Sentence Examples:
There were few roads in those times, and these were laid out without much reference to distance; they went winding and crooking every way to avoid this hill, or that creek, or water course, or any other impediment which nature may have thrown in the way, and a blind footpath, or a line of marked trees, was more commonly travelled from one forest house to another.
While they are hailing him exultantly he sinks out of sight; an awful anguish almost stops the others, but Barney, flinging his musket and impediments off as he runs, leaps far into the stream, and when the rest reach the spot he has Jack by the hair, dragging him to the bank.
I proposed to join a village and make myself an inmate of one of their lodges; and henceforward this narrative, so far as I am concerned, will be chiefly a record of the progress of this design apparently so easy of accomplishment, and the unexpected impediments that opposed it.
The facility with which a man can divorce his wife at his pleasure, contrasted with her rights against him, is a still more serious impediment to the development of family life than the institution of polygamy; more serious, also, than veiling and seclusion of women.
I was always fond of the society of players, and am not sure that an impediment in my speech (which certainly kept me out of the pulpit) even more than certain personal disqualifications, which are often got over in that profession, did not prevent me at one time of life from adopting it.
He did not, indeed, scruple, while it was in his power, to entrust them with large sums, when there appeared a prospect of their future ability for repayment; but as this prospect not seldom failed, either through death or unavoidable impediments, his property was greatly reduced by such beneficence.
He bore it very gently, being indeed past the age to have his head turned by anybody's praises: nor do I think the exaggeration that was in these eulogies did him any ill whatever; while surely their generous encouragement did him much good, in his solitary struggle towards new activity under such impediments as his.
From the view which I have taken of these reports I contemplate results of incalculable advantage to our Union, because I see in them the most satisfactory proof that certain impediments which had a tendency to embarrass the intercourse between some of its most important sections may be removed without serious difficulty, and that facilities may be afforded in other quarters which will have the happiest effect.
The few roads of Galicia, which at best are in bad condition, through the constant passing of heavy artillery and wagons of all kinds following each other in endless procession through constant rains, had become well-nigh impassable, the heavy mud constituting an additional impediment to the marching of troops.
Whatever may have been the other impediments to a more prolific authorship, certainly one of them has not been the coldness of the approbation with which my efforts have been received, since my past performances seem to me to have met with an appreciation far exceeding their deserts.
It is obvious, however, that works of art for the removal of natural impediments to navigation, or to prevent their formation, or for supplying harbors where these do not exist, are also means of rendering navigation safe and easy, and may in supposable cases be the most efficient, as well as the most economical, of such means.
The impetuous current of modern life beats impatiently against that cumbrous solidity of peristyle which sheltered well in its day the serene philosophers of the Agora, but which is now the merest impediment in the way of modern traffic and modern necessities.
I do not speak of those which were made to presenting the law in the session of July last, for although no constitutional impediment offered itself, yet it was not strongly insisted on, because an early session in the autumn, would have the same effect; and the President, for the same reason, says that it might have been overlooked if an early call of the Chambers had been made.
Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives: I lay before you, for your consideration, a letter from the Secretary of State, informing me of certain impediments which have arisen to the coinage of the precious metals at the Mint, as also a letter from the same officer relative to certain advances of money which have been made on public account.
He had already heard of the misfortune; and he too, instead of being sorry for the poor creature, regarded what had befallen it, without being exactly ready to confess it to himself, as a convenient accident, through which the only impediment in the way of his happiness was at once removed.
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 of his clerical duties.
In making a just estimate of this utility, if we see reason to believe that these false opinions, narrow superstitions, gross symbols, have been an impediment to the free exercise of the intelligence and a worthier culture of the emotions, then we are justified in placing the unknown loss as a real and most weighty item in the account against them.
It is moreover probable that he anticipated the same gratifying impediments which had delayed the journey of the Prince de Cond?; and consequently his disappointment was extreme as he perceived the pleasure which Marie could not conceal when he mentioned his wish to retire for a brief interval from the capital.
From this there arise, in the first place, physical impediments which, during the best part of the female life, are absolutely insurmountable, except at a sacrifice of almost everything that distinguishes the civilized human from the animal, or beastly, and savage state.
The young men expressed their joy at the offer; but, after looking confusedly on each other, with some difficulty and diffidence, confessed their lives had been such as to preclude them from the profession, which, but for this impediment, would have satisfied them beyond their hopes.
Thus, while the Epicureans, urging men to study nature in order to banish superstition, endeavored to correct the ignorance of physical science which was one of the chief impediments to the progress of the ancient mind, the Stoics for the most part disdained a study which was other than the pursuit of virtue.
The savage cry behind soon told me that my pursuers had found their way to the beach: while at every respiration, the air escaping through the orifice of the wound, warned me that the strength by which I was still enabled to struggle through the deep pools and various other impediments in my path, must fail me soon.
We are all conscious of these songs we have tried in vain to sing, and we are confident we will yet sing them when the bodily impediments are swept away, and, as the earthly shadows lengthen, as the chill winds of old age strengthen, we more and more appreciate the wonderful expression of this thought, in that sweetest of all poems of the minor key, called "The voiceless."
The bridegroom instantly followed in hot pursuit; but the women who were stationed in each compartment threw every possible impediment in his way, tripping up his unwary feet, holding down the curtains to prevent his passage, and applying the willow and alder switches unmercifully to a very susceptible part of his body as he stooped to raise them.
I have been extraordinarily busy, having emancipated myself from the trammels of Jack and all his terror, and as I fear no serpents on horseback, have been daily riding through new patches of woodland without any guide, taking my chance of what I might come to in the shape of impediments.
Through the greater part of the stream, however, the impediments offered by the thick and small growth near the shores rendered this degree of minuteness impracticable and a resort to estimating the distances by the eye, well practiced by previous actual measurements, became necessary.
The excellent widow herself had a bad finger, which was a great impediment in administering the cooling beverages, but these were so excellent as to suggest the furnishing of a stall therewith for the thirsty, as something sure to be popular and at small expense.
We have, indeed, some reason to believe that the natives are desirous of throwing impediments in our way, since, notwithstanding they evince much quickness in catching words of our language, repeating the orders issued by the officers, and are also possessed of considerable power of mimicry, they shew little inclination to communicate their own terms or names.
All the troops were intermingled in a battle fought thus on a plain without impediments such as water or banks, and where both armies fought, each obstinately bent on death or victory, and inflamed not only with danger, glory, and hope, but also with the hatred of nation against nation.
It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the world, cut adrift from every connection, uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented by many impediments from returning to that it has quitted.
It was not a question of the power of the king, or the measure of an electoral circumscription, that made the Revolution; it was the iniquitous distribution of the taxes, the scourge of the militia service, the scourge of the road service, the destructive tyranny exercised in the vast preserves of wild game, the vexatious rights and imposts of the lords of manors, and all the other odious burdens and heavy impediments on the prosperity of the thrifty and industrious part of the nation.
There was a genial awe, mingled with a sense of kind and friendly presences about me; and I was glad, moreover, at finding so many of them there together in fit companionship, mutually recognized and duly honored, all reconciled now, whatever distant generations, whatever personal hostility or other miserable impediment, had divided them far asunder while they lived.
At length this stream was joined by two others coming through similar grassy valleys from the south; and when we approached two lofty smooth round hills, green to their summits, the united streams flowed in an open dell which our carts rolled through without meeting any impediment.
We met with this unexpected impediment in an open-looking flat near a rivulet I was about to cross, when I found the surface so extremely soft and yielding that from the extreme resistance a bolt of the boat-carriage gave way, a circumstance which obliged us immediately to encamp, although we had travelled only four miles.
Lincoln's nomination being an impediment in their way, it strengthened them with the convention, which, notwithstanding its seeming harmony in his support, contained many delegates who would very much have preferred nominating somebody else; but who, for lack of organized opposition, were compelled to vote for him.
It was a moment of proud satisfaction to the three associates, who, in spite of obloquy, derision, and every impediment which the distrust of friends or the coldness of government could throw in their way, had persevered in their great enterprise until they had established the truth of what had been so generally denounced as a chimera.
His intimacy with profligate women, and his habits of thinking, gave him a contempt for female endowments; and he would repeat, when wine had loosed his tongue, most of the common-place sarcasms levelled at them, by men who do not allow them to have minds, because mind would be an impediment to gross enjoyment.
It was here, indeed, that our voyage, as regarded its main object, may be said to have commenced, and we could not but congratulate ourselves on having reached this point so early, and especially at having passed, almost without impediment, the strait to which, on nearly the same day seventy-nine years before, so forbidding a name had been applied.
The surrounding country was extremely rugged, the hills divided by deep ravines and the valleys covered with broken masses of rocks and stones; yet the deer fly (as it were) over these impediments with apparent ease, seldom making a false step, and springing from crag to crag with all the confidence of the mountain goat.
It is much wiser to build fewer works, and to have them properly located, not with the expectation of absolutely preventing the ingress of the enemy, but to multiply the impediments to his progress, and, at the same time, to support the movements of the army which is to repel him.
The only real impediment to its acceptance by scholars of our race is that its attention to modern philosophy is rather partial, the French and the Germans getting most of the story, and English philosophers like Locke and Hume receiving scant attention, while Paley is not recognized.
Such as are idle beggars through their own default are of two sorts, and continue their estates either by casual or mere voluntary means: those that are such by casual means are in the beginning justly to be referred either to the first or second sort of poor aforementioned, but, degenerating into the thriftless sort, they do what they can to continue their misery, and, with such impediments as they have, to stray and wander about, as creatures abhorring all labor and every honest exercise.
Whatever reasons may once have existed for suppressing the poems that follow, the student of English literature is entitled to demand that the whole body of Tennyson's work should now be open, without restriction or impediment, to the critical study to which the works of his compeers are subjected.
The force of the shallowest stream was the force of the great river behind it, and wherever you put your foot, the current, on its race to the sea, annoyed at the impediment, washed the sand from under the sole of your foot and tugged at your knees and ankles.
This may, perhaps, be more from nature than from experience; but be that as it may, I know that the passion of love is an impetuous impulse, which violently distorts the current of the will, makes it dash furiously against all impediments, and recklessly pursue the desired object.
Here and there a lonely relic is discovered among the rocks, preserved by the invigorating powers of the mountain air; or a few sickly plants, half withered in their birth, grow up in some solitary valley, hidden from the intrusive genius of modern improvement and civilization, who makes his appearance with a brush in his hand, sweeping mercilessly away even the loveliest flowers which may be considered as impediments in his path.
If the primary and secondary planets have been formed by the condensation of rotating rings of solar and planetary atmospheric vapor, there must have existed singular causes of retardation or impediment in the vaporous rings revolving round Uranus, by which, under the relations with which we are unacquainted, the revolution of the second and fourth of its satellites was made to assume a direction opposite to that of the rotation of the central planet.
The Captain rode, and his military attendants walked; but such was their activity, and so numerous the impediments which the nature of the road presented to the equestrian mode of travelling, that far from being retarded by the slowness of their pace, his difficulty was rather in keeping up with his guides.
Browning's joy in imagining impediment and illusion was only another aspect of his joy in the spiritual energy which answers to the spur of difficulty and "works" through the shows of sense; and this other joy found expression in a poetry of soul yet more deeply tinged with the native hue of his mind.
The dress, the language, the fear of being singular, the discipline with its various restraints, the unwillingness of men to suffer where suffering can be avoided, these and other circumstances are great impediments in the way of an entrance into this society; and to this I may add, that applications for admission into it are not always complied with.
The scarcity of materials was a serious impediment to progress, but ornaments, which before the natives had held in high repute, were now parted with to purchase the skins of animals, which being prepared almost as soft as cloth were made into jackets, trousers, and gowns.
All the weakness in external relations, all the internal friction and impediment to progress, all the bitterness and pettiness of local politics, which marked the absence of union among neighboring colonies, also characterized the relations of Great Britain and Ireland in the eighteenth century.
This principle alone, therefore, would suffice to prevent the sober and discreet part of the colonists from rushing headlong into the various new avenues of profitable occupation that would be open to them; but there is also in their poverty a still more effectual impediment.
In the one, therefore, there is not only a necessity for having recourse to foreign supply, which does not exist in the other, but also a great prevention to internal navigation, arising from the sameness of produce, and the consequent impediment to barter, which must prevail in a country where all have the same commodities to dispose of, where all wish to sell and none to buy.
And he would put no impediment in the way of her staying there as long as she liked; he would arrange that for her, feeling himself very magnanimous as he thought of giving her permission to invite her mother to New York as a kind of protection against scandalous remarks.
Instead of the grinning features which she expected to see, she saw a motionless, unrecognizable face, contorted by an expression of unspeakable terror: and the eyes, invisible under the double impediment of the spectacles, seemed to be staring above her head, above the chair in which she lay prostrate.
To force such a consummation is impossible, and if possible would not be wise; but surely it would be a lofty aim, fraught with immeasurable benefits, to desire it, and to raise no needless impediments by advocating perfectly proper acts, demanded by our evident interests, in offensive or arrogant terms.
The moment, however, when the system which produced and ended this wretched class, ceased to exist, they became not only valueless in a political sense, but a dead weight upon the energies of the country, and an almost insuperable impediment to its prosperity.
Some time after they were gone I started from the encampment on foot, with the intention of choosing a track for our route next day, as well as of endeavoring to fall in with my former track in this direction; for by so doing I should be enabled to get the party on the good land without further impediment, and at the same time to complete my map of this part of the country.
This impudent epicure was so little attentive to the feelings of his brother guests, that in the hot bath he avowedly habituated himself to keep his hands in the scalding water; and even used to gargle his throat with it, that he might feel less impediment in swallowing the hottest dishes.
This "warming out" process is due in a measure to the parts becoming less sensitive upon exertion, and is to be seen, to a limited extent, in all inflammatory affections that are not too severe; consequently, in some cases, examination of a lame animal should begin in the stall, for in instances where the impediment is not marked, there may be no evidence of lameness after the subject has walked a few steps.
The professional soldier was of much service to the burghers so long as he was content to remain under a Boer leader, but as soon as he attempted to operate on his own responsibility he became not only an impediment to the Boers, but also a positive danger.
Alfred, however, attracted now by the impediments and obstacles which would have repelled a wanderer under any other circumstances, went on with the greater alacrity the more intricate and entangled the thickets of the morass were found, since these difficulties promised to impede or deter pursuit.
Major impediments to growth include frequent cyclones and floods, the inefficiency of state-owned enterprises, a rapidly growing labor force that cannot be absorbed by agriculture, delays in exploiting energy resources (natural gas), inadequate power supplies, and slow implementation of economic reforms.
In soldering, the edges of the metals to be put together must be perfectly clean, to insure which, as well as to counteract the oxidization which most metals undergo when heated, a flux is used which neutralizes these otherwise serious impediments, securing a firm joint.
The speaker then continued, again directing his discourse to Eveline: "By the appearance of your apparel, I should suppose you had not found the underbrush of the forest a very pleasant impediment to travel; your face and hands, too, I perceive, have suffered severely."
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.
We cannot precisely perceive in these an advance towards general regulations; and perhaps people were convinced of the insurmountable impediments which opposed the separation of open inland countries, where bodies of people connected together could not be brought, even by the most obdurate severity, to renounce the habit of profitable intercourse.
The proclamation authorizing restoration of State Governments requires the military to aid the Provisional Governor in the performance of his duties as prescribed in the proclamation, and in no manner to interfere or throw impediments in the way of consummating the object of his appointment, at least without advising the Government of the intended interference.
We have seen that all things are necessarily personified by animals, for if they meet with any material obstacle, they do not ascribe the sudden impediment to the impenetrability of matter, or to superior force, but rather to an intentional opposition to their aim or progress.
When men, engaged in unjustifiable pursuits, are aware that obstructions may come from a quarter which they cannot control, they will often be restrained by the bare apprehension of opposition, from doing what they would with eagerness rush into, if no such external impediments were to be feared.
The fourth cause for coming to this island and not stopping to discover more, which he would have very much wished, as he says, was because the seamen did not come prepared to make discoveries, since he says that he did not dare to say in Castile that he came with intention to make discoveries, because they would have placed some impediments in his way, or would have demanded more money of him than he had, and he says that the people were becoming very tired.
Restrained by this defect in the constitution from insisting that the evacuation of the western posts should precede the removal of the impediments to the bona fide execution of the treaty on the part of America, government exerted its earnest endeavors to prevail on the several states to repeal all existing laws which might be repugnant to that compact.
The assertion that the existing revenues, if not prodigally or corruptly wasted, were sufficient for the objects contemplated by the President in his speech, would constitute an ample apology for the impediments thrown in the way of a system which could not be directly disapproved, and would justify a continuance of the charge that the supporters of the fiscal system were friends to the augmentation of the public debt.
Such an operation would seem to be one of difficulty to us under any circumstances; but as the Susquehanna is a tidal river, rising and falling a considerable number of feet, the natural impediment in the way of such an enterprise would, I think, have staggered us.
Heartless and merciless, it has no sentiments of pity, sympathy, or honor, to make it pause in its remorseless career; and it crushes down all that is of impediment in its way, as its keels of commerce crush under them the murmuring and unheeded waves.
It is true that sometimes, having love for his trusty escort, who is double, and because sometimes through occasional impediments he finds himself defrauded of his strength, then, as one insane and furious, he squanders away the love of that which he cannot comprehend; whence, confused by the obscurity of the divinity, he sometimes abandons the work, and then again returns, to force himself with his will thither, where he cannot arrive with the intellect.
The progress symbolized above by the hunter who excites his dogs, is here illustrated by a winged heart, which is sent out of the cage, in which it lived idle and quiet, to make its nest on high and bring up its fledglings, its thoughts, the time being come in which those impediments are removed, which were caused, externally, in a thousand different ways, and internally by natural feebleness.
His Flemish realistic cast of mind and artistic power remained utterly unaffected by the grand Italian pictures with which he came in contact; so did his profound earnestness, which must have been great indeed, since its effects are felt through all impediments down to the present day.
This time, however, she either did not see the impediment in her way, or despised it, as, without abating her speed, she literally rushed through the gate, snapping into shivers with her chest the upper bar, which was luckily rotten, and clearing the lower ones in her stride.
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."
Ichabod, on the contrary, had to win his way to the heart of a country coquette beset with a labyrinth of whims and caprices, which were forever presenting new difficulties and impediments, and he had to encounter a host of fearful adversaries of real flesh and blood, the numerous rustic admirers who beset every portal to her heart, keeping a watchful and angry eye upon each other, but ready to fly out in the common cause against any new competitor.
Cried Bob, who had not the slightest objection to seeing himself surpassed; while the two Malays in charge of the guns and impediments on the other side stared at each other in astonishment, and in a whisper asked if the young chief had gone out of his mind.
There were also considerable difficulties in carrying on the trade in the places we were to visit, as both the Spaniards and Dutch were sure to throw every impediment in our way, their policy being to monopolize as far as they could the whole of the trade of these regions.
I must observe that on either side the walls of the outbuildings and gardens extended across the hill to the summit of precipitous cliffs, so that the Indians could not get round to attack the house in the rear without clambering over these impediments.
The first question which he asked himself was, whether Emily would or ought to marry a man whose father had perished by so ignominious a death; and, now that all other impediments to his making her an offer of his hand were removed, whether that circumstance alone would not be an insuperable bar to their union.
Consider the phrase of the marriage service, "if any of you know just cause or impediment": who can declare that, in a given instance, some impediment, moral if not legal, might not be brought against either contracting party, however trustful the other?
The different orders of books were to be kept separate from one another, and conveniently arranged; not squeezed too tight, lest it should injure or confuse them, but so placed that they might be easily distinguished, and those who sought them might find them without delay or impediment. Bibliomaniacs have not been remarkable for their memory or punctuality, and in the early times the borrower was often forgetful to return the volume within the specified time.
The difficulty and danger of getting the boat alongside now became apparent to the people on the wreck, many of whom had never dreamed of such impediments before, and their hopes sank unreasonably low, just as, before, they had been raised unduly high.
He raised his head, shorn of its branching honors, and, after staring about him, trotted quietly off amongst the spectators, closely followed by two well-mounted officials, termed, I believe, "flappers" by disrespectful sportsmen, but whose duty, it appears, is to keep the chase in view till it either beats them off for pace, or leaves them "planted" at some large awkward impediment, the latter obstacle generally presenting itself in about three fields.
Had such patronage been without effect, there had been reason to believe that nature had, by some insurmountable impediment, obstructed our proficiency; but the annual improvement of the exhibitions which your Majesty has been pleased to encourage shows that only encouragement had been wanting.
I have discovered by a long series of observations that invention and elocution suffer great impediments from dense and impure vapors, and that the tenuity of a defecated air at a proper distance from the surface of the earth accelerates the fancy and sets at liberty those intellectual powers which were before shackled by too strong attraction, and unable to expand themselves under the pressure of a gross atmosphere.
The colonel, hearing from the adjutant that he had questioned the boy, and that there was no impediment to his enlisting, passed him without a remark, and Edgar was at once taken to the regimental tailor and measured for his uniform, and half an hour later was marched out with four or five of the other trumpeters beyond the confines of the camp, and was there set to work at the calls.
While in the printing office he and another boy received a terrible flogging one day for laughing at a poor, unfortunate man, who had a very bad impediment in his speech, which being accompanied, with ludicrous gestures and grimaces, was more than their youthful risibility could withstand.
The literature which is pursued chiefly in solitude, is always the best sort: society, which cheers and animates men in most employments, is an impediment to an author if really warmed by true genius, and impelled by a sacred love of truth not to fritter away his thoughts or be tempted to insincerity.
Up to the last every possible impediment was placed in the way of trade expansion; and in former times, when worldly majesty and sanctity were a joint idea, the struggle with the King and his councillors for the right of legitimate traffic was fierce.
The very austerity, loftiness, and purity, which make him so reverend and inspiring a figure in the pages of the noble-hearted Condorcet, may well have been impediments in dealing with a society that, in the fatal words of the Roman historian, could bear neither its disorders nor their remedies.
She said there were two impediments, first his uncle, whom we have mentioned, who only kept him as a kind of servant, such as the English have, for the sake of vile gain; and, although he was free, and bound to nobody, would never speak a word of Dutch to him, so that he might not lose him.
In the latter, he sketched out with a master hand, when fresh from the object of his study, the practical working of democratic institutions, when entirely free from all the impediments which, it was alleged, concealed or thwarted their operation in the Old World.
For, witnessing the young man's popularity, seeing him so universally courted and welcomed, observing his manifest power of attraction, she began to ask herself whether she had not exaggerated the misfortune of that same deformity and the impediment that it offered to his career and chances of personal happiness.