, but Cytherea, beholding from above the peril of her favorites, hastily descended, gathered together her nymphs, and formed an obstruction, past which the vessels strove in vain to pass. As Gama, standing high on the poop, saw the huge rock in the channel, he cried out, and the Moorish pilots, thinking their treason discovered, ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... This obstruction soon caused the main body to swerve. Their solid front had been broken at last, yet they continued on as wildly as before, bellowing and horning one ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... with his august approval, the merchant's traffic was singularly free from obstruction; if the element of uncertainty was too pronounced for the apprehensive potentate, the most surprising occasions for the abandonment of his projects were developed for Ram Lal, whose intelligent mind was inclined to suspect the identity ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... the point where Hunter's Run crosses the road, the column was delayed on account of some obstruction in front. Working our way along slowly we presently came in sight of the trouble. It was a sea of water, covering the road waist-deep, in which men and horses were seen to be floundering promiscuously. A portion of the column succeeded in getting ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... modern Rome than the enumeration of particular losses [174] might lead us to suppose; the Renaissance, in its most ambitious mood and with amplest resources, having resumed the ancient classical tradition there, with no break or obstruction, as it had happened, in any very considerable work of the middle age. Immediately before him, on the square, steep height, where the earliest little old Rome had huddled itself together, arose the palace of the Caesars. Half-veiling the vast substruction of ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... to the Landed and Trading Interests. As so great an Addition of labouring Hands would produce this happy Consequence both to the Merchant and the Gentle man; our Liberality to common Beggars, and every other Obstruction to the Increase of Labourers, must be equally ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... balls of iron, flying through the air with a velocity which makes them invisible, would tear their way through the pikes and the shields, and the bodies of the men who bore them, without even feeling the obstruction. ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... carriages from passing along the front of University College Hospital, received a letter, with the signature of 'Rebecca' attached, declaring it to be the intention of herself and others to remove the 'obstruction called a gate' on the following night. Mr. Hill, thinking the matter a joke, took no notice of the circumstance; but, to his astonishment, early in the morning following the night on which the threatened attack was promised, he was awakened ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... impedimentum; literally, something which impedes or entangles the feet: hence, an obstacle, an obstruction. ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton |
