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Impediment   Listen
noun
Impediment  n.  That which impedes or hinders progress, motion, activity, or effect. "Thus far into the bowels of the land Have we marched on without impediment."
Impediment in speech, a defect which prevents distinct utterance.
Synonyms: Hindrance; obstruction; obstacle; difficulty; incumbrance. Impediment, Obstacle, Difficulty, Hindrance. An impediment literally strikes against our feet, checking our progress, and we remove it. An obstacle rises before us in our path, and we surmount or remove it. A difficulty sets before us something hard to be done, and we encounter it and overcome it. A hindrance holds us back for a time, but we break away from it. "The eloquence of Demosthenes was to Philip of Macedon, a difficulty to be met with his best resources, an obstacle to his own ambition, and an impediment in his political career."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Impediment" Quotes from Famous Books



... operations beyond the boundaries of the State exacting it because of the necessity of breaking up and reassembling long trains at the nearest terminal points before entering and after leaving the regulating State. The serious impediment to the free flow of commerce by the local regulation of train lengths and the practical necessity that such regulation, if any, must be prescribed by a single body having ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... struggles made by different nations, as they emerge from barbarism, to supply themselves with some visible symbols of thought,—that mysterious agency by which the mind of the individual may be put in communication with the minds of a whole community. The want of such a symbol is itself the greatest impediment to the progress of civilization. For what is it but to imprison the thought, which has the elements of immortality, within the bosom of its author, or of the small circle who come in contact with him, instead of sending it abroad to give light to thousands, and to generations yet unborn! ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... late Earl became a claimant, it was not known whether the descendants of Patrick, my father's elder brother, who had all emigrated, were living or dead; which circumstance, it was considered, would be an impediment to ...
— Notes and Queries, 1850.12.21 - A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, - Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. • Various

... point and emphasis were highly military. Our rate of travel was not, you observe, from five to ten, or from eight to twelve miles an hour, but exactly ten. That was the forker's motion, from which there was no deviation. If he was struck, his heels went up suddenly and very high, but it was no impediment. He evidently took the blow as a military order for a rear motion; nothing more, and no occasion for malice. Now, if any body wishes to know about the face of the country; how bounded, what products, etc., between Augustine and Picolata, I am unable to give the slightest information from any ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... good commodity for commerce; and the culture of it is attended with no difficulty. The only impediment to the culture of it in a greater quantity, is the difficulty of separating it from the seed. However, if they had mills, which would do this work with greater dispatch, the profit ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... by Mather, on all occasions, as marks of opprobrium, to stigmatize and make odious such persons. If they could once be silenced, witchcraft demonstrations and prosecutions might be continued, without impediment or restraint, until they should "come," no one could tell "where, at last." "The fallen Spectre of Sadduceeism" was to be the trophy of Mather's victory; and Sewall's letter was to be the ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham

... half-brother had seen Palmyre and loved her. Honore would gladly have solved one or two riddles by effecting their honorable union in marriage. The previous ceremony on the Grandissime back piazza need be no impediment; all slave-owners understood those things. Following Honore's advice, the f.m.c., who had come into possession of his paternal portion, sent to Cannes Brulees a written offer, to buy Palmyre at any price ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... act of Henry IV., the bishops were bound to bring offenders to trial in open court, within three months of their arrest, if there were no lawful impediment. If conviction followed, they might imprison at their discretion. Except under these conditions, they were not ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... 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

... d'Avora, on what course of life it was 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

... was no appearance of an interruption; but the first bar of the trellis, upon which he placed his foot, creaked and snapped. As the noise, so far as he could see, attracted no notice, he resumed his attempt, and reached the ground without any further impediment, ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic

... suspicion to revenge the descent is rapid. The French officer had hardly been admitted, than there were found among them some who condemned this action, and regarded it as dangerous; and there were some who even went so far as to say that his being a Frenchman should have been a sufficient impediment, and that, besides, at a time when the police were employing their best men to uncover all disguises, it was necessary that the firmness and constancy of the newly elected should be put to some other proof than the simple formalities they had required. The sponsors of ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... occasion during that campaign, fallen in such a manner as effectually to block up the way; and so narrow is the path, and so steep the banks on each side, that the army was absolutely delayed some time until this cumbrous impediment was removed. ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant

... crural canal being thus laid open on its inner side, and the constricting fibrous bands being severed, the sac may now be gently manipulated, so as to restore it and its contents to the cavity of the abdomen; but if any impediment to the reduction still remain, the cause, in all probability, arises either from the neck of the sac having become strongly adherent to the crural ring, or from the bowel being bound by bands of false membrane to the sac. In either case, it will be necessary to open ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise

... for pardon, as a concession to his desire for secrecy. Either he was too much absorbed, or his wrath was implacable, and a fortnight had passed without a sign. Would he seize this pretext, now that he had been elected mayor, to cast her off forever, as an impediment to his progress in the world? This doubt had so preyed upon her nerves that Miss Wycliffe was not far from the truth when she explained to her father that the maid was ill. But it was the vilification of her lover, to which she ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... since) when one side of the tree was scorched also; yet it has not only recover'd that scar, but thrives exceedingly, and is within eight or nine foot, as tall as the other, and would probably have been the better of the two, had not that impediment happen'd, it growing so taper, and erect, as nothing can be more beautiful: This I think (if we had no other) is a pregnant instance, as of the speedy growing of that material; so of all the encouragement I have already ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... the force that goes with it to preserve the old order. Legislatures and city councils all over the United States began to limit and forbid carrying firearms. The Constitution of the United States was held no impediment to this legislation. Gradually laws have forbidden the carrying of guns by the common man, and these laws are growing stronger every year. In many states robbery with a gun may mean life imprisonment, while the mere carrying of a revolver is a serious offense. The passage ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow

... 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 more delighted ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint

... reflection, that, in this, the present hour of comparative prosperity, yielding to no clamour—impelled by no fear—except, indeed, that provident fear which is the mother of safety—you had anticipated the evil day, and, long before its advent, had trampled on every impediment to the free circulation ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... fond of him; and having taken the thing into her head, she would not rest until she married him. They had their banns published at St. Clement's, and nobody heard it or knew any just cause or impediment. And one day she slips out of the porter's lodge and has the business done, and goes off to Gravesend with Lothario; and leaves a note for me to go and explain all things to her Ma. Bless you! the old woman knew it as well as I did, though she pretended ignorance. ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... endeavors to prove that we are indebted for all the advantages of our superior civilization, not to Christianity, but to natural science and skepticism alone. He represents Christianity as the enemy of science, and as the great impediment to the advance of civilization. These views of Buckle we regard as false and foolish to the last extreme, and we expect to be able to show that Europe and America are indebted for their superior civilization, and even for their rich treasures of natural science, not to ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... the very last moment, in the Ordination Service itself, the Bishop invites the laity, if they know "any impediment or notable crime" disqualifying the Candidate from being ordained Priest, to "come forth in the Name of God, and show what the crime or ...
— The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments • E. E. Holmes

... I saw the figure of a man, and what appeared to be an animal of some kind, coming across the bog with great speed, in the direction of myself; the nature of the ground seemed to offer but little impediment to these beings, both clearing the holes and abysses which lay in their way with surprising agility; the animal was, however, some slight way in advance, and, bounding over the dyke, appeared on the road just before me. It was a dog, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... 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 ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson

... over much of Siberia is a major impediment to development; volcanic activity in the Kuril Islands; volcanoes and earthquakes ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... be a natural defect, became at this crisis so wearisome to the two Cruchots that while they listened they unconsciously made faces and moved their lips, as if pronouncing the words over which he was hesitating and stuttering at will. Here it may be well to give the history of this impediment of the speech and hearing of Monsieur Grandet. No one in Anjou heard better, or could pronounce more crisply the French language (with an Angevin accent) than the wily old cooper. Some years earlier, in spite of his shrewdness, he had ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac

... deep canon with precipitous walls. This, however, was not a serious impediment, for the life feathers, as before, helped them to cross it in one bound. By nightfall the boys had arrived at a broad, beautiful meadow where lived the Wosakidi, or Grasshopper People, who received them ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis

... all might have room. The witches mounted these beasts of burthen or vehicles, and were conveyed through the air over high walls and mountains, and through churches and chimneys, without perceptible impediment, till they arrived at the place of their destination. Here the devil feasted them with various compounds and confections, and, having eaten to their hearts' content, they danced, and then fought. The devil ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin

... 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. In order to get all of the train carrying provisions out of the possible reach of a sudden raid by the Russian cavalry, it had to be sent miles back of us, so as not to interfere with the movement of the troops. This caused somewhat of an interruption ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler

... fell unheeded. Pushing her hands down upon his shoulders as though she would sweep some impediment from her path, she endeavored to advance. "Why is that man here?" she cried, indicating her husband with one quivering hand. "What has he done that he should be brought here to confront me at ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green

... for sentinels. Thus the whole line of the wall was every where defended by armed men. The whole number thus employed in the defense of this extraordinary rampart was said to be ten thousand. There was a broad, deep, and continuous ditch on the northern side of the wall, to make the impediment still greater for the enemy, and a spacious and well-constructed military road on the southern side, on which troops, stores, wagons, and baggage of every kind could be readily transported along the line, from ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... pure, high, 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 particularly those old human words, ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry

... the country at large is injured in two distinct and prominent ways:—first,—those articles which we can make in excess, and export, must ever be the chief means of absorbing the increasing capital and labour of the country; and the impediment thrown in our way, of importing those things which we have in deficiency, must necessarily check our power of extending the demand for the produce of such increasing labour and capital; and, secondly,—the price ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... male or female, of his minor heir, and which, if he derogated from immemorial usage, annulled his will like that of a private individual, his quality of suzerain and that of Most Christian, were for him a double impediment. As hereditary general of the feudal army he was bound to consider and respect the hereditary officers of the same army, his old peers and companions in arms—that is to say, the nobles. As outside bishop, he owed to the Church not alone his spiritual orthodoxy, but, again, his temporal esteem, his ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... continued, turning to Captain Stenning, "I have the power to press you. Under the circumstances of the case, I will not, unless I am forced to do it; but your friend will throw no impediment in the way of my getting any of the hands I may require. I will not detain you, gentlemen, and I wish you a prosperous voyage and a happy termination to ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston

... voice of the bearward that summoned him to Southwark. And when the chained bear, the familiar monkey on his back, followed the shrill bagpipe along the curious street, Briscoe felt that blood, not ink, coursed in his veins, forgot the tiresome impediment of the law, and joined the throng, hungry for this sport of kings. Nor was he the patron of an enterprise wherein he dared take no part. He was as bold and venturesome as the bravest ruffler that ever backed a dog at a baiting. When the bull, cruelly secured behind, met the onslaught of his opponents, ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... In any case he's coming on Monday for my answer. And that will be 'yes.' So you and Ralph can have your banns put up with a clear conscience—as the only just cause and impediment ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... of the web and ends at the ambush where the Spider lurks all day. Except at the central point, there is no connection between this thread and the rest of the work, no interweaving with the scaffolding-threads. Free of impediment, the line runs straight from the centre of the net to the ambush-tent. Its length averages twenty-two inches. The Angular Epeira, settled high up in the trees, has shown me some as long as ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... organization (in some respects singularly delicate) ought to have borne. Once in a long while the weary actors in the headlong drama of life must have such repose or else go mad or die. When the machinery of human life has once been stopped by sickness or other impediment, it often needs an impulse to set it going again, even after ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... longer time or patience for the luxury of a learned treatment of their interests; and a learned lawyer or statesmen, instead of being eagerly sought for, is shunned as an impediment to public business." —North ...
— Letters on International Copyright; Second Edition • Henry C. Carey

... can be the punishment of sin accidentally in three ways. First, when one sin is the cause of another, by removing an impediment thereto. For passions, temptations of the devil, and the like are causes of sin, but are impeded by the help of Divine grace which is withdrawn on account of sin. Wherefore since the withdrawal of grace is a punishment, and ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... Dr. Poole into this narrative because he was really the dean of the interesting group of men who figured in Field's Saints' and Sinners' Corner. Both Field and the venerable doctor had a slight impediment in speech at the beginning of a sentence or in addressing anyone. When they met after such a paragraph as the above had been printed, Dr. Poole would blurt out in the most friendly way, "O-o-o-oh Field! w-w-where did you get that lie from?" To which ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... have an impediment in his speech there was certainly nothing of that kind connected with his movements. He was known to be one of the smartest players on the high school nine; though tongue-tied, he could equal the swiftest player ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie

... Mrs. Huzzard, and turned around to face the speaker, who was an apologetic-looking stranger with drab-colored chin whiskers, and a checkered shirt, and a slight impediment in his speech. ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan

... is this: The married life, though entered never so well, and with all proper preparation, must be lived well or it will not be useful or happy. Married life will not go itself, or if it does it will not keep the track. It will turn off at every switch, and fly off at every turn or impediment. It needs a couple of good conductors who understand the engineering of life. Good watch must be kept for breakers ahead. The fires must be kept up by a constant addition of the fuel of affection. The boilers must be kept full and the machinery in order, and all hands ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver

... these dogmas of relationship are not merely extraneous to religion, but an impediment to religion. His aim in this book is to give a statement of religion which is no longer entangled ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells

... He moved to and fro with unequal steps, and with gesticulations that possessed a horrible but indistinct significance. Occasionally he struggled for breath, and his efforts were directed to remove some choking impediment. ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... iurisdiction, vnto the which the said worshipful Iohn Keele and Daniel Fillie by name abouesaid, with the ship and mariners of the said principall place or other, shall haue accesse, saile, and passe, and come safely with libertie without any disturbance or other impediment, that you giue leaue, and cause leaue to be giuen that they may passe, stay and returne, and when they please, depart, in such sort, that for loue and contention the said worshipfull Iohn Keele, with ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt

... out of breath, and it was impossible to do much running in his heavy riding-boots. The other man, on the contrary, appeared perfectly fresh; he wore light shoes, and had not a superfluous ounce of flesh to carry. He was all bone and sinew; the saddle resting upon his head was hardly an impediment to him. Lynde, however, was not going to be vanquished without a struggle; though he recognized the futility of pursuit, he pushed on doggedly. A certain tenacious quality in the young man ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... be passed by, although so overlaid by his genius as rarely to be noticed, namely, his love of humour and of wit, of which be possessed so large a share. As punsters, his dear friend Lamb and himself were inimitable. Lamb's puns had oftener more effect, from the impediment in his speech their force seemed to be increased by the pause of stuttering, and to shoot forth like an arrow from a strong bow—but being never poisoned nor envenomed, they left no pain behind. Coleridge ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman

... world—to Christopher Marlowe, by a knavish and ignorant bookseller of the period. That "Lust's Dominion; or, the Lascivious Queen," was partly founded on a pamphlet published after Marlowe's death was not a consideration sufficient to offer any impediment to this imposture. That the hand which in the year of this play's appearance on the stage gave "Old Fortunatus" to the world of readers was the hand to which we owe the finer scenes or passages of "Lust's Dominion," the whole of the opening scene ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... Sir! (Aside.) Stop! (Aloud.) Do you mean to say, sir, that if I should consent to this—suggestion—that, if the lady were willing, YOU would offer no impediment? ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte

... with a light air from the westward, and a boat in advance sounding, no impediment occurred after passing the sands extending off Observation Island, as a fine deep channel of six and eight fathoms followed the western side of Quoin Island, and the long sand stretching off its north end. When we had cleared this the anchor was dropped ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes

... happiness so absolutely in her, that I became almost regardless of myself. The ardent desire to see her happy, at any rate, absorbed all my affections; it was in vain she endeavored to separate her felicity from mine, I felt I had a part in it, spite of every impediment. ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... impediment to Mr Broune's progress. It was evidently intended to imply that he at least had reached a time of life at which any allusion to love would be absurd. And yet, as a fact, he was nearer fifty than ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... the quest—a python which any man might kill in the open without running any risk, and which a black boy, with time on his hands, would joy to eat? Yet I own that I was somewhat flustered, and not a little tired and bruised and angry, because such an impediment had had to be cleared from the track. Was there not cause for indignation? Why should a gormandising serpent, full to repletion, lie slothfully across a highway open to all, to the checking of a holiday-making mortal in lawful pursuit of a demon-protected crystal? ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... has led me to think, what a miserable business controversialists would make of it, if each had his opponent looking over his shoulder, pointing out flaws in his arguments, suggesting untimely truths, and putting every possible impediment in the path of his logic; and if, moreover, he were obliged to mend every flaw, prove every such truth a falsehood, and remove every impediment before he could advance a step. Were such the case, how much ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various

... self-excusing thoughts were as real to him as they had been at the moment he recalled. He accepted that reality as a proof, scarcely needed, of the already established shallowness of his own nature—a brawling stream always ready to rave round any little impediment in its path; a mere miniature of the torrent, with no resolute strength or purpose in it, but full of a fussy vivacity and self-importance which he could most heartily and bitterly despise. All his life long the ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... was a great mistake in itself, a great calamity to America as well as to England, a great injustice to many thousands on both sides of the Atlantic, a great loss of human life, a great blow to the real liberties of mankind, and a great impediment to the highest Christian and Anglo-Saxon civilization among ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... and wintry weather, the grand impediment to ventilating rooms by opening doors or windows is the dangerous currents thus produced, which are so injurious to the delicate ones that for their sake it can not be done. Then, also, as a matter of economy, ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

... 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, I had pointed out to him ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort

... have made for himself a lasting reputation had not his political exertions been checked by painful natural infirmities.' Though deaf from his sixteenth year and though labouring under a partial impediment of speech, he held high and important appointments, and was distinguished for his intellectual activities and attainments ... His case seems to contradict the opinion held by Kitto and others, that in all ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... his lordship thinks, there is some original impediment in the study of divinity, or secret incapacity in a gown and cassock without lawn, which disqualifies all inferior clergymen from debating upon subjects of doctrine or discipline in the church. It is ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... said to Phillis, "and note all that she feels; perhaps I shall find some way to repair this impediment, something that I may suggest to Balzajette without his suspecting it. Besides, it is reasonable to believe that the recrudescence of cold that we are suffering from now may have something to do with the change in her ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot

... making him so stout. The thin person has a similar grievance. Those who are too large and those who are too small are equally dissatisfied. The shape of an eye, the curve of the mouth, a blemish here, an impediment there, is the direct cause of poignant embarrassment. Organs or dimensions too unsightly and unsatisfactory are productive of continual worry and torment throughout our lives. The blind, the deaf, the dumb and the crippled have forever a curse for ...
— Tyranny of God • Joseph Lewis

... the Isle of Wood, which has so often given me hospitality, without expressing a hearty wish that the Portuguese 'Government,' now rhyming with 'impediment,' will do its duty by her. The Canaries and their free ports, which are different from 'free trade,' have set the best example; and they have made great progress while the Madeiras have stood still, or rather have retrograded. The Funchal custom-house is a pest; the import ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... also he felt that it would give him much more influence among the undergraduates, 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 of ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood

... but exercised a far-seeing intelligence in entertaining these doubts. Nevertheless, as they had succeeded in throwing off the Spanish yoke, and had, in fact, achieved their independence, Mr. Adams would not throw any impediment in their way. Trusting that his fears as to their ability for self-government might be groundless, he gave his influence to the recognizing of their independence ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... of Orleans angers you, and now You vent your gall on me, your friend and ally. What lost us Orleans but your avarice? The city was prepared to yield to me, Your envy was the sole impediment. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... him, highly interested. He liked to think that Helen had such a comfortable refuge to fall back upon, though by the time that old Miss Buchanan appeared he had reflected that so much comfort might be just the impediment that had prevented her from taking to her wings as he felt persuaded she could and should do. Old Miss Buchanan interested him even more than her room. She was a firm, ample woman of over sixty, with plentiful ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... repeat their lessons. The Rabbi went, and from that to another and another, until he had gone the round of a dozen seminaries, in the last of which he called up a lad to repeat a verse who had an impediment in his speech. The verse happened to be Ps. l. 16, "But unto the wicked, God saith, Why dost thou declare my law?" Acher fancied the boy said, and to Elisha (his own name), instead of and to Rasha, that is, the wicked. ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... do. Could it be the truth that Lily's uncle had not only consented that the match should be made, but that he had also promised to give his niece a considerable fortune? For a few minutes it seemed to Johnny as though all obstacles to his happiness were removed, and that there was no impediment between him and an amount of bliss of which he had hitherto hardly dared to dream. Then, when he considered the earl's munificence, he almost cried. He found that he could not compose his mind to think, or even his hand to write. ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... drawings and writings on the subject of distances and measurements. He was somewhat small in stature, but robust and beautifully made. His hair was soft and long, his eyes light in colour, his nose aquiline, and his skin pink and white; but he had a slight impediment in his speech. ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari

... grouping of the elements are such that he is a typical figure. Indeed, he is all type; which is the same as saying that there is nobody like him. And, mentally, he produces the impression of being all force; in his writings, his mind seems to have acted immediately, without natural impediment or friction; as if a machine should be run that was not hindered by the contact of its parts. As he was physically lean and narrow of figure, and his face nothing but so many features welded together, so there was no adipose tissue in ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne

... volunteers offered their services gratuitously to escort Charles to his crowning. At Auxerre, La Tremoille concluded a treaty with the citizens, which prevented Joan from taking that town. At Troyes he tried to create a like impediment; but here he was foiled, for Troyes capitulated. After the coronation, he persuaded Charles not to go to Paris, but to go instead to linger in his castle on the Loire; and thereby prevented what might then have proved a successful attack on the capital. And he again succeeded in thwarting the ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower

... some considerable impediment to this proposed exchange.[16] The commission to John Hull and William Chancellor to convey Mordak to the north bears date 21st of (p. 015) May; and yet instructions for a negotiation with his father, the Duke of Albany, then Regent of Scotland, ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... impediment to their plan was the continuance of the frigate on the coast. They were anxious to devise some plan by which she might be drawn off to another part of Ireland, or induced, at all events, to put to sea. Some of the boldest of the party proposed collecting a flotilla of boats, and ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston

... thumb—has been the source of the past prosperity, and will suffice for the future welfare of the arts and manufactures. They were of opinion that science is speculative rubbish; that theory and practice have nothing to do with one another; and that the scientific habit of mind is an impediment, rather than an aid, in the conduct of ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley

... a point in our insistence or persuasion when it is most effective, and generally it is much lower than we suppose. One degree above it is waste and impediment. ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford

... Partly it was the reception of his own artistic production that tickled him; partly the notion of his grave cousin as the lover of that girl; and partly Mr. Brooke's definition of the place he might have held but for the impediment of indolence. Mr. Will Ladislaw's sense of the ludicrous lit up his features very agreeably: it was the pure enjoyment of comicality, and had no mixture of sneering ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... contribute their canteen to the company pile. But then its weight was much less of an impediment than when they left ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... 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 divisions alone had prevented ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... cold like a matter of business. As far as I can remember it consisted of two declarations which Lord Raa and I made first to the witnesses present and afterwards to each other. One of them stated that we knew of no lawful impediment why we should not be joined together in matrimony, and the other declared that we were there and then ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... breakfast on cold food that had been laid for him the night before; and went down to the room of his idol for the box. The door was open; a strange disorder reigned within; the furniture all pushed aside, and the centre of the room left bare of impediment, as though for the pacing of a creature with a tortured mind. There lay the box, however, and upon the lid a paper with these words: 'Harry, I hope to be ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

... they must be treated with attention 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 ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope

... and transferring thought from one mind to another. Every symbol or phrase, like every gesture, throws the observer into an attitude to which a certain idea corresponded in the speaker; to fall exactly into the speaker's attitude is exactly to understand. Every impediment to contagion and imitation in expression is an impediment to comprehension. For this reason language, like all art, becomes pale with years; words and figures of speech lose their contagious and suggestive ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... is contrary to the Opinion of the most celebrated Philosophers and Physicians, who affirm that the fourth Climate is the most Temperate. Now if the reason which they give for this Assertion, viz. That these parts situate under the Equinoctial are not habitable; were drawn, from any Impediment from the Earth, 'tis allow'd that it would appear more probable; but if the reason be, because of the intense Heat (which is that which most of 'em assign) 'tis absolutely false, and the contrary is prov'd by undeniable demonstration. For 'tis demonstrated in Natural Philosophy, that there ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail

... much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores.[52] Nay, there is no stond or impediment in the wit but may be wrought out by fit studies; like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey

... Snow Hill they entered a region completely devastated by the pestilence. So saddening was the sight, that Leonard involuntarily quickened his horse's pace, resolved to get out of this forlorn district as speedily as possible. He was, however, stopped by an unexpected and fearful impediment. When within a short distance of Holborn Bridge, he observed on the further side of it a large black vehicle, and, unable to make out what it was, though a fearful suspicion crossed him, slackened his pace. ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... often heard that there have been Intentions of this Kind; and that the main Obstacle was the Difficulty of raising a Salary sufficient to support the Dignity, and recompense the Labours of a Bishop. But this Impediment may (I presume) with good Contrivance be easily removed; for I don't at all question that the superior Clergy and Collegians in the Universities would refuse to contribute half a Crown a Year for this glorious Undertaking, or that the Inferiors ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones

... discover some dishonour in this honourable lady (though the true cause was the loss of her dowry) left her in tears, and dried not one of them with his comfort. His unjust unkindness, that in all reason should have quenched her love, has, like an impediment in the current, made it more unruly, and Mariana loves her cruel husband with the full continuance of her first affection.' The duke then more plainly unfolded his plan. It was, that Isabel should go to lord Angelo, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... the conquests of grace are often hard to win. In the docile souls of the early sanctified, its task is easy. Into these, its inspirations sink as the soft dew into good soil; and with the same result. Finding in them no impediment to its action, no check to its liberality, it is free to pour out the wealth of its exhaustless treasury, and so it leads them from virtue to virtue, from height to height, even to the sublimity of perfection and the consummation of divine union, when, resplendent ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"

... they stood in view, relying on the strength of their position, and not on their valour and arms." But the walls of Carthage, which the Roman soldiers had scaled, were still higher. That neither hills, nor a citadel, nor even the sea itself, had formed an impediment to their arms. That the heights which the enemy had occupied would only have the effect of making it necessary for them to leap down crags and precipices in their flight, but he would even cut off that kind of retreat. He accordingly gave orders to two cohorts, that one of them should ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius

... affinity of blood in the brute creation, if not continued too long in the same channel, is no impediment to the perfection of the animal, for experience teaches us, it will hold good many years in the breed of game cocks. Besides, we know that Childers, which was perhaps the best racer ever bred in this kingdom, had in his veins a consanguinity ...
— A Dissertation on Horses • William Osmer

... performance, which he had carried through with skilful cleanness, contained nothing risible; for laughter it depended solely on a personal note of grotesquerie, of exaggerated bewilderment and impatience and of appealingly idiotic self-satisfaction when each impediment was discovered and discarded. Had he lost that personal touch, merely gone through his conjuring with the mechanical precision of a soldier on parade? Heavens, how he hated himself and his aching head and the audience and the lay out of futile properties! Elodie ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... ago, that this is the ninth occasion of publishing from this chair the banns between this institution and the public. Nevertheless, I feel bound individually to do my duty the same as if it had never been done before, and to ask whether there is any just cause or impediment why these two parties—the institution and the public—should not be joined together in holy charity. As I understand the society, its objects are five-fold—first, to guarantee annuities which, it is always to ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens

... from advancing, and he could only look on while Gwendolen gave scared glances, and seemed to shrink with terror as she was carefully, tenderly helped out, and led on by the strong arms of those rough, bronzed men, her wet clothes clinging about her limbs, and adding to the impediment of her weakness. Suddenly her wandering eyes fell on Deronda, standing before her, and immediately, as if she had been expecting him and looking for him, she tried to stretch out her arms, which were held back by her supporters, saying, ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... Tessarin by name, was more successful than Winterberger in winning favour with me. He was a typical handsome Venetian, with a curious impediment in his speech; he had a passion for German music, and was well acquainted with Liszt's new compositions, and also with my own operas. He admitted that having regard to his surroundings he was a 'white raven' in matters musical. He also succeeded ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

... cross cut high up in one of the pillars. I suppose he meant me to understand that the institution was there before the Turkish occupation, and I thought he made a remark to that effect; but he must have had an impediment in his speech, for I did ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... him documents that, if detected, might peril his life; involved in a cause that had for its object the independence of a nation; and that against the power of the mightiest kingdom in Europe. An hour earlier or later, an accident by the way, a swollen torrent, a chance impediment of any kind that should delay me—and what a change might that produce in the whole destiny of the world. The dispatches I carried conveyed instructions the most precise and accurate—the places for combined action of the two armies—information ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... mode of introduction. Two heads are better than one, and our hero called in a friend, to whom he 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 name, but of a very different ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... malversation the greater part of the population had risen in revolt. The movement against O'Higgins was led by a General D. Ramon Freire y Serrano, who gave formal assurances to the explorers that the political disturbance should be no impediment to ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... the "Consultation" chiefly; it rests on the following passages of Holy Scripture:—Gen. ii. 24; Matt. xix. 5; Eph. v. 22-33; John ii. 1-11; Heb. xiii. 4. No impediment being alleged, the Espousal or Betrothal follows. The joining of hands is from time immemorial the pledge of covenant, and is here an essential part of the Marriage Ceremony. The words of the betrothal are agreeable to the ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous

... extraordinary tact and readiness in encountering unexpected difficulty, and defeating an opponent by interposing successive unthought-of obstacles. In the most desperate emergencies, when the full tide of success was arrested by some totally unlooked-for impediment, Sir William Follett's vast practical knowledge, quickness of perception, unerring sagacity, and immoveable self-possession, enabled him, without any apparent effort or uneasiness, to remove that impediment almost as soon as it was discovered, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... Madame Delphine many trifles became, one after another, an impediment to the making of this proposal, and many weeks elapsed before further delay was positively without excuse. But at length, one day in May, 1822, in a small private office behind Monsieur Vignevielle's banking-room,—he sitting beside ...
— Madame Delphine • George W. Cable

... there should be any misconception between us as to our yesterday's conversation, I have put into writing the substance of what was agreed on between us, which I understand to be this: that there shall be no let or impediment to the Squire's full and absolute right of naming an usher in all cases of vacancy; that I shall have an equally full right to object to the said usher for any reasons that may be satisfactory to myself, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... contemplated gathering became a concrete fact. The Professor's friends were the first to appear at the rendezvous. They were unsteady as to their gait, their neckties were in disorder and their hair falling carelessly over their eyes, added a fresh impediment to an eyesight that seemingly was temporarily defective. They sank into three chairs regarding one another with a smile that gradually resolved itself into a frown. Then they filled up the pause caused by the non-appearance of the Professor by weeping silently. Their emotion was not of long ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 25, 1891 • Various

... any more of the frozen element within the ice. The effect was to form a vast range of natural galleries amid the cakes, that were quite clear of any snow but that which had adhered to their surfaces, and which offered little or no impediment to motion—nay, which rather aided it, by rendering the walking less slippery. As the deck of the schooner had been cleared, leaving an easy access to all its entrances, cabin, hold, and forecastle, this put the Vineyard Lion under cover, while it admitted of all her accommodations being used. ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... being overrun by immigrants from the Far East. Is it not therefore a fair question whether the maintenance of these old restrictions is desirable or politic? Swaddling bands, necessary for the protection of an infant, are an impediment to a growing boy. That question can perhaps be best decided by ascertaining the general sentiment of our Pacific States. My impression is that, with the exception of the fruit-growers of California and some others, they are strongly opposed to what ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin

... do what probably none of their race did before them; they perforate the wall of sorghum-pith, they make a hole in the paper barrier, just as they would have pierced their natural clay ceiling. When the moment comes to free themselves, the nature of the impediment does not stop them, provided that it be not beyond their strength; and henceforth the argument of incapacity cannot be raised when a mere paper ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... out of the narrow limits of the Greek world. You have pure humanity there, with a glowing, yet restrained joy and delight in itself, but without vanity; and it is pure. There is nothing certainly supersensual in that fair, round head, any more than in the long, agile limbs; but also no impediment, natural or acquired. To have achieved just that, was the Greek's truest claim for furtherance in the main line of human development. He had been faithful, we cannot help saying, as we pass from that youthful company, in what comparatively is perhaps little—in the culture, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... the memory of Father DePeneranda. He had very little to do with us—if I remember right he had only for a while taken the place of one of the masters of our class. He was a Spaniard and seemed to have an impediment in speaking English. It was perhaps for this reason that the boys paid but little heed to what he was saying. It seemed to me that this inattentiveness of his pupils hurt him, but he bore it meekly day after day. I know not why, but my heart went out to him in sympathy. His features were ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore

... exclude from all. There is, however, but the one. Shut out from the Sandwich Islands as a coal base, an enemy is thrown back for supplies of fuel to distances of thirty-five hundred or four thousand miles,—or between seven thousand and eight thousand, going and coming,—an impediment to sustained maritime operations well-nigh prohibitive. The coal-mines of British Columbia constitute, of course, a qualification to this statement; but upon them, if need arose, we might hope at least to impose some trammels by action from the land ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan

... as requiring for its accomplishment a closer uniformity of thought and feeling than was either possible or desirable among Churches whose greatest conquest had been a liberty of thinking. As between England and Germany, one great impediment to a cordial understanding arose out of the differences between Lutheran and Reformed. So long as the English Church was under the guidance of Cranmer and Ridley, it was not clear to which of these two parties it most nearly approximated. ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... servant who could not spell Latin was of very restricted use, it was not unnatural that Milton should look to his daughters, as they grew up, to take a share in supplying his voracious demand for intellectual food. Anne, the eldest, though she had handsome features, was deformed and had an impediment in her speech, which made her unavailable as a reader. The other two, Mary and Deborah, might now have been of inestimable service to their father, had their dispositions led them to adapt themselves ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison

... in their seductions than the pretendedly virtuous woman whose beauty is lighted by the sun of the world, whose style the voice of fashion lauds, and whom a halo of aristocracy gilds with enchanting splendors. To be a woman condemned to a painful and disgraceful punishment is no impediment to beauty, but it is an obstacle to the recovery of power. Like all persons of real genius, Milady knew what suited her nature and her means. Poverty was repugnant to her; degradation took away two-thirds ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... stayed for supper, too, and were very quiet. Miss Rainey struck me as a quiet girl generally, and Joe never talked, anyway, when in Hector's company. For that matter, nobody else did; there was mighty little chance. The truth is, Hector had an impediment of ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington

... advices from Paris warned him that a revolt would break out in the capital if he did so. He therefore resigned his position as commander-in-chief to Marshal Bazaine. He was coldly received in the camp at Chalons, and his presence with several thousand men as a body-guard was an impediment to military operations. He was therefore virtually dropped out of the army, and from August 18, when this news was known in Paris, his authority in France was practically at an end. On the same day (August 18) Bazaine's army was driven into ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... his feet and strung an arrow, but before he could send it singing, the old minotaur was mixed with a second soldier in such confusion that the first sentry hesitated to shoot lest he should kill his fellow. Another moment and a second soldier was struggling in the impediment of his armor in the dust and the old mute was again hobbling straight away toward the walls of Jerusalem. He was now a fair mark for the first sentry, but that Roman's rancor died after he had seen his own disgrace covered by the overthrow of his fellow. Two of Titus' scouts next stood in the ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller

... str-str-strangers?" said the Oxonian, after a violent exertion to express himself, caused by an impediment ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... word to all his forces to concentrate against Duffie. Duffie barricaded the streets of the town and prepared to hold it until reinforcements could reach him from Aldie, not being aware that there was any impediment in that direction. At 7 P.M. the different rebel brigades advanced on him from the direction of Aldie, Union, and Upperville. By sheltering his men behind stone walls and barricades, he repelled several assaults, but at ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday

... 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 ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... state of existence. It may be requisite, to that investigation of characters which we are taught to expect at Christ's coming. For it is the language of the text, and other Scriptures, that every impediment to the complete knowledge of each other, will then be done away; that no person's character will longer remain problematical. The hidden works of darkness will be brought to light, and the counsels of the ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee

... not be made to-day? In one of the largest laboratories of America, and within ten years, an experiment equally cruel, equally useless, has been performed. The modern defender of unrestricted vivisection distinctly insists that no legal impediment should hinder the performance of any investigation desired by any experimenter. It was the editor of the British Medical Journal who once declared that "whoever has not seen an animal under experiment CANNOT FORM AN IDEA OF THE HABITUAL PRACTICES ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell

... was waiting my reply with his eyes fixed on the ground. But the hesitation was soon over; I was almost pledged to Lafontaine, as a man of honour; I knew that Mariamne, however she might play the coquette for the day, was already bound in heart to the gallant Frenchman; and if neither impediment had existed, there was a chain, cold as ice, but strong as adamant—a chain of which she who had bound it was altogether ignorant, but which I had neither the power nor the will to sever. Still it was not for me to divulge Mariamne's secret, and I could not even touch upon my own. I escaped ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... years ago, 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 ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... romance and the sex feelings and customs of others in her ideas of happiness and right behavior. The cynical profligate, indulging every sensual urge, in so far as he can, must guide himself by the resistance of society, by the necessity of camouflage, the fear of public opinion and often the impediment of his own early training. Men and women start out perhaps as romantic idealists, enter marriage, and in the course of their experiences become almost frankly sensual. And in the opposite direction, men and women wildly passionate in youth develop counter tendencies that swing them into ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... [old] age shall be an impediment, he who shall summon [the defendant] to court (in ius) shall grant [him] a conveyance; if he (the plaintiff) shall not wish, he (the plaintiff) shall not spread [with ...
— The Twelve Tables • Anonymous

... violence against the state, or murder.[72] If she suffered punishment involving loss of civil status under any other law which did not assess the penalty of confiscation, the husband acquired the dowry just as if she were dead. Banishment operated as no impediment; if the woman wished to leave her husband under these circumstances, her father could recover ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker

... to which he bows-and takes his seat upon an elevated tribune. There is great solemnity preserved at the opening: the sheriff, with well-ordained costume and sword, sits at his honour's left, his deputy on the right, and the very honourable clerk of the court just below, where there can be no impediment during the process of feeding "the Court" on very legal points of "nigger law." In truth, the solemnity of this court, to those unacquainted with the tenor of legal proceedings at the south, might have been misconstrued for something ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... sustance then I will expresse, could not have caused me willinglie behold the eies of so many grave men weape at ones for my caus, as that I did, in tackin of my last good nycht frome thame. To whome, yf it please God that I returne, and questioun be demanded, What was the impediment of my purposed jorney? judge yow what I shall answer. The caus of my dolour and sorrow (God is witnes) is for nothing pertenyng eyther to my corporall contentment or worldly displeasur; butt it is for the grevouse plagues and punishmentis of God, which assuredly shall apprehend nott ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox

... and opened, as by a kind of dissection, those peccant humours (the principal of them) which have not only given impediment to the proficience of learning, but have given also occasion to the traducement thereof: wherein, if I have been too plain, it must be remembered, fidelia vulnera amantis, sed dolosa oscula malignantis. This I think I have gained, that I ought to be the better believed ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon

... moment he felt that, until the prisoners were given up, there could be no further negotiation. A notification was at once issued, that 'all English and French subjects were required to return to the head-quarters of their respective armies; and that if any impediment was put in the way of their return, the city of Pekin would forthwith be attacked and taken.' Even when offers came that they should be restored on condition of his withdrawing his troops, he refused to listen to such terms; convinced that any sign of yielding ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... little more than a 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 ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson

... was a small village here, and, while we were taking tea, a soldier came hurriedly down the road, who handed me a letter addressed in Chinese. I confess that at the moment I had a sudden misgiving that some impediment was to be put in the way of my journey. But it was nothing more than a telegram from Mr. Jensen in Yunnan, telling me of the decision of the Chinese Government to continue the telegraph to the frontier of Burma. The ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison

... sacrificial wood. Here on the banks of the Malini you may perceive the hermitage of the great sage Kanwa. If other duties require not your presence, deign to enter and accept our hospitality. When you behold our penitential rites Performed without impediment by Saints Rich only in devotion, then with pride Will you reflect, Such are the holy men Who call me Guardian; such the men for whom To wield the bow I bare my nervous arm, Scarred by the ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... and also endeavour to remove the prejudices which have prevented them from having a friendly intercourse with us. And further, we, His Majesty's Officers, &c. in Council assembled, having conversed with the said Jans Haven, and being highly satisfied with him, command that no impediment be thrown in the way of this his attempt, but rather that every possible friendship and assistance be given him, in order to promote a happy issue to his most Christian undertaking, as by this a great service ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous

... moist it may become, never imparts the same sensation of cold. The clothing best adapted to the climate is that whose texture least excites the already profuse perspiration, and whose fashion presents the least impediment to its escape.[1] The discomfort of woollen has led to its avoidance as far as possible; but those who, in England, may have accustomed themselves to flannel, will find the advantage of persevering to wear it, provided it is so light as not to excite perspiration. So ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... followed at a distance. He had made frantic, but ineffectual efforts to enter the cell; when the crowd dispersed he went up the stairs without impediment, and there he found his friend extended. He raised him, he bore him home with those sightless, bleeding orbs. He comes, Marguerite; hasten forth to meet your husband: let the light of your love bless him, for the light of ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various

... however wrong, is not an infraction of the Fourteenth Amendment merely because it is wrong. It is not for the Supreme Court to determine whether there has been an erroneous construction of a State statute or the common law; nor does the Constitution impose any impediment to the correction or modification by a State court of erroneous or older constructions of local law embraced ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... asperities of the mind, make the eye sparkling and lustrous; and, in short, do much of the very best stitching in the embroidered web of friendship and fair society. So that she finds abundant motive in reason, with no impediment in religion, to refrain from spoiling the merry passages of her friends and servants by looking black or sour ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... upside down if she wasn't there to do it or show us how—but she'd try to do things herself or insist on making us do them her way, and that led to messes and rows. She was excited now, and took command at once. She wasn't tongue-tied, and had no impediment in her speech. ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson

... fails—which is highly unlikely. Of course, a man under hypnotic compulsion or drugs is not considered legally responsible, so he cannot transact any legal business while he is in that state, but the checks are merely held for him until that impediment is removed." ...
— A World by the Tale • Gordon Randall Garrett

... was too well acquainted with the navigation of these straits to experience danger, either from the Scylla which lurked on one side in shape of a bucking tub, or the Charybdis which yawned on the other in the profundity of a winding cellar-stair. His only impediment arose from the snarling and vehement barking of a small cocking spaniel, once his own property, but which, unlike to the faithful Argus, saw his master return from his wanderings without any symptom ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... also diuers books imprinted, as it should appeare by the authoritie of the Church of Rome, wherin are conteyned many medecinall prayers, not only against all deseases of horses, but also for euery impediment, and fault in a horse, in so much as if a shooe fall in the middest of his iorney; there is a prayer to warrant your horses hoofe so as it shall not breake, how farre soeuer he be from the smythes forge: But these of all the rest are the fondest ...
— The Art of Iugling or Legerdemaine • Samuel Rid

... They also again tore up the track, cut down a telegraph pole, and placed the two ends of it under the cross-ties, and the middle over the rail on the track. The pursuers stopped again, and got over this impediment in the same manner they did before—taking up the rails behind, and laying them down before. Once over this, they shot on, and passed through the great tunnel at Tunnel Hill, being there only five minutes behind. The fugitives, thus finding themselves ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger

... must appear to be supported by the window-frames of the shops, although in reality they are based upon small iron columns of four and six inches diameter, which are scarcely seen, and which offer the slightest possible impediment to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 541, Saturday, April 7, 1832 • Various

... said, "What was your truest help and aid Impediment you thought to be— For art and method if you flee, Believe me, ere your life is past, This tumble will not ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various

... railroads to prevent the passage of the Stetson bill, was repealed entirely. The adoption of the amendment, would, had it been approved by the people at the general election of 1910, have removed every impediment which railroad attorneys claim to be in the way of an effective ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn

... respect there is a most grievous impediment to genius in later, or, as we term them, more civilized times, from which, in earlier ages, it is wholly exempt. Criticism, public opinion, the dread of ridicule—then too often crush the strongest minds. The weight of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... Island and British Columbia, and to the revenues of both colonies for the previous few years—that of British Columbia being most remarkable, having nearly doubled itself in two years (the imports in 1861 being $1,400,000, and in 1862 $2,200,000)—the noble Duke proceeded to say, that the greatest impediment to the future prosperity of the Colony was a want of communication with the outer world. He had stated on a previous occasion that he hoped to be able to state this year to the House that arrangements had been made to complete the communications between the Colony ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin

... and knobby places that appeared among the mud. This exercise soon made me conscious of the knapsack, to which I was then not thoroughly accustomed. It was not so much the weight that I felt, but the tightness of the belt across the chest, which caused pain and impediment of breathing. Custom, however, caused the knapsack to become even an aid to ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... in his opinion, that the author was no other than the same Lachlan M'Lean, but at the literary club the general opinion ascribed the letters for some time to Samuel Dyer. The sequel of this anecdote is curious. M'Lean, owing to a great impediment in his utterance, never made any figure in conversation; and passed with most people as a person of no particular attainments. But when Lord Shelburn came into office, he was appointed Under Secretary of State, and subsequently nominated to a Governorship ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt

... the sound of music which came from the lawn before the farmhouse. Bitterly he smiled, remembering that Wallace Banks had engaged Italians with harp, violin, and flute, promising great things for dancing on a fresh-clipped lawn—a turf floor being no impediment to seventeen's dancing. Music! To see her whirling and smiling sunnily in the fat grasp of that dancing bear! He would stay in this lonely orchard; SHE ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington

... or devil-priests, are sought to exorcise the demon. Although the more intelligent Singhalese acknowledge the impropriety of this superstition, they themselves resort to it in all their fears and afflictions. It has been found to be the greatest impediment to the establishment of Christianity; for, though the people without much difficulty become nominal Christians, they cling to the terrible rites of their secret demon-worship with such pertinacity, that while outwardly conforming to the doctrines of the truth, they still trust to the incantations ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... require and charge you both, (as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed,) that if either of you know any impediment why ye may not lawfully be joined together in matrimony, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... 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 it ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore

... great error consists in supposing that poetry is an unnatural form of language. We should all like to speak poetry at the moment when we truly live, and if we do not speak, it is because we have an impediment in our speech. It is not song that is the narrow or artificial thing, it is conversation that is a broken and stammering attempt at song. When we see men in a spiritual extravaganza, like "Cyrano de Bergerac," speaking in rhyme, ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton



Words linked to "Impediment" :   diriment impediment, barrier, block, handicap, baulk, stop, hinderance, tumbler, albatross, difficulty, hitch, closure, drag, construction, stoppage, bind, preventive, occlusion, obstruction, impedimenta, blockade, interference, deterrent, encumbrance



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