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Obstruction   Listen
noun
Obstruction  n.  
1.
The act of obstructing, or state of being obstructed.
2.
That which obstructs or impedes; an obstacle; an impediment; a hindrance. "A popular assembly free from obstruction."
3.
The condition of having the natural powers obstructed in their usual course; the arrest of the vital functions; death. (Poetic) "To die, and go we know not where, To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot."
Synonyms: Obstacle; bar; barrier; impediment; clog; check; hindrance. Obstruction, Obstacle. The difference between these words is that indicated by their etymology; an obstacle is something standing in the way; an obstruction is something put in the way. Obstacle implies more fixedness and is the stronger word. We remove obstructions; we surmount obstacles. "Disparity in age seems a greater obstacle to an intimate friendship than inequality of fortune." "The king expected to meet with all the obstructions and difficulties his enraged enemies could lay in his way."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Obstruction" Quotes from Famous Books



... cardiac fever, and debility of the respiration of the lungs, should occasion frequent giddiness in the head, and swimming of the eyes, the certain recurrence of perspiration between the periods of 3 to 5 and 5 to 7, and the sensation of being seated on board ship. The obstruction of the spleen by the liver should naturally create distaste for liquid or food, debility of the vital energies and prostration of the four limbs. From my diagnosis of these pulses, there should exist these various symptoms, before (the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... nothingness of this book, from the sale of which "Pope Eddy" is said to have realized, a half-million dollars. Says this modern goddess: "The word Adam is from the Hebrew Adamah, signifying the red color of the ground, dust, nothingness. Divide the name Adam into two syllables, and it reads a dam or obstruction. This suggests the thought of something fluid, of mortal ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss

... avalanche upon the plains of Italy. Aquileia, Altinum, Concordia, and Cremona, yielded to his arms, and increased his forces. He then ravaged the coasts of the Adriatic; and, following the Flaminian way, crossed the passes of the Apennines, ravaged the fertile plains of Umbria, and reached without obstruction the city which for six hundred years had not been violated by the presence of a foreign enemy. But Rome was not what she was when Hannibal led his Africans to her gates. She was surrounded with more extensive fortifications, indeed, and contained within her walls, which were twenty-one miles ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... rolling out of the city, followed by foot-passengers in streams, who carry their most precious possessions on their shoulders. Others bear their sick relatives, caring nothing for their goods, and mothers go laden with their infants. Others drive their cows, sheep, and goats, causing much obstruction. Some of the populace, however, appear apathetic and bewildered, and stand in ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... all macadamized, and the principal ones lead to the railroad system of eastern Virginia through Snicker's, Ashby's Manassas, Chester, Thornton's Swift Run, Brown's and Rock-fish gaps, tending to an ultimate centre at Richmond. These gaps are low and easy, offering little obstruction to the march of an army coming from eastern Virginia, and thus the Union troops operating west of the Blue Ridge were always subjected to the perils of a flank attack; for the Confederates could readily be brought by rail to Gordonsville and Charlottesville, ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... 1869 to 1870), but Governor Baldrich was a staunch Liberal, and the Separatist phantom which had haunted his predecessor had no terrors for him. From the day of his arrival, the dense atmosphere of obstruction, distrust, and jealousy in which the island was suffocating cleared. The rumors of conspiracies ceased, political opinions were respected, the Liberals could publicly express their desire for reform without being subjected to insult and persecution. The gag ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk

... ways of God to man, and that the mere consolidation of liberty is like the motion of creatures whose advance is in the direction of their tails. They deem that anxious precaution against bad government is an obstruction to good, and degrades morality and mind by placing the capable at the mercy of the incapable, dethroning enlightened virtue for the benefit of the average man. They hold that great and salutary things are done for mankind by power ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... from Mr. Willy, that no vessels of that kind were to be had, indeed, instead of using every exertion to promote the cause for which Stibbs had been sent out by the company, Willy appeared to throw every possible obstruction in his way, as if he were actuated by a mean and petty spirit of jealousy of the success, which was likely to await him. A few days, however, after the answer of Willy had been received, a boat brought down ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... the rail-joints and the car began to rock threateningly. A small obstruction on the track would very likely have thrown ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr

... commands on men of such high quality that not even the Judges of Provinces may presume to look down upon them. The staff is therefore composed of men of the highest education, energetic, strong-minded[433], intent on prompt obedience to the orders of their head, and not tolerating obstruction from others. To those who have served their time in his office, he grants the rank of Tribunes and Notaries, thus making his attendants equal to those who, mingled with the chiefs of the State, ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... to be known or cured. His causes are inward or outward. Inward from divers parts or organs, as midriff, spleen, stomach, liver, pylorus, womb, diaphragma, mesaraic veins, stopping of issues, &c. Montaltus cap. 15. out of Galen recites, [2444]"heat and obstruction of those mesaraic veins, as an immediate cause, by which means the passage of the chilus to the liver is detained, stopped or corrupted, and turned into rumbling and wind." Montanus, consil. 233, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... I left Giannoli in Oxford Street, and made tracks for his lodging, which by great good luck I reached without any obstruction. I locked myself in, rescued a few papers of importance, burnt the rest, put his scanty personal belongings together in a box which it had been agreed I was subsequently to send Kosinski to fetch, and having secured his guitar, a silver-handled umbrella, and two or three other articles ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith

... pride at his feet. But—do you not see?—his heart must be left freely to its own decision whether to recognize me, because on his voluntary choice depends the whole question whether my devotion will do him good or harm. Except he feel an infinite need of me, I am a burden and fatal obstruction to him!" ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... earnestness and mother wit, however, Parliament refused to pass the bill (in 1825), and for the moment the engineer's vexation was bitter to behold. He and his friends plucked up heart, however; they were fighting the winning battle against prejudice and obstruction, and they were sure to conquer in the long run. The line was resurveyed by other engineers; the lands of the hostile owners were avoided; the causes of offence were dexterously smoothed down; and after another hard fight, in ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen

... permanent communication between the stomach and the small intestine when the ordinary gateway between these parts of the alimentary canal is obstructed by an irremovable malignant growth; between two parts of the small intestine so that some obstruction may be passed; betw:en smal' and large intestine. The operative procedure goes by the name of short-circuiting; it enables the contents of the bowel to get beyond an obstruction. In this way also a permanent working communication can be set up between the gallbladder, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... of the patrolman consists in keeping the surface of the road smooth by dragging, repairing chuck holes by tamping in fresh material of the appropriate kind, keeping the ditches and culverts free from obstruction, cutting weeds and repairing bridge floors if they are of plank construction. Removal of snow drifts is sometimes a part of the patrolman's duty, but more often that is done by special gangs. Usually the patrolman is authorized to hire teams for ...
— American Rural Highways • T. R. Agg

... a variety of articles, it can scarcely happen that they should all be at one time in the latter predicament, and on this account the operations of the merchant would be less liable to any considerable obstruction or stagnation. The speculative trader will at once perceive the force of these observations, and will acknowledge that the aggregate balance of the commerce of the United States would bid fair to be much more favorable than that of the thirteen States without ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... pleasurable high spirits into deep despondency, to exchange in an instant bright mental sunshine for cloud and gloom. All, therefore, must sympathise with poor Jasmine, who believing the road before her to be smooth and clear, on a sudden became thus aware of a most troublesome and difficult obstruction. She had scarcely finished calling down anathemas on the heads of "The Dragon" and his wife, and cursing her own folly for bringing them with her, than the inn doors were thrown open, and a servant appeared ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various

... Knowing he could not catch the black Pan cut across toward the wash. Then the stallion, seeing the yawning gulf ahead, turned toward the fence, and quickening that marvelous stride he made a magnificent leap right at the top of the obstruction. He cleared the heavy wood and crashed ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey

... religions treated it with contempt, and trampled on it without any dread of the consequences. By the time of his return from transportation, it was merely a dead letter, disregarded and scorned by both parties, and was no obstruction to either the marriage or the happiness of himself and his dear ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... without obstruction, moored his log among some bushes, and, when he was dry, dressed again. Then he went down stream along the shore for several miles, keeping a watch for landmarks that he had seen before. It was a difficult task in the night, and after an hour ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler

... liquid can escape vaporization and, consequently, combustion. Moreover, as the jet of petroleum is completely surrounded by steam its flow can be increased within the widest limits, and this, in certain cases, may prevent an obstruction without much diminishing the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various

... once he turned at right angles in the middle of the road, cleared the skirting fence like a hunter, and took a bee-line across the fields. Compelled sometimes to abandon it, he showed great judgment in choosing the place at which to get out of the enclosure, or cross the natural obstruction. On and on he went, over hedge after hedge, through field after field, until Clare began to wonder where all the people in the world had got to. Then a strange feeling gradually came over him. Surely at some time or other he had seen the ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... at the opening words. After about five minutes I was suddenly conscious of a sense of ease and relief, a familiar restful feeling in the atmosphere; and then, at last, I knew that my audience was "with me," that they and I were interacting without obstruction. Absolutely quiet, entirely unconscious of themselves, the boys and girls were responding to every turn of the narrative as easily and readily as any group of story-bred kindergarten children. From then on we had ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant

... Versailles, and by upright and inverted siphons. Of these three means, the first is the most imposing, but is also very costly; and, besides, the declivities as well as the arrangement of the ground are not always adapted thereto. The inverted siphon is subject to obstruction and choking up in its most inaccessible parts, while the upright siphon is easy of inspection, taking apart, etc. But, per contra, the latter loses its priming very easily by reason of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 430, March 29, 1884 • Various

... treachery to which they resorted in order to bring their conspiracy to defeat the law to a successful issue, is not overdrawn; and, let me ask, can there be any doubt but there are in existence at the present time plots similar to the one laid bare in this book, which have for their object the obstruction of the Scott Act in the counties where it has been or may be carried, thus if possible to bring it into such contempt among the unthoughtful, who will not examine back of the effect for the cause, ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter

... nothing very cogent to say, but the dentist felt an impalpable obstruction of will, unintelligible and persistent. His enthusiasm grew as he perfected the details of his plan. It was a new kind of scheme, in which he took the artistic delight of the incorrigible promoter. His imagination ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... if endued with supernatural speed, gliding from place to place, from street to street; with no consciousness of any plan, and following no other direction than that of darting forward where-ever there was most room, and turning back when she met with any obstruction; till quite spent and exhausted, she abruptly ran into a yet open shop, where, breathless and panting, she sunk upon the floor, and, with a look disconsolate and helpless, sat for some time ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... their future labors, and thither they repaired. The dangers that encompassed their new residence were such as in the presence of which even stout hearts might have been excused for quailing. The mission-house was a slight structure of bamboos, constituting scarcely any obstruction to assailants disposed to effect an entrance, and in such close proximity to the jungle that the slumbers of the missionaries were frequently disturbed by the howling of the wild beasts, whose lairs had so recently given place to human habitations. Maulmain was then a new ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster

... meeting is announced to come off in London, as a demonstration in favour of a Fenian "amnesty." No doubt its numbers and importance are ridiculously over-estimated, but I believe the gathering will turn out to be big enough to be a very serious obstruction in the London streets. I have a great doubt whether such demonstrations ought to be allowed. They are bad as a precedent, and they unquestionably interfere with the general liberty and ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens

... the channel be completely stopped up and all the water evaporated, there remains a bell-shaped basin as even as if excavated by the hand of man. The water now seeks a fresh outlet, and bursts forth where it meets with the least obstruction, without destroying the beautiful cone it has already erected. Many such examples exist. In the largest cones, however, the vapors generated acquire such power that, when the outlet is completely stopped up, they break up the overlying crust ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... ancient, and is so old and familiar an acquaintance, that Truth, when discovered, comes upon most of us like an intruder, and meets the intruder's welcome. We all pay an involuntary homage to antiquity — a "blind homage," as Bacon calls it in his "Novum Organum," which tends greatly to the obstruction of truth. To the great majority of mortal eyes, Time sanctifies everything that he does not destroy. The mere fact of anything being spared by the great foe makes it a favourite with us, who are sure to fall his victims. To call a prejudice ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... pleasure as the chess-master when confronted with a problem requiring all the efforts of his skill and experience to solve. To advance along smooth and pleasant paths, to encounter no obstacles, to wrestle with no difficulties and hardships—such has absolutely no fascination to him. He meets obstruction with the keen delight of a strong man battling with the waves and opposing them in sheer enjoyment, and the greater and more apparently overwhelming the forces that may tend to sweep him back, the more vigorous his own efforts to forge ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... dug a fair-sized hole when, unexpectedly, the further side of the grave caved in. I swore under my breath at this brilliant result of my efforts, and, with the intention of clearing away the rubble, thrust my spade deep into the loose earth. It met with a solid obstruction, something that seemed to me like the root of a tree, or——At that I stopped dead. Could it be possible that I had struck the foundation of ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh

... I did not intend to wait for my jailer's return. We discussed the best way for me to slip out, without obstruction from the servants, and I decided to take advantage of the superstition of the Russian illiterate class, by enacting the part ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward

... we cram the mind of a child with facts that have nothing to do with his own experiences, and have no relation to his own dynamic activity? Let us realize that every extraneous idea effectually introduced into a man's mind is a direct obstruction of his dynamic activity. Every idea which is introduced from outside into a man's mind, and which does not correspond to his own dynamic nature, is a fatal stumbling-block for that man: is a cause of arrest for his true individual activity, and ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence

... sense as made luminous by the spirit of which they are the envoys and the ministers. It is enough for him to declare his own creed which treats any intermediary between the human soul and the Divine as an obstruction or ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... An obstruction of some kind had impeded the turning of the shaft in the "outboard bearing," which had grown dangerously hot. It was this that had caused the "slowing down" of the engine, which could not be set working again till the impediment was ...
— Harper's Young People, March 30, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... seemed hours. Suddenly there was another flash, a stunning report, the air was filled with debris, and a great breach opened in the barricade. The Cossacks had used explosives to clear away the obstruction. Next instant they ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux

... demands double the usual, and like all other muscles of the body it becomes larger and stronger by increased work. The condition here is much simpler than when the same valve is incapable of perfect closure, or when both obstruction and imperfect closure, are combined as they not infrequently are. In such cases the ventricle must do more than in the first case. It must force through the orifice, which may be narrowed, the amount of blood which is necessary to keep up the pressure within the aorta and give to ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman

... concentrates his attention upon it, is able to look outwards and to gaze upon Reality. The soul is capable of this because in essence it is one with Brahman, the universal soul. The apparent separation is an illusion wrought by matter. Hence, to the Hindu, matter is an obstruction and a deception, and the Eastern mystic despises and rejects and subdues all that is material, and bends all his faculties on realising his spiritual consciousness, and ...
— Mysticism in English Literature • Caroline F. E. Spurgeon

... weather clear, and the wind from N.W. The obstruction above gave way this morning, and the ice came down in great quantities; the river having fallen eleven inches in the course of the last twenty-four hours. We have had few Indians at the fort for the last three or four days, as they are now busy in catching the floating ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... breathless silence of thousands, surrounded by the dignitaries of state and three personal friends, Hamilton, Steuben, and Knox. The anti-Federalists were crushed, no longer of dignity as a party, although with ample resources for obstruction and annoyance. The country, after an interval of rejoicing, had settled down to another period of hope ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... passed and then the force of the water seemed to drive him upward. There was now no turning back, and holding his breath with difficulty, he swam on and on, rising steadily until his head struck an iron obstruction. He put up his hands and found that it was a grating. Opening his eyes he made out that the grating was less than three inches from the surface of the river. Beyond he could see the open sky and the ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele

... Unity of command is as necessary now in civil action as it is upon the field of battle. If the control of the House and Senate should be taken away from the party now in power, an opposing majority could assume control of legislation and oblige all action to be taken amidst contest and obstruction. ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty

... paper was full of vile hairs, which the pen kept getting into its mouth—enough to ruin the goodwill of any pen. Yet all the circumstances of the room seemed luckily placed for work to flow with ease; but there was some mysterious and inimical obstruction. The fire was bright and lively, the familiar objects about the table appeared to be in their right place. Again I examined the gods of the table to be sure one had not by mischance broken the magic circle and interrupted the current of favour for me. They were rightly orientated—that ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson

... set out with the deliberate intention of making Ireland stink in the nostrils of the respectable English gentlemen who thronged the benches of the finest club in London, the protest against misgovernment would have taken the form of violence in Ireland and not of obstruction in the House of Commons. The orderly debates of Butt's time were as unproductive in showing the Irish representatives to be in earnest as were the wholesale suspensions of the later regime profitable, and if proof of this be needed it is ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell

... injection of morphine, upon the promise of stopping there. No, before beginning he must set at work some power outside himself which should be operative even against his will; which should be as final as death itself. Until to-night this had seemed an impossibility. Now, with that chief obstruction removed, he had but to consider the ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... form, this slowing down reminds us of the obstruction of light as it enters the atmosphere of the earth, of the further impediment which the rays encounter if they pass from the air into the sea. In the main the causes which hinder a pulse committed to a cable are two: induction, and the electrostatic capacity of the wire, ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various

... interior," continued our hero, "and returning to the coast, I visited various towns in order to observe the state of the slaves in the Portuguese settlements, and, truly, what I saw was most deplorable—demoralisation and cruelty, and the obstruction of lawful trade, prevailed everywhere. The settlements are to my mind a very pandemonium on earth. Every one seemed to me more or less affected by the accursed atmosphere that prevails. Of course there must be some exceptions. I met with one, at the last town I visited, ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne

... dead mouse is the result. The object of the auger hole in the lower board consists in affording a receptacle for the bait when the boards come together, as otherwise it would defeat its object, by offering an obstruction to the fall of the board, and thus allow its ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson

... the Cuirassiers of the garrison go away in the evening. The massive platoons of young-faced horsemen, whose solemn obstruction heavily hammered the stones of the street, were separated by horses loaded with bales of forage, by regimental wagons and baggage-carts, which rattled unendingly. We formed a hedgerow along the twilight causeways and watched them all disappear. Suddenly we cheered ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse

... missionary work is dictated by the Roman Catholic Church and is therefore hostile to Protestants, while the Russian Greek Church tolerates no other form of religion that it can repress. A recent traveller reports that Russia has put every possible obstruction in the way of reopening the mission stations that were abandoned during the Boxer outbreak. She has already put Manchuria under the Greek archimandrite of Peking, and has sought to limit all Christian teaching to the members of the Orthodox Greek Church. It is significant ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN

... below appeared the tracking crew, slipping in the ooze, scrambling over fallen trunks, plunging through willows. Behind them trailed the long, thin line that must be kept taut, whatever the obstruction. Finally the York boat poked its nose lazily into view ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner

... the very life of the colonies had, by 1700, become an almost unquestioned axiom in British practical economics. The colonists themselves declared slaves "the strength and sinews of this western world,"[12] and the lack of them "the grand obstruction"[13] here, as the settlements "cannot subsist without supplies of them."[14] Thus, with merchants clamoring at home and planters abroad, it easily became the settled policy of England to encourage the slave-trade. Then, too, she readily argued that what was an economic necessity ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois

... groaned a moorland brook close by, which grumbled at some obstruction in its pathway, and then sighed over its mossy bed, like a tired child emerging exhausted from a long fever, to fall asleep as deeply as if the seal of death had been planted upon the little lips. Occasionally he shifted his position, as his ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh

... adverse to it. That liberty was found, under monarchies styled absolute, in a degree unknown to the ancient commonwealths. From hence the powers of all our modern states meet, in all their movements, with some obstruction. It is therefore no wonder, that, when these states are to be considered as machines to operate for some one great end, this dissipated and balanced force is not easily concentrated, or made to bear with the whole force of ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... be said to cease. In practice these gauges have always been arbitrary. The upper reaches of a river may present sufficient depth but too fast a current, or they may be too narrow, or the curves may be too rapid, or the obstruction of rocks too common, for any sort of navigation, although the depth of ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc

... firm-set earth, and the majestically-fretted vault of heaven, with its planets, stars, and galaxies. It takes a special education to reconcile any one to this theory. Even if it were everything that a scientific hypothesis should be, the previously established modes of speech would be a permanent obstruction to its being received as the ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain

... speak of a stream as clear when we think of the water itself; we speak of it as transparent with reference to the ease with which we see the pebbles at the bottom. Clear is also said of that which comes to the senses without dimness, dulness, obstruction, or obscurity, so that there is no uncertainty as to its exact form, character, or meaning, with something of the brightness or brilliancy implied in the primary meaning of the word clear; as, the outlines of the ship were clear ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... mother-abbess. He was, however, surprised to see them have much better shoes and stockings than women of that rank generally wear, and that the little orange girl, in getting out of a very high coach, showed one of the handsomest legs he had ever seen: but as all this was no obstruction to his designs, he resolved to purchase her at any rate, in order to place her ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... destined to break the vicious circle wherein the Revolution was revolving and going to pieces. The power had to be snatched from the hands of the elements which were directly or indirectly serving the bourgeoisie and making use of the state apparatus as a tool of obstruction against the revolutionary ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky

... appetite, impetuous and unrestrained either by cultivation of manners, or precepts of morality; and almost every opportunity which fell in their way, prompted them to satisfy that appetite by force, and to revenge the obstruction of it by murder. When they became a more civilized people, they shone much more illustriously in arts and in arms, than in delicacy of sentiment and elegance of manners: hence we shall find, that their method of making love was more directed to compel ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... Why should he not live the same life as the others? He was ready, even eager, to plunge into it. But the block in the traffic continued, he could not cross the road; and while he stood there hesitation and doubt came upon him. He saw in that increasing obstruction a deliberate obstacle to his wild design. And all at once the image of Seraphine faded from before his mind's eye and he beheld another, his wife, his dear wife Marianne, awaiting him, all smiles and trustfulness, ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... dined nor supped with the Queene, as he used of late to do. To Westminster Hall, where my cosen Roger tells me of the high vote of the Commons this afternoon, that the proceedings of the Lords in the case of my Lord Clarendon are an obstruction to justice, and of ill ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... supporters of the See of Rome' in public and political affairs. The ultimate failure of their diplomacy and intrigue over the whole field of modern statecraft inclines historians of the present epoch to underrate their mechanics of obstruction, and to underestimate the many occasions on which they did successfully retard the progress of civil government and intellectual freedom. It were wiser to regard them in the same light as fanatics laying ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... midnight, with the exception of one man, who did not make his appearance until morning. He had lost his way in the darkness of the night, and slept on the prairie. Shortly after midnight it began to rain heavily, and, as our tents were of light and thin cloth, they offered but little obstruction to the rain: we were all well soaked, and glad when morning came. We had a rainy march on the 12th, but the weather grew fine as the day advanced. We encamped in a remarkably beautiful situation on the Kansas bluffs, which commanded a fine view ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont

... for that, Tom," he remarked. "There's nothing like the gyroscope rudder in a tight pinch—say when there's a storm. And for holding the boat steady, if you have to make a sudden turn under water, to avoid an obstruction you come upon unexpectedly, a gyroscope can't be improved on. It holds you steady and prevents ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton

... spoor in the sand by rain; indeed in addition to the competing excitement of the expedition, the previous night's alcoholic and sentimental debauch had served to exhaust the emotions stimulated by jealousy. To him had appeared an obstruction in his emotional life in the shape of the husband of the woman whom he adored; therefore, according to his nature and training, he had endeavoured to remove that obstacle as swiftly and as efficiently as possible. Superlative confidence in himself, reflected in his pride of family and nationality, ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... forth, the President shall forthwith, by proclamation, command such insurgents to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes within a reasonable time." By the act of March 3, 1807, it is provided "that in all cases of insurrection or obstruction to the laws, either of the United States or of any individual State or Territory where it is lawful for the President of the United States to call forth the militia for the purpose of suppressing such insurrection or of causing the laws to be duly executed, it shall be ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... exertions to reach the top as quickly as possible. He knew that a train for the city would be along very soon now; he remembered the curve just beyond the bridge; the engineer could not see whether there was an obstruction in the way, until he should be too ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.

... then, all this ruction? "When we obstruct, who dares to call't Obstruction?" To dam a deluge, stop a bolting horse,— That is obstruction, of a sort, of course; Our sort, in fact! But theirs on t'other side? That's quite another matter. They can't hide The cloven foot of malice, the false faitours! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 25, 1893 • Various

... gradual. There was a majority in each House for these Bills, but the Democratic minority was able to kill them in the House of Representatives by the methods of "filibustering," or, as we call it, obstruction, to which the procedure of that body seems well adapted. The Republican majority had not been very zealous for the Bills; its members asked "why compensate for a wrong" which they had begun to feel would soon be abolished without compensation; ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... the very declaration of the Revolutionary Committee, persons with incomes of only 4,000, 3,700, 1,500, and even 500 livres.[41121] Moreover, a fortune or a competence, inspires its possessor with anti-revolutionary sentiments; consequently, he is for the moment an obstruction; "You are rich," says Cambon, making use of a personification, "you cherish an opinion, which compels us to be on the defensive; pay then, so as to indemnify us and be thankful for our indulgence which, precautionary and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... great damage—probably even dwelling-houses may be ruined here and there upon the country-side. But on the other hand, I cannot possibly pay for the damage I have done, and if the real cause of this is published, it will lead only to heartburning and the obstruction of my work. One cannot foresee everything, you know, and I cannot consent for one moment to add the burthen of practical considerations to my theorising. Later on, when you have come in with your practical mind, and Cavorite is floated—floated ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells

... preliminary talk Mr. Blair read to Mr. Davis an elaborate paper containing his "suggestions." These covered a reference to slavery, "the cause of all our woes," saying it was doomed and hence no longer an insurmountable obstruction to pacification, adding that as the South proposed to use slaves to "conquer a peace," and to secure its independence, "their deliverance from bondage" must follow.(10) With slavery abolished, Mr. Blair suggested ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... division in those days was expected to run trains by telegraph at night, to go out and remove all wrecks, and indeed to do everything. At one time for eight days I was constantly upon the line, day and night, at one wreck or obstruction after another. I was probably the most inconsiderate superintendent that ever was entrusted with the management of a great property, for, never knowing fatigue myself, being kept up by a sense of responsibility probably, ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie

... says:—'Most men have their bright and their Cloudy days, at least they have days when they put their powers into act, and days when they suffer them to repose.' Piozzi Letters, i. 265. In 1781 he wrote:—'I thought myself above assistance or obstruction from the seasons; but find the autumnal blast sharp and nipping, and the fading world an uncomfortable prospect.' Ib. ii. 220. Again, in the last year of his life he wrote:—'The: weather, you know, has not been balmy. I am now reduced ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... the season of navigation by steamboats on the Missouri river from St. Louis, from which point, without obstruction or transshipment, the river is navigable to Fort Benton, situated almost in the center of the territory, a distance of more than twenty-five hundred miles. Here, too, there is a large and constant supply of water, a matter of great difficulty and scarcity in other mining districts. ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton

... however, from what I have already seen of the spirit of the people of this country, that it will soon appear that Republican governments, in which every obstruction is removed to the exertion of all kinds of talent, will be far more favourable to science, and the arts, than any monarchical government has ever been. The patronage to be met with there is ever capricious, and as often employed ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith

... that by digging down a yard, filling it with stones, and running a heavy wire mesh back several feet. Of course the foxes kept on burrowing along the fence, but seemed to lack sense enough to start in five feet back so as to avoid the obstruction. Their cunning has a limit, and beyond that they're as ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne

... This was the moment for which the man was waiting. Now, if ever, the jam was solid, and might hold so until he gained the farther shore. But beyond this moment every second of delay only served to gather the forces that were straining to break the obstruction. He knew that in a very few minutes the rising weight of the flood must either sweep all before it, or flow roaring over the top of the jam in a new cataract that would sweep the island bare. He sprang to his feet, grasped his ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... severely and pointedly. An obstinate silence was the only result, and her parents losing patience, she had been left in a room with a locked door in order to acquire the necessary sense to answer what she was asked. Instead, however, of learning the folly of obstruction, she found that the window was open; and when her parents returned, many hours afterwards, to renew their inquiries, they found that Nellie ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott

... system unquestionably weakens the House of Commons by denuding it of moderate politicians not entirely in sympathy with either political party, and consequently rendering obsolete all the arts of persuasion and deliberation, and reducing parliamentary discussion to a struggle between obstruction on the one side and closure on the other. The disproportion, moreover, between the majority in the House and that in the country, which it is supposed to represent, deprives the decisions of the House of much of their moral authority. The rigid partisanship, and the essentially ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys

... Comedy)—Ver. 783. This was done that, when expedition was required, the cloak might not prove an obstruction to the wearer as he walked. The slaves in Comedies usually wore the "pallium," and as they were mostly active, bustling fellows, would have it tucked tightly around them. The "pallium" was usually worn passed ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus

... any terms whatever, and this strictness was especially used with them in Spain and Italy. In Turkey and the islands of the Arches indeed, as they are called, as well those belonging to the Turks as to the Venetians, they were not so very rigid. In the first there was no obstruction at all; and four ships which were then in the river loading for Italy—that is, for Leghorn and Naples—being denied product, as they call it, went on to Turkey, and were freely admitted to unlade their ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe

... was so low that a battle line could march over it without halting. The ground ascended with an easy grade from our position back to Cox's line, and all the intervening space, as well as a wide expanse to our left, was as bare as a floor of any obstruction. In our front was a wide valley extending to the Winsted Hills. This valley was dotted with a few farm-buildings, and there were also some small areas of woodland, but much the greater portion of it consisted of cleared ...
— The Battle of Franklin, Tennessee • John K. Shellenberger

... genuinely empirical character distinguishes the natural sciences and makes their loss irretrievable. It is here (in nature) that the object disentangles itself from all fancies and opinions and constantly stimulates the spirit of observation. Here then is found an obstruction to extravagant thinking such as the sciences themselves could not better devise." Ziller says: "The natural sciences are necessary in education because from the province of nature (as well as from history) are derived those means and resources which are necessary to accomplish the purposes ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry

... a shallow ditch. The road that followed was of the roughest character. If it was a road at all it was a wood-track; Evan heard the twigs crackle under the tires. They lurched and bumped alarmingly. Once they had to stop to allow the chauffeur to drag some obstruction out of the way. Evidently they had not had the car that way before, ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner

... The only obstruction to the appointment of Fitzgibbon, was the disqualifying circumstance of his birth. It was held to be a dangerous precedent to appoint an Irishman to the office; but it was maintained on the other side, that Fitzgibbon's was an exceptional ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... a traitor in contempt and self-reproach. This he could bear no longer, and organizing an expedition from a Spanish port, he and six minor bishops, with many families of the Christians, made their way towards Gibraltar. They did not make their escape, however, without attracting notice and obstruction. As they rode among the hills with their long train, soldiers, ecclesiastics, women, and children, they saw a galloping band of Arabs in pursuit. The archbishop bade them turn instantly into a deserted castle they were just passing, to drop the portcullis and man the ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... them, and all stood on the other side of the obstruction without having suffered ...
— The Daughter of the Chieftain - The Story of an Indian Girl • Edward S. Ellis

... webby hairs an' he sank over his head in them an' toiled long; an' lo! when he had passed them there was yet another row o' leaves curving so as to weary an' bewilder him, an' thick set with thorns. Slowly he climbed, coming ever to some dread obstruction. By an' by he stood looking up at the green, round wall o' the palace. Above him were its treasure an' its purple dome. He started upward an' fell suddenly into a moat, full o' sticky gum, an' there perished. Men, 'tis the law o' God: unless ye sow the seed that bears it, ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller

... that he did not do so, but was making preparations to proceed immediately in that work on his own lines and in accordance with his own ideas, and with the hearty accord of his entire Cabinet, of itself affords proof that he was apprehensive of obstruction from the same element of his party that subsequently arose in opposition to Mr. Johnson on that question, and that he preferred to put his plans into operation before the assembling of Congress in the next regular ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross

... mountain sides. The great road passing along the mountains was a marvelous work. In many places its way was cut through rock for leagues. Great ravines were filled up with solid masonry. Rivers were crossed by means of a curious kind of suspension bridges, and no obstruction was encountered which the builders did not overcome. The builders of our Pacific Railroad, with their superior engineering skill and mechanical appliances, might reasonably shrink from the cost and the difficulties of such a work ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin

... ardent and a sincere century, a century of faith and disinterestedness. It had faith in the truth, for it claimed the right thereof to reign in this world. It had faith in humanity, for it recognized the right thereof to perfect itself and would have had that right exercised without obstruction. It erred, it lost itself amid this twofold confidence; it attempted what was far beyond its right and power; it misjudged the moral nature of man and the conditions of the social state. Its ideas as well as ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... surprise, however, his breath didn't seem to get anywhere: in fact, it was directed back in his face rather forcefully; so he investigated and discovered the mouthpiece was only half open. Upon endeavoring to open it fully he sensed an obstruction in the back of it, so he unscrewed the mouthpiece and drew forth a ball of dirty, ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... Madras roads, where we soon became well acquainted with all the outs and ins of the celebrated surf of that place. This surf, after all, is not really higher than many which one meets with in other countries; but certainly it is the highest and most troublesome which exists as a permanent obstruction in front of a great commercial city. The ingenuity and perseverance of man, however, have gone far to surmount this difficulty; and now the passage to and from the beach at Madras offers hardly any serious interruption to the intercourse. Still, it is by no means an agreeable operation to pass ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... quite true that, in the passage referred to, the condition of the body before and after death is contrasted, but this is merely incidental. The natural antithesis of "a sensible warm motion" is expressed in "a kneaded clod" and "cold obstruction;" but the terms of the other half of the passage are not quite so well balanced. On the other hand, it is not the contrasted condition of each, but the separation of the body and spirit—that is, death—which is the object of the speaker's contemplation. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various

... out the visions of God and blessedness, and all the glorious blue above us. The heavy, dark mist settles down on the plains, though the sky above is undimmed by it, and the sun is blazing in the zenith. Not one beam can penetrate through the wet, chill obstruction, and men stumble about in the fog with lamps and torches, and all the while a hundred feet up it is brightness and day. Or, if at some points the obstruction is thinned and the sun does come through, it is shorn of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... marked advance in medical science had really to fight the battle over again. The Sorbonne condemned inoculation, vaccination had slowly to fight its way and even the discovery of anesthetic, perhaps the greatest single blessing ever given surgery, met with no little theological obstruction. It is only fair to say in this connection that so stupid a conservatism has been by no means the sole possession of the Church and the clergy. Medicine has been upon occasion almost as conservative and the difficulties which Sir Joseph ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins

... Therefore this covetousness and the fear of God are as enemies, set the one in opposition to the other: one that feareth God and hateth covetousness (Exo 18:21). And the reason why covetousness is such an obstruction to the growth of this grace of fear, is because covetousness casteth those things out of the heart which alone can nourish this fear. It casteth out the Word and love of God, without which no grace can grow in the soul; how then should the fear of God grow ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... seven hundred miles off, and they never were there, in their Lives before; as is often prov'd, by their appointing to meet on the Head of such a River, where perhaps, none of them ever was before, but where they shall rendezvous exactly at the prefixt time; and if they meet with any Obstruction, they leave certain Marks in the Way, where they that come after will understand how many have pass'd by already, and which way they are gone. Besides, in their War Expeditions, they have very certain Hieroglyphicks, whereby each Party informs the other ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson

... the position of the tea-table in relation to the sofa. It hemmed in that part of it where he was going to sit. Very cramping. He moved it well back and considered it again. It now stood in his direct line of retreat from the sofa to the armchair. An obstruction. If anybody were to come in. He moved it ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair

... take turkeys," Jed answered. "Pin 'em up with a high fence, they'll back up, take off and fly over it. But pin 'em with a low fence, and they won't. Seems like they know they have to fly over a high obstruction, but don't figger on it for a low one. Sometimes they flutter up against it, or try to push it over, but most of the time they just walk around and around in the yard lookin' for ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton

... obstruction on the south side of the triforium has been already mentioned. The northern side was used for the parochial boys' school for many years down to 1892, when the scholars were transferred to the new schools built for them ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley

... preservation, to protect its officers from being wantonly or maliciously interfered with, hindered or obstructed in the lawful exercises of their official duties, not arbitrarily of course, but through its regularly constituted agencies, and according to the established principles of law; and where such obstruction consists in the forcible restraint of the officer's liberty, I see no reason why the federal judiciary should not inquire into it on habeas corpus, when it is alleged to be not only illegal but contrived for the very purpose of hindering the officer in the discharge of his official duties, ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham

... time had been devoted to us in vain. This was like an Electrical shock to me. I rushed upstairs to my room where, without restraint, I could give vent to my tears. She said the same as that I had been the cause of the great obstruction in the school. If I am such a vile sinner, I would that I might feel it myself. Indeed I do consider myself such a bad creature that I can not see any who seems worse.—And we had a new scholar ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... endeavoured to break through the opposition made in that quarter, trying always to reach higher ground than the obstructing enemy; 26. and when they assailed the rear, Cheirisophus, quitting his place, and striving also to get above the enemy, removed the obstruction that was offered to the passage of that part of the army. Thus they relieved and supported each other with effect. 27. Sometimes, too, when the Greeks had ascended eminences, the Barbarians gave them great annoyance in their ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon

... a charge in half-earnest or he would have brought the gate down. An elephant is a very short-sighted beast, and it was pitch-dark. He could not believe that a dog could disappear through a solid iron gate, and after testing the obstruction for a moment or two, grumbling to himself angrily, he stood to smell the air and listen. There was a noise farther along the street of a stampede of some kind. That was likely enough his quarry, probably frightening other undesirables along in front of him. With a scream of mingled frenzy and ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy

... storm was evidently going to get "a whole lot worse before it got better." The air grew almost as black as night, and the wind fairly screamed as it swept over them. Jack could feel little piles of sand drifting up about them, just as driven snow forms in drifts when it strikes an obstruction. How hot it was under the saddles! The boys' mouths felt as if they would crack, so dry ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering

... looming of the headland at the entrance. The same soothing silence, even the same lulling of the unseen surf, which broke in gentle undulations over the bar, and seemed to lift the barque in rocking buoyancy over the slight obstruction, came back to them as on the day of their fateful advent. The low orders of the pilot, the cry of the leadsman in the chains, were but a part of the ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte

... that made steam propulsion for warships really practical. Brunel was one of the great advocates of the change. He was a man who was in many ways before his time, and he had to encounter a more than usual amount of official conservatist obstruction. For years the veteran officers who advised the Admiralty opposed and ridiculed the invention. When at last it was fitted to a gunboat, the "Rattler," it was obvious that it provided the best means ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale

... objects of attention are readily procured, it is obvious that the difficulty and expense which attend the possession of plants of rare, and more particularly of foreign growth, form a natural and insurmountable obstruction to the researches of many lovers of the science...." "Whatever regard is due to the rational gratifications of which the most laborious life is not incapable, there is a moral influence attendant on horticultural ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 536, Saturday, March 3, 1832. • Various

... indeed so; the grounds of a villa, skirting the highway on a terrace-ledge, had been loosened by the many days' rain, and had fallen during the forenoon, a heap of ruins,—shrubs, plants, garden-walls, flowers, borders, railings,—one mass of obstruction. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... which many, if not most, of the advocates of necessity have concurred; that is, the definition of Hobbes. As the current of a river, says he, is free to flow down its channel, provided there be no obstruction in the way; so the human will, though compelled to act by causes over which it has no control, is free, provided there be no external impediment to prevent its volition from passing into effect. This ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe

... in your own power, which depends on yourself only and cannot be taken from you, or have you anything of the kind? I know not. Look at the thing then thus, and examine it. Is any man able to make you assent to that which is false? No man. In the matter of assent then you are free from hindrance and obstruction. Granted. Well; and can a man force you to desire to move towards that to which you do not choose? He can, for when he threatens me with death or bonds he compels me to desire to move towards it. If then you despise death and ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus

... slip there may be "between the cup and the lip:" even from the seed that falls on deep, soft ground, you cannot count with certainty on a rich return in harvest. Although the plants should without obstruction strike their roots deeply into the soft, moist earth, and rear their stalks aloft into the balmy air, they may be rendered barren at last by the simultaneous growth of rivals more imperious and more powerful than themselves. Unless the grain ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... governmental river and harbour dredging, and a ship drawing thirty-five feet can now enter New York at any state of the tide. For ocean bars, the old system of taking the material out to sea and discharging it still survives, though a jet of water from force-pumps directed against the obstruction is also often employed with quick results. For river work we have discovered a better method. All the mud is run back, sometimes over a mile from the river bank, where it is used as a fertilizer, by means of wire railways strung from poles. These wire cables combine ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor

... no serious obstruction. Sometimes descending below the streets and passing through cellars, at others crossing roofs or gliding along the darkest sides of dark walls and passages, they traversed the town without being challenged, and gained ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne

... handles near it are the whistle-handles. One whistle is small, and very shrill, to warn people on the line, and to tell people the train is coming. The other is a deep-toned booming whistle which tells of danger perhaps, and when blown means "Stop the train, there is obstruction ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... mantle, with a long train, is for race. Prefaces and passages, and excusations, and other speeches of reference to the person, are great wastes of time; and though they seem to proceed of modesty, they are bravery. Yet beware of being too material, when there is any impediment or obstruction in men's wills; for pre-occupation of mind ever requireth preface of speech; like a fomentation to ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon

... his father for the saying, 'I am a ministerialist.' Men in office generally try to do their best, whatever their party. But men in opposition aim chiefly at thwarting all action, good or bad, and a parliamentary system gives the advantage to obstruction. Part of his vexation, he admits, is due to his disgust at the treatment of the codification question. Coleridge, it appears, had proposed to him 'months ago' that he should be employed in preparing an Evidence Bill. Difficulties had arisen ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... particularly serviceable in hysteric depressions proceeding from a cold cause, or obstruction of the uterine secretions, where other aromatics, even those of the more generous kind, have little effect. Saffron imparts the whole of its virtue and colour to rectified spirit, proof spirit, wine, vinegar, and ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury

... Eighteen Forty, he, the lunatic, Carried his point. Wiseacres winced; Obstruction "cut its stick." He won the day, stout ROWLAND HILL, and then they made him Knight. If universal benefit unmarred by bane gives right To titles, which are often won by baseness or a fluke, The founder of the Penny Post deserved to be a Duke. But then he's something better—a fixed memory, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, January 18, 1890 • Various

... way through along the narrow passage, finding less obstruction as they advanced, the second block being composed entirely of houses, largely of the tenement type, and apparently principally populated by children. Wray Street, once attained, was of an entirely different character, being lined with homes, usually humble enough outwardly, yet ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish

... game. The road was so level and so free of obstruction that they kept the centre, and seemed to be shooting, at whistling speed, into ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells

... a channel cut through, so to speak, by a railroad, so that the industries of the surrounding communities may not be unduly impeded. Such a consolidation of the Indian tribes into one or two great bodies would leave all the remaining territory of the United States open to settlement, without obstruction or molestation. ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker

... spite of the unwontedness of the hour, had been commissioned by him to make the same inquiry at South's. Marty had been standing at the door when Miss Melbury arrived. Almost before the latter had spoken, Mrs. Charmond's carriages, released from the obstruction up the lane, came bowling along, and the two girls ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... you arrive well before Duquesne with the fine troops so well provided with artillery, the fort, though completely fortified, and assisted with a very strong garrison, can probably make but a short resistance. The only danger I apprehend of obstruction to your march, is of ambuscades of the Indians, who, by constant practice, are dexterous in laying and executing them. And the slender line, near four miles long, which your army must make, may expose it to be attacked by surprise in its flanks, and to be cut like a thread into ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott

... the night he set fire to the church, in order to destroy the stores which were collected in it, and commenced his march to Charleston, by the road east of Cooper. Having repaired the bridge over Wattoo, he met with no obstruction; and proceeded with his infantry on the road leading to Quinby bridge, directed his cavalry to take a road turning to the right, and crossing ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall

... of Mullinahone I witnessed the daily painful sight of the perversion of the labour of this country to the most profitless ends. Roads, which are now more than ever necessary to be kept in order, are in the course of obstruction, whilst waterlogged lands, reclaimable bottoms, and mountain slopes stand out in damning evidence of the indolence, neglect, and folly of man."—Letter of Lieut.-Colonel Douglas to Sir S. Routh, dated Clonmel, 28th January, 1847. Commissariat ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... little stream. The lower end of this cave became solidly filled with sand, and the water found an outlet farther back. All the limestone which formed the roof and walls of the middle portion of the cave is gone, a narrow ravine marking its course. The sandstone obstruction held its place, and now extends directly across the ridge between the two ravines. Its surface is an exact cast of the interior of the cave which it filled, and nodules of chert, remaining when the limestone dissolved, are still imbedded in its surface. The line ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke

... the teeth of so real an obstruction? Has not our own weapon turned against us, Science abolishing with authoritative hand the very truth we are asking it ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond

... directions of his leader, and worked his way through the obstruction of the myrtle-bushes until he arrived at a small circular place, in the centre of which, shaded by tall olive-trees, was a turf-seat surrounded by tendrils of ivy, and before which was a small table of wood, yet retaining its natural ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... which fluttered the banner of the Holy Ghost. In a few moments the Christian fleet would have been at the mercy of the Moors, but Cytherea, beholding from above the peril of her favorites, hastily descended, gathered together her nymphs, and formed an obstruction, past which the vessels strove in vain to pass. As Gama, standing high on the poop, saw the huge rock in the channel, he cried out, and the Moorish pilots, thinking their treason discovered, ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... little else than a new beginning. So was it with me. At the time when my father hired a teacher into his house, it was for what is termed the winter quarter, and I was then somewhat too young to be tied down to the regular routine of school discipline; and if older when boarded away, the other obstruction to salutary progress began to operate grievously against me. I acquired bit by bit the common education—reading, writing, and arithmetic. So far as I remember, grammar was not much taught at any of these schools, and ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... choice of position for the dam of a reservoir, supposing that it is intended to impound the water by throwing an obstruction across a valley, it may be premised that to impound the largest quantity of water with the minimum outlay, the most favorable conditions are present where a more or less broad valley flanked by steep hills suddenly narrows at its lower ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various

... sufficed in the case of Julius Caesar, of Seneca, of Petronius, to turn their fearlessness into timidity or braggartry? An obstruction in the spleen, the liver, or the vena portae. For the imagination is intimately connected with these viscera, and from them arise all the curious phenomena of hypochondria and hysteria. . . . 'A mere nothing, a little fibre, some trifling thing ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry

... simple, monsieur," said Smith; "we must first see that there is no obstruction, and then if you could persuade some of your men to come back, we should be able to remove the aeroplane more quickly. I fear we could ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang

... of science—'and to restore confidence to the Christian world that the researches of science will never permanently clash with the doctrines of revelation. But the Christian world has come to that; and science is to receive no more obstruction henceforth from any alarm that its discoveries will contravene the revealed truth of God. No future Galileo is to be imprisoned because he can look farther into the works of nature than other men; and the point which we ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... Metropolitan Board of Works, who reports very favorably upon it, as does also Dr. Wallace, of Glasgow, who has obtained some very satisfactory results with it. It is claimed for the albo-carbon material that it is perfectly inexplosive, safe and portable, that it causes no obstruction and leaves no residuum, and that the receivers can be replenished almost indefinitely without any accumulation taking place, so perfect is the evaporation of the albo-carbon. On the whole the display ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various

... are subject to temptation and sin of all kinds. Their public may tempt them to think more of themselves than of what they have to express, either by perverse admiration or by ignorant contempt. An actual audience may be an obstruction between them and the ideal audience to which every artist should address himself. Every artist must desire that his ideal audience should exist, and may mistake an actual audience for it. In the ideal relation between ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock

... effort, to a standstill. The suppression of thought, when sufficiently complete, brings the brain into a state of calm, allows of the soul concentrating on the astral body whose memory is keen and only slightly subject to obstruction, and then it often happens that the vibration of the astral memory repercusses on to the physical apparatus which suddenly ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal

... Poems were printed at London, and about this time his zeal for the republican party had so far recommended him, that a design was formed of making him adjutant-general in Sir William Waller's army; but the new modelling the army proved an obstruction to that advancement. Soon after the march of Fairfax and Cromwell with the whole army through the city, in order to suppress the insurrection which Brown and Massey were endeavouring to raise there, against the army's proceedings, he left his great house in Barbican, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber

... care to grant them scarcely any remission, till they had drawn from them, if possible, an ample confession. The devil next proceeded to stop the mouths of the accused that they might not confess. He leaped on their throats, and evidently caused an obstruction of the organs of speech, so that in vain they endeavoured to relieve themselves by disclosing all that was demanded ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin

... roused themselves to judicial obstruction. The little lawyer turned up again to represent about a dozen threatened interests; local landowners appeared in opposition; people with mysterious claims claimed to be bought off at exorbitant rates; the Trades Unions of all the building ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells

... shall have letters-patent from the king expedited, in order to have permission and leave to make the said voyage; and no obstruction shall be made or given to these letters, by any allies, friend, or confederate of ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy

... luxury which wealth alone can support, and an ambition aspiring, not to glory, but to profit, are the predominant passions? If it exists in a king or a minister of state, how will either of them find among a people so disposed the necessary instruments to execute his great designs; or, rather, what obstruction will he not find from the continual opposition of private interest to public? But if, on the contrary, a court inclines to tyranny, what a facility will be given by these dispositions to that evil purpose? How will men with ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton

... intervene to prevent such a construction when entered upon without its consent, though when such consent is asked and granted upon condition the authority to insist upon such condition is clear. Thus it is represented that while the officers of the Government are with great care guarding against the obstruction of navigation by a bridge across the Mississippi River at St. Paul a large pier for a bridge has been built just below this place directly in the navigable channel of the river. If such things are to be permitted, a strong argument is presented against the appropriation of large sums ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... since; all the features described here are still present). The control system alone featured about 1200 relays. There were {scram switch}es located at numerous places around the room that could be thwacked if something undesirable was about to occur, such as a train going full-bore at an obstruction. Another feature of the system was a digital clock on the dispatch board, which was itself something of a wonder in those bygone days before cheap LEDs and seven-segment displays. When someone hit a scram switch the clock stopped and the display was replaced with ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... to die, and go we know not where; To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot, This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice; To be imprison'd in the viewless winds And blown with restless ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 38, Saturday, July 20, 1850 • Various

... insurmountable obstinacy, so that the captain himself, though he never changed his opinion, was yet obliged to give way to the torrent, and in appearance to acquiesce in this resolution, whilst he endeavoured underhand to give it all the obstruction he could, particularly in the lengthening of the long-boat, which he contrived should be of such a size that, though it might serve to carry them to Juan Fernandez, would yet, he hoped, appear incapable of so long a navigation as that to the coast ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter

... was, until a few months ago, sir," continued Jack; "at present I am captain and owner of this vessel—but here are the papers. You will have no obstruction from us in the execution of your duty—at the same time, I call upon the two young gentlemen by your side, and your own men, to bear ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat

... passes from potentiality to actuality, the agent that caused this must be outside the thing. For if it were inside and there was no obstruction, the thing would never be potential, but always actual; and if there was an obstruction, which was removed, the agency which removed the obstruction is the cause which caused the thing to pass ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik

... often they play the game, the chance is always in their favour. In the mean time, they are growing rich by victualling the troops that we have sent against them, and, perhaps, gain more by the residence of the army than they lose by the obstruction of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... Nothing singly; it was a tangle of a multitude of things—nothing definitely palpable, but only that unaccountable sense of obstruction. Anyhow, this much has become plain to me, that I cannot swear to what I really am. It is because I am such a mystery to my own mind that my attraction for myself is so strong! If once the whole ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore

... only to say, 'To be sure, sir, if you arrive well before Duquesne with these fine troops, so well provided with artillery, the fort, though completely fortified and assisted with a very strong garrison, can probably make but a short resistance. The only danger I apprehend of obstruction to your march is from the ambuscades of the Indians, who, by constant practice, are dexterous in laying and executing them; and the slender line, nearly four miles long, which your army must make, may expose it to be attacked by surprise on its flanks, ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady

... that falls, He knows not how, by force demoniac dragg'd To earth, and through obstruction fettering up In chains invisible the powers of Man; Who, risen from his trance, gazeth around Bewilder'd with the monstrous agony He hath indured, and, wildly ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs

... penetrating quality of vision, which defies analysis. Occasional turgidity of phrase and unidiomatic handling of language do not conceal the simplicity of the process by which Mr. Carlyle pierces through obstruction down to the abstrusest depths. And the important fact is that this abstruseness is not verbal, any more than it is the abstruseness of fog and cloud. His epithet, or image, or trope, shoots like a sunbeam on to the matter, throwing a transfigurating light, even where ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley

... the obstruction of light. Shadows appear to me to be of supreme importance in perspective, because, without them opaque and solid bodies will be ill defined; that which is contained within their outlines and their boundaries themselves will be ill-understood unless they are shown against a background of a different ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci



Words linked to "Obstruction" :   stymy, blockage, obstacle, physiological condition, encumbrance, manoeuvre, tamponage, construction, structure, maneuver, stall, deterrent, hang-up, hinderance, snag, roadblock, stymie, hurdle, interference, hitch, preventative, tamponade, barrier, physiological state, stop, blockade, closure, block, stalling, impediment, check, impedimenta, preventive, handicap, intestinal obstruction



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