"Barrier" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Beyond Llwyngwril, to which the line was opened for traffic in November, 1863,—the engines and coaches had been brought by barge across the Dovey from Ynyslas—there lay a still more formidable barrier to rapid progress. For the cliffs hereabouts, which, with their steep declivity down to the rock-strewn shore, left scarcely a foothold for the wandering mountain sheep, were enough to daunt the heart of any but the most courageous ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... should grudge this new view being smothered in your address, and should like to see a separate paper. The one great channel to Santorin and Palma, etc., etc., is just like the one main channel being kept open in atolls and encircling barrier reefs, and on the same principle of water being driven ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... conflict had been postponed by the existence of a barrier state,—the Iroquois, or Six Nations of Indians. This fierce, brave, and statesmanlike race held a strip of the watershed from Lake Champlain to the Allegheny River. For many years they had been subject to English influence, exercised ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... any other upon earth, has to be alarmed at this revolution of property. Richer than any other nation, you have more to apprehend; besides, it threatens you more, both as our frequent enemies and as our national rivals; as a barrier against our plans of universal dominion, and as our superiors in pecuniary resources. May we never live to see the day when the mandates of Bonaparte or Talleyrand are honoured at London, as at ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... morning of the 28th the sound of breakers could be heard plainly; they had reached the Great Barrier Reef, which runs up much of the east coast ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... private and one's social life? Old ties, lacking new elements of growth, tended to become formalities. When Karen was not there, he did not care to go without her to see people, and when she was with him the very charm of her personality was a barrier between him and them. His life became narrower as well as lonelier. There was nothing much to be done with people to whom one's ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... from the high, mountainous main island of Babelthuap to low, coral islands usually fringed by large barrier reefs ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... viceroy Mendoza downwards, to secure protection and the benefit of a mild legislation to the unfortunate natives. But the iron Conquerors, and the colonist whose heart softened only to the touch of gold, presented a formidable barrier to improvement. ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... grew sharper, there seemed to be an unbroken wall of rock ahead; but, climbing higher, Prescott saw a small smooth track running up the barrier. It was obviously a gully filled with snow and its steepness suggested that the ascent of it might prove beyond his powers; but the footprints led on to where it began. After following them to the spot, Prescott sat down on a stone to gather breath. He looked upward with a sinking heart. The ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... superiority. What a stupid fellow he was in some ways, after all! Even that silly Lord Connemara would have guessed what she was driving at, with only a quarter as much encouragement. But Ernest must be too much afraid of the social barrier clearly; so she began again, this time upon a slightly ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... but worst of all, his fancy would go fluttering about the doors of the sick chamber in Grange Lane, longing and wondering. He asked himself what it could be which had raised that impalpable wall between Lucy and himself—that barrier too strong to be overthrown, too ethereal to be complained of; and wondered over and over again what her thoughts were towards him—whether she thought of him at all, whether she was offended, or simply indifferent?—a question which any one else who ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... United States census, the deaf are seen to be distributed among the chief industries very generally, and in very many of what are known as "trades" they are able to be profitably employed. In some activities of life deafness is of course an effectual barrier, but these are rather restricted ones. There is but one great division of employment in which the deaf cannot enter extensively, namely, commercial and mercantile pursuits. With these exceptions, the deaf are found to be industrially occupied like the rest of the community, and ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best
... much toward restoring the artist's naturally buoyant spirits. He fell to reckoning his resources, and by dint of introducing into the account several pleasing but most improbable possibilities, he succeeded in building up between himself and ruin a fanciful barrier which for the moment satisfied him; and beyond the moment ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... this—that wealth should be used by those who were fortunate enough to possess it (here Trix looked down and fidgeted with her prayer-book) as a means of promoting greater union between themselves and the less richly endowed, and not—as, alas, had too often been the case—as though it were a new barrier set up between them and their fellow—creatures. (Here Miss Trix blushed slightly, and had recourse to her smelling-bottle.) "You," said the curate, waxing rhetorical as he addressed an imaginary, but bloated, ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... had been proved by actual experiment, and the scientific doctrine of the conservation of energy became as a consequence firmly established, that the difficulty in question assumed the importance of a logical barrier to the theory of mental changes acting as efficient ...
— Mind and Motion and Monism • George John Romanes
... and as if by enchantment, relieved of her tormentor. The peach-stone had bribed the porter, with whom, in the course of the two years, it had scraped up a sort of friendship. It had cleared the terrible barrier, had been allowed to slip out, and the lady was saved; but it ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... was dead then! Something told me I had lost my friend, and that no amount of explanation could do away with the barrier which had suddenly ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... life, but Pearl Harbor changed all that, and Davenport eventually landed behind a desk in the office that managed the Army's manpower affairs. One of the first black professionals to break through the armed forces racial barrier, Davenport was not a "Negro specialist" and did not wish to be one. Nor could he, an experienced government bureaucrat, be blamed if he saw in the Fahy Committee yet one more well-meaning attempt by (p. 353) an outside group to reform the Army. Only when Kenworthy ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... just as the horses came to the post, and she was supplying him with a check blank just as they got away from the barrier. Gamble turned to the track and distinguished his long shot off in the lead. He smiled grimly at that irony, for he had seen long-shot horses raise false hopes before. Mildly interested, he watched ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... of the Jordan valley running due north and south, filled with thin violet haze and terminating in a glint of the Dead Sea. Beyond that deep line of division rose the mountains of Gilead and Moab, a lofty, unbroken barrier. To the south-east we could see the red roofs of the new Jerusalem, and a few domes and minarets of the ancient city. Beyond them, in the south, was the truncated cone of the Frank Mountain, where the crusaders made their last stand against ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... not to be classed among the most remarkable feats of our magic horses. Today's is a good ordinary lesson, a respectable lesson, not illumined by flashes of genius. But in the presence of other witnesses the horses performed more startling exploits which broke down even more decisively the barrier, which is undoubtedly an imaginary one, between animal and human nature. One day, for instance, Zarif; the scamp of the party, suddenly stopped in the middle of his lesson. They asked him ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... allowed service to be performed for such of the retinue of the young Prince as were of the Protestant persuasion. It was also alleged that this indulgence was with the cognizance of the Pope, who, in order to remove the barrier which prevented the Stuarts from enjoying the crown of England, was willing to allow Charles Edward to be brought up as a Protestant. This assertion was further confirmed by the fact, that the noblemen, Lord Inverness and Lord Dunbar, who had the charge of Charles Edward, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... was broken. Villeroy fell back, and Marlborough had his will on the defences. No inconsiderable section of the belt was rendered useless. No longer did an impassable barrier stretch between the Netherlands and France. The importance of the victory could hardly be overstated. As one writer has well pointed out, "All Marlborough's operations had hitherto been carried on to the outside of these lines; thenceforward ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... occupied his time, with periods of intermission, from A.D. 385 to A.D. 405. See in Horne, vol. 2, p. 89. He did not venture, however, to make a new version from the Hebrew of the book of Psalms, the constant use of which in the church service was a barrier to the substitution of a new translation. He accordingly retained his second revision from the Septuagint, which is called the Gallican Psalter. Of the Apocryphal books he translated only two, Judith and Tobit. The remaining Apocryphal writings were retained in their old form. ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... had. The charges on the transit of merchandize would never be so heavy as even the rates of insurance round Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope. The first of these great headlands mariners know full well is a fearful barrier, advancing into the cheerless deep amidst storms, rocks, islands, and currents, to avoid which the navigator is often compelled to go several degrees more to the south than his track requires; whereby the voyage is not only lengthened, but his water ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... village having gone forth to plant their potatoes, kumaras, and Indian corn. In the rear, and forming a fine, bold background, is an immense chain of high and rugged hills, covered to their summits with thick forests, and forming, as it were, a natural barrier and protection to this smiling and fruitful valley, while from their wooded sides issue innumerable small streams of clear water, which, meeting at the base, form beautiful rivulets, and after meandering through the valley, and serving all the purposes ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... ask how this anomaly is to be explained, I can only answer that the shutting out of Sydney from the country behind it by a barrier of mountains hindered its early development; whilst the gold-diggings transformed Melbourne from a village into a city almost by magic; that the first population of Sydney was of the wrong sort, whilst that which flooded ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... such company. Richard swung along at an even gait with an important looking individual in a hard felt hat to the right of him and a stout gentleman with a King Edward beard to the left. The three entered Earl's Court Station abreast and approached the barrier, where Richard stepped aside and let them pass through. Leaning against the grill gates was a man reading a folded copy of the Daily Sketch. He looked at Richard for an instant, then looked again searchingly. The repeated action ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... need of light—who conquered in darkness! The Enemy has fled. It has covered the Unspeakable Eyes from the eyes of a man. By the will of a man Its will has been forbidden. It has dragged Itself back to the Barrier and cowers there for this time. Oh, soldier on the dreadful Frontier, be proud, putting off your armor ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... place, from whence flight or retreat was rendered almost impossible, by the laws of discipline and the freak of circumstance. Despite his titles, in face of his great reputation, he knew himself to be a failure, and as he rode southward through the mountain barrier that frowns down over India he was conscious of the knowledge that in all human probability he would never look upon this drear land again. His time was up, he was about to be set on the shelf, life was over. And he had all his powers yet—all ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... which is a great extent of territories for an Indian Prince. When we were upon the East Coast they always pointed inland to the Westward for the place of his residence, which I believe to be in the Bay of Plenty, and that those Hippas or fortified Towns are Barrier Towns either for or against him; but most likely the former, and if so, may be the utmost Extent of his Dominions to the Westwards, for at Mercury bay they did not own him as their Prince, nor no where else either to the Westward or Southward, or any other single person; for at whatever place we ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... little that was really exceptional or peculiar about them. His hatred of mumbo-jumbo and priestcraft was but a part of his steady love of freedom and sincerity. His linguistic mania had less of a philological basis than he would have us believe. Impatience that Babel should act as a barrier between kindred souls, an insatiable curiosity, prompted by the knowledge that the language of minorities was in nine cases out of ten the direct route to the heart of the secret of folks that puzzled him—such were the motives that stimulated a hunger for ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... is all on fire. "He then to me: "The four resplendent stars, thou saw'st this morn Are there beneath, and these ris'n in their stead." While yet he spoke. Sordello to himself Drew him, and cry'd: "Lo there our enemy!" And with his hand pointed that way to look. Along the side, where barrier none arose Around the little vale, a serpent lay, Such haply as gave Eve the bitter food. Between the grass and flowers, the evil snake Came on, reverting oft his lifted head; And, as a beast that smoothes its polish'd coat, Licking his hack. I saw not, nor can tell, How those celestial falcons ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... property, than to purchase a farm of many acres. You had perhaps two thousand a year before the transaction; perhaps you have two thousand five hundred after it. That represents your gain in the one case. But in the other, you have thrown down a barrier which concealed significance and beauty. The blind man has learned to see. The prisoner has opened up a window in his cell and beholds enchanting prospects; he will never again be a prisoner as he was; he can watch clouds and changing seasons, ships on the river, travellers on the road, ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... clergymen, and thus sever the last strand which holds me to the Unitarian body. Of course, I shall join no other denomination, and in [15] this sense shall be independent. But to me this action means not isolation, but entrance into that larger fellowship which I so long to share. No barrier will then separate me from those Episcopalians and Baptists and Methodists and other men, who are my real spiritual brethren. I shall be at one with all men everywhere—at home with the family of mankind. I shall not so much cease to be a Unitarian, as to become ...
— A Statement: On the Future of This Church • John Haynes Holmes
... was small and widely scattered; and the country was cut off as much by nature as by distance from the older civilisation of the East. The parallel ranges of the Alleghanies, with their pathless forests and great canyons, were a formidable barrier to all intercourse. The West was a world in itself. The only outlets eastward were the valleys of the Potomac and the James, the one leading to Washington, the other to Richmond; and so seldom were they used that the yeomen of the Ohio uplands were almost as much ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... only answer was a basic command reaffirmed. Again it made contact, strove to carry out that order fruitlessly. Where it should have found easy passage, a clear channel to carry influence to the sleeper's brain, it found a jumble of impressions, interwoven until they made a protective barrier. ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... it is not the prejudice there that worries me. It is the prejudice here. It is the barrier my color brings between me and the only being whose regard ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... conviction that the social world, the last refuge of spiritualism, is itself subject to determinism. It cannot be doubted that the movement of thought which Darwin's discoveries promoted contributed to the spread of this conviction, by breaking down the traditional barrier which ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... without good cause, since she had been in charge of the gate, but she bent her head obediently and said nothing. It seems to be a general rule with religious houses that no one is ever to wait in the street for admittance; the barrier, which is often impassable, is the door that leads inward from ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... Purgatory are freed from the guilt of sin, there is no barrier between them and God save only the pains they suffer, which delay the satisfaction of their desire. And when they see how serious is even the slightest hindrance, which the necessity of justice causes ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... from the obscuring clouds and their field of vision so broadened that they saw themselves face to face with an impassable barrier. The canyon closed directly in front of them like an immense gate of stone. It was impossible to ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... Etruria, in the marshy plain studded with hills that followed the Tiber, rose the city of Rome, the centre of the Roman people scattered in the plain. The land was malarial and dreary; but the situation was good. The Tiber served as a barrier against the enemy from Etruria, the hills were fortresses. The sea was but six leagues away, far enough to escape fear of pirates, and near enough to permit the transportation of merchandise. The port of Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber was a suburb of Rome, as Piraeus was ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... and they saw that the horses were picketed so as to provide a barrier against a sudden rush, made the men lie down with their weapons beside them, posted sentries all round the bivouac, and agreed to keep watch for an hour each, to ensure the sentries not going calmly to sleep. Gerrard, who felt wide-awake ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... sense that facts or phenomena are so ordered in their setting as to give prominence to the ideas or principles which appear to relate them and of which they are the outward expression. Thus the old sharp line, of distinction has slipped away, and we see there is no ultimate barrier between a study of facts and a study of the laws or principles which dominate these facts. In this way the severance of History and Science becomes less logically justifiable. Yet it is still convenient that we should say of one ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... streaming with blood, stuck full of darts, and covered with fireworks, the unfortunate beast went galloping round and round, plunging blindly at man and horse, and frequently trying to leap the barrier, but driven back by the waving hats and shouting of the crowd. At last, as he stood at bay, and nearly exhausted, the matador ran up and gave him the mortal blow, considered a peculiar proof of skill. ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... sea. No vessel can anchor here, and to make a landing was an exciting matter. The island was approached in small boats on the side sheltered from the wind, and here, with the luck which characterized the trip, was found the only opening in this barrier of coral. A long cleft, perhaps eight feet wide, at the outer edge of the reef, ran in, narrowing to a mere crack near the shore. Watching a favorable chance, the boats were guided through the surf into a cleft as far as shoal water, when the men jumped on to the reef and carried baggage ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... little axe began to move and flashed its bright blade right and left, clearing a way through vine and brush and scattering the tangled barrier so quickly that the Lion and the Tiger, carrying Dorothy and the Wizard and the cage of monkeys on their backs, were able to stride through the forest at a fast walk. The brush seemed to melt away before them and the little axe chopped so fast ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... for the season—an early day in the May of 1832—a man covered with dust, and who appeared to be borne down with fatigue, entered Paris through the Barrier d'Italie. Still, he traversed the Boulevard de l'Hopital with a firm step, being a fine well-made man, apparently about forty-eight years old. On arriving at the bridge of Austerlitz, he crossed to the toll-bar at the further extremity, and was accosted by the ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... the army, invite men from the North, invite men from Ireland, invite men from Germany,—the friends of freedom, of every name and every nation?—bid them welcome to the millions of acres of fertile lands we shall there confiscate, and they will form a barrier of freemen, a wall of liberty, over which, or through which, or beneath which it will be impossible for ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... invitation, in spite of the singular addition which I found upon the cover. If he had indeed sufficient influence with the Emperor to remove the proscription which was attached to our name, then the only barrier which shut me off from my country would ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... reef that banded the island a mile away. It was like a circlet of quicksilver in the sun, a quivering, shining, waving wreath. Soon we heard the eternal diapason of these shores, the constant and immortal music of the breakers on the white stone barrier, a low, deep, resonant note that lulls the soul to sleep by day as it ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... a woman whom he had known but a little while were roaming the woods together, quite as a brother and sister might have done, never occurred to him. If it had it would have made no difference, nor could he have understood why any barrier should have been put up between them. He had been taking care of girls in that same way all his life. Every woman was a sister to him so far as his reverent protection over her went. The traditions of Kennedy Square ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... in latitude 70 degrees 30 minutes north, came across the icy barrier of the Arctic Sea. After vainly trying for a passage in fog and strong wind, surrounded by loose ice, and after mapping a good deal of the shores on both sides, the ships again turned south at the end of August, exploring ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... warranted to say (and I deem it my duty to embrace the public opportunity now afforded me of saying it) that the institution of this college was wanting to complete the happiness of the natives under our dominion; for this institution will break down that barrier (our ignorance of their language) which has ever opposed the influence of our laws and principles, and has despoiled our administration of its ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... believed it to be, he could see stupendous ridges of reddish earth rise in countless numbers and always running back toward the centre, with here and there green pastures of grass, but he looked in vain for a break in the adamantine barrier which made this ocean-bound ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... seemed impossible to establish any point of contact with either the officers or the men. In their athletics, in their social gatherings, in their reading, he was quietly ignored and made to feel that he was in no way necessary. An impalpable but very real barrier prevented his near approach to those whom he was so eager ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... reluctance to be included in the country colony's social divagations. She was engaged to one man and in love with another, who was clearly ineligible—this was the Mountain View Avenue summing-up of the matter; and some condemned and some pitied, and all were careful not to step within the barrier of aloofness with which Miss Dabney had of late ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... the chapel. The distant, melancholy sounds mounted to her now and then. Otherwise the house was wrapped in a mourning silence; and outside, trailing clouds hung round the old walls, making a penitential barrier all about it. ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... equipped of the Austrian State railways, and Abbleway began to have serious fears for a breakdown. The train had slowed down to a painful and precarious crawl and presently came to a halt at a spot where the drifting snow had accumulated in a formidable barrier. The engine made a special effort and broke through the obstruction, but in the course of another twenty minutes it was again held up. The process of breaking through was renewed, and the train doggedly resumed its way, encountering ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... eyes rested on the girl in the next seat. Yes, Amy was pure in heart. There was no shadow of evil on that beautiful brow. Innocence, purity and truth were written in every line of the girlish features, and Dick's heart ached as he thought of his own life and the awful barrier between them; not the barrier of social position or wealth; that, he knew, could be overcome; but the barrier he had builded himself, in the reckless, wasted years. And then and there the strong young man fought a battle in the secret chamber of his own soul; fought a battle and won; ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... remark concerning the infectious vapor, seems decisive as to the feet of the church of St. Paul occupying the site of the pagan fane. It stands without the walls of the town, upon elevated ground, at a very short distance to the right of the barrier below Mont St. Catherine, on the road to Paris, in the immediate vicinity of some mineral springs, strongly impregnated with iron. Prior to the revolution, the church was under the jurisdiction of the monastery of Montivilliers. The abbess had the ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... to her. In her eyes, then, the latter was rather the victim of misfortune than himself culpable. If Walter eventually—of course, some time must pass—again sought to win her, without doubt he would tell her everything, and Annabel would find nothing in the story to make a perpetual barrier between them. The marriage which Mrs. Ormonde so strongly ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... wall, they saw the Althea brought slowly down to the rock, another captive to swell the motionless fleet. It did not take them long to reach the barrier. Some fifty feet high it was, of smooth polished Ganymedan stone, and no door or opening in ...
— Pirates of the Gorm • Nat Schachner
... sprinkled with flower-beds, which stretched from the Castle to the point where the ground dipped steeply towards the river, was divided across by a remarkable structure—a tall, new, bare wooden fence, constituting a very substantial barrier. It stood a few paces to the right of the window which the Captain identified as his own, and ran some yards down the hill. Here was plain and strong evidence of the state of war which existed between the two wings. Neither the Count nor the Countess would risk so much as a sight of the other ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... on Alison West, and the fact that only a week before she had been a guest in this very house; on Richey and the constraint that had come between us. From that I drifted back to Alison, and to the barrier ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... I have mentioned in connection with Miss Scott's conversion, began his career as an Episcopal clergyman. There was a barrier to his becoming a Roman Catholic priest, as he was married; but his wife soon shared in his religious ardor, and when he entered the priesthood she became a nun. He lacked stability, however, in his religious views, and was subsequently ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... a mountain stream is turned from its course by some insuperable barrier, the poor girl, with no means of making her affection known to the object of it, found consolation in very insignificant ways: to secure his notice for a moment, to be able to render him any slight service, and to fancy that ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... him the Social Contract for 1000 francs. The manuscript had then to be cunningly conveyed to Amsterdam. Rousseau wrote it out in very small characters, sealed it carefully up, and entrusted it to the care of the chaplain of the Dutch embassy, who happened to be a native of Vaud. In passing the barrier, the packet fell into the hands of the officials. They tore it open and examined it, happily unconscious that they were handling the most explosive kind of gunpowder that they had ever meddled with. It was not until the chaplain claimed it in the name of ambassadorial ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... pushing against a fierce wind, that appeared like an invisible iron barrier to intercept their way. Every now and then, Agatha could not help shivering and creeping closer to her husband; whenever she did so, he always turned round and wrapped her up ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... for a reply. My connection with the Duke de Laval, our ambassador at Rome, and with the French Government in general, was a barrier to any visiting between ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... remembered this. Perhaps he merely felt that Keggs was a faithful old servant and, as such, entitled to thrust himself into the family affairs. Whatever his reasons, he now definitely lowered the barrier. ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... he was; but he set it aside, for he was accustomed to owe all he gained to his own exertions, and though he still keenly felt in Hadrian the superiority of a powerful mind, their expedition through the city had not brought him any nearer to the Roman. Some insurmountable barrier stood fixed between himself and this restless, inquisitive man, who required so many answers that no one else had time to ask a question, and who when he was silent looked so absorbed and unapproachable that no one ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... something. It is all very well for cultivated persons with libraries to scoff at religious services. To the poor the cathedral or the church might be an immense benefit, if only for the reason that they present a barrier to worldly noise, and are a distinct invitation by architecture and symbolic decoration to meditation on something beyond the business which presses on them during the week. Poor people frequently cannot read ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... had ridden swiftly in with notice of the approach of the Apaches, and all the other scouts were fast following his good example. The first whoop had been given by the Big Tongue from behind the largest rocks of the barrier, but he was soon calmly walking up and down outside, as if waiting for the whole Apache nation, and also ready to be admired by somebody. One-eye was also beyond the barrier, for some reason, but he came in at the call of Two Arrows. There was no danger ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... guests of the king, and wandered freely through the saloons. Those who came without cards had to content themselves behind the silken ropes stretched across one side of the rooms; by means of this rope an almost invisible and yet an insurmountable barrier was interposed between the people ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... noticing a change in the expression of her face, her voice, and even her intonation. It seemed as if that fit of laughter had loosed the last ties that bound her to a self-imposed character, had swept away the last barrier between her and her healthier nature, had dispossessed a painful unreality, and relieved the morbid tension of a purely nervous attitude. The change in her utterance and the resumption of her softer Spanish accent seemed to have come with her confidences, ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... this secret. Certainly not the midnight walks of Lady Chillington. Perhaps a certain impalpable atmosphere of mystery, which, striking keenly on the sensitive nerves of a child, strung by recent events to a higher pitch than usual, broke down the first fine barrier that separates things common and of the earth earthy, from those dim intuitions which even the dullest of us feel at times of things spiritual and unseen. But however that may be, it so fell out ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... shame; and the aspect of the kind parents filled her with tender remorse. Was the prize gained—the heaven of life—and the winner still doubtful and unsatisfied? As his hero and heroine pass the matrimonial barrier, the novelist generally drops the curtain, as if the drama were over then: the doubts and struggles of life ended: as if, once landed in the marriage country, all were green and pleasant there: and wife and ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... easily become and is to-day a bar to Hindu-Mahomedan Unity. If we make ourselves believe that Hindus and Mahomedans cannot be one unless they interdine or intermarry, we would be creating an artificial barrier between us which it might be almost impossible to remove. And it would seriously interfere with the flowing unity between Hindus and Mahomedans if, for example, Mahomedan youths consider it lawful to court Hindu ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... Crestone, Powder Gulch, and Los Gatos emptied themselves upon the hills, and among them were representatives of big firms in Denver, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo. The path past the Maggie Mine was worn deep by the feet of the gold-seekers, and Bidwell's rude pole barrier was polished by the nervous ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... the rank, thick-standing growth of an annual locally styled "horse-weed," which rears a cane-like stalk full eighteen or twenty feet high—it has now attained but four or five feet, but the dry stalks of last year's growth are everywhere about, showing what a formidable barrier to landing these giant weeds must be ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... wood. I said croquet ground, not green; for the surface was of brown, beaten earth. The toll-bar itself was the only other note of originality: a long beam, turning on a post, and kept slightly horizontal by a counterweight of stones. Regularly about sundown this rude barrier was swung, like a derrick, across the road and made fast, I think, to a tree upon the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... been shown that the deep hollow, at the bottom of which flowed the stream of Holborn, formed a natural barrier between the walled city and its suburb. It also divided the guilds and trade associations of London from that plexus of schools of laws which at first radiated from Holborn Bars. The guilds recognised the leading of the Mayor and Commonalty; ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... was giving way to the dawn when they approached that ancient fortress, and its dark massive tower had just received the first pale colouring of the morning. The party halted at the Tower barrier, not venturing to approach nearer for fear of the fire of the place. Lord Evandale alone rode up to the gate, followed at a distance by Jenny Dennison. As they approached the gate, there was heard to arise in the court-yard a tumult, ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... dignity which Mallinson had never known in her before, and he felt that it raised a more solid barrier between them than even her refusal ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... himself thoroughly and he should be practical, go slow, not forcing the lad's development by unnecessary knowledge, avoiding gush and sentiment. He should not seek confession or allow the boy to confess to him, for confession will raise a barrier between the two later on; he should help the boy without invading the lad's innermost life, his soul; he should learn that there are recesses in the boy's self that are his own and that bear no invasion, and he should ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander
... tender minds! She filled him with pride,—which is a cardinal virtue, let theologians say what they will,—and kept him aloof from the little blackguards who toss and tumble over the curb-stones, losing that dignity which is man's chastity, and removing one barrier between them and crime. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... foolhardy, but little suited to the end. Yet a very special providence was visibly at work, in a chain of events that were altogether miraculous, as the sequel proved. A new colony was founded at Montreal, which was intended as a barrier against the inroads of the savages, and of which it will be necessary to speak a little in advance. While the French seemed to be taking an enthusiastic interest in the colonization of Canada—partly from political ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... named Pamartin. Immediately on learning my arrival from the guides sent along with me by the king, he appointed me a lodging, which was sufficiently small, considering the size of the city. He here visited me, and sent me a sufficient supply of provisions. This city serves as a barrier or frontier garrison against the Tartars, and is celebrated for a great fair, to which the merchants bring rich furs, and other goods from Upper Russia. From hence the merchants travel in a large caravan to Caffa or Theodosia in the Crimea; but are often surprised ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... large-hearted, dexterous, ruling kind of personage; blessed with a felicitous temperament for bearing the responsibility of great affairs." In the military age he might have been a great soldier, a Turenne or a Marlborough, if he could have broken through the aristocratic barrier which confined high command to the privileged few; in the industrial age he found a more beneficent road to distinction, and one not limited to ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... which lie between it and the mainland. At one end, the shoreward end, there is a tiny cove, and a bit of silver-sand beach, with a green meadow beyond it, and a single great pine; but all the rest is rocks, rocks. At the farther end the rocks are piled high, like a castle wall, making a brave barrier against the Atlantic waves; and on top of this cairn rises the lighthouse, rugged and sturdy as the rocks themselves, but painted white, and with its windows shining like great, smooth diamonds. This is Light Island; and ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... his poverty alone was the barrier that separated him from Catalina. He knew that her father was not, properly speaking, one of the "rico" class. True, he was a rico now: but only a few years ago he had been a poor "gambucino"—poor as Carlos himself. In fact, they had once been nearer neighbours; and in his ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... young man with much dignity. But at this moment Jacquelin appeared to announce that mademoiselle was served. The old maid gave a glance of appeal to the chevalier; but the gallant recorder of mortgages, who was beginning to see in the manners of that gentleman the barrier which the provincial nobles were setting up about this time between themselves and the bourgeoisie, made the most of his chance to cut out Monsieur de Valois. He was close to Mademoiselle Cormon, and promptly offered his arm, which she found ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... lameness, he was the first passenger to alight. He had no luggage to attend to, save the newly-purchased bag which he carried. He lost no time in hurrying down the platform; when he hurried his limp became more pronounced. As he passed through the barrier he slackened his pace. By reason of his greater height he could glance above the heads of the crowd; his eyes went questing in all directions. They failed to find what they sought. He delayed until ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... foot of Eveline had made a step beyond the palisades which formed the outward barrier of the castle, the Constable de Lacy stepped forward to meet her, and, bending his right knee to the earth, craved pardon for the discourtesy which his vow had imposed on him, while he expressed his sense of the honour with which she now graced him, as one ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... England, it still remains true that, taken as a whole, Ireland is a country marked with the Celtic stamp. There, too, the power of the sea comes in. If there had been only a land frontier, it is possible that the Teutonic influence would have overpowered the Celtic. But the sea forms a sufficient barrier to cut off every new band of immigrants from the country of their origin. This isolation drives them into insular communion with the country of their invasion. Thus, however often invaded and ...
— Home Rule - Second Edition • Harold Spender
... probable, and the very Prussian army which was so useful at Waterloo was held in readiness to attack the English. On the other hand, England, Austria, and France entered into a private agreement to resist, beyond a certain extent, Prussia's demands of a barrier on the Rhine, etc., and, what is most singular of all, it was from Bonaparte that the Emperor Alexander first heard of this triple alliance.[58] But the circumstance of finding Napoleon interesting ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... argument that Bergson has so patiently built up by deep scientific research and unsurpassed profundity of thought and crystal-clear reason, that leads to the substantial conclusion that man has leapt the barrier of materiality only by the urge of some external pressure superior to himself, but which, by reason of infinite effort, he alone of all terrestrial beings has succeeded in utilizing in a superior manner and to his advantage: this well-rounded and exhaustively ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward
... strip of his background from the brass rail along the ceiling. Within, the Manchester shop window was cut off by a partition rather like the partition of an old-fashioned church pew from the general space of the shop. There was a panelled barrier, that is to say, with a little door like a pew door in it. Parsons' face appeared, staring with round eyes ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... the enormous addition to his wealth and power which would accrue from the marriage, tempted him, and he now regarded the woman who had surrendered to him the most sacred of man's earthly trusts—her young heart's first affections, her hopes of earthly happiness—as a barrier to his pride and the vile passion he dared to dignify with the name of love: and when she now asked him to do her the justice which he could no longer plead his father's anger for denying—O God, ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... unhappy married life. The royal princesses were not allowed to appear in public nor drive unveiled through the streets. Suitors did not release them from the dreary empty routine of their life, because their religion was a barrier to alliance with princes of the west. Sophia had dared greatly in demanding a ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... crouched in the bottom of the cart, with her baby in her arms. He could see that the carts had been formed in a semicircle, and from behind them his comrades withstood charge after charge of the Indians, who would dash up to the barrier of heavy carts, pour in a volley, and sweep away beyond rifle range, until their own ...
— Harper's Young People, June 1, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... unwilling to become more of an annoyance than could be helped. The indescribable difference in Agatha's whole manner sent Magdalen to bed happier than she had been since the arrival of her sisters, and feeling as if Agatha had come to her own side of a barrier. ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... inhabited by the professed nuns; and then her flowing hair would be cut short, and she would enter on her novitiate previously to taking the veil, that last, last step in the conventual regime, which would forever raise up an insuperable barrier between herself and the great, the beautiful, the glorious ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... them into the parlor. There they found several pupils who were talking to members of their families, from whom they were separated by a grille, whose black bars gave to those within the appearance of captives, and made rather a barrier to eager demonstrations of affection, though they did not hinder the reception ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... bringing the Boers to their knees was the elaborate and wonderful blockhouse system, which had been strung across the whole of the enemy's country. The original blockhouses had been far apart, and were a hindrance and an annoyance rather than an absolute barrier to the burghers. The new models, however, were only six hundred yards apart, and were connected by such impenetrable strands of wire that a Boer pithily described it by saying that if one's hat blew over the line anywhere ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... his force and threw himself heavily against it. The whole building appeared to quiver with the shock; but the caged tiger has a better chance of smashing his iron bars than poor Bill Bowls had. Twice he flung his whole weight against the barrier, and the second time Ben helped him; but their efforts were in vain. A moment later and a party of soldiers marched up to the grating on the outside. At the same time a noise was heard at the other end of the passage. Turning ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... as he gets an idea of whither he is being led, how thankful he will be for every pang that teaches him restraint, and purifies; while we—we shall suffer blind wrench after wrench, stung into feeling at any cost, and not till we painfully overtop the barrier shall we guess ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of their own party on either side of the Atlantic, and that has to this day furnished the most effective argument to opponents against dissenters' pretensions to liberality and liberty, and the strongest barrier against their political influence in England. They were prostrate and powerless when the liberal Churchmen, guided by the views of Chillingworth, Burnet, and Tillotson, under William and Mary, obtained the first Parliamentary enactment for religious toleration in ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... contemporaries at Balliol were far more successful in their efforts at understanding somebody who had not been at a public school. They appeared to have no prejudices against the homebred boy. I was never made in the least to feel that there was any bar or barrier between me and my fellow-freshmen. As proof of this, I may point to the fact that every one of my intimate friends at Balliol were public-school boys. I have no doubt I was considered odd by most of my contemporaries, but this oddness, and also my inability to play football or cricket, never seemed ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... the other may fill her hours and her heart with the poets and the philosophers; one may steadfastly pursue her way toward the command of a hospital, and the other towards the world of letters and of art; these divergences constitute no barrier, but rather an aid to the fulness of friendship. And the fact that one goes in a simple gown which she has earned and made herself, and the other lives when at home in a merchant's modern palace—what has that to do with the things the girls care about ...
— Why go to College? an Address • Alice Freeman Palmer
... say what sad and tender memories were evoked by this picture of her lover of fifty years earlier, in his darkness and isolation, shut out like herself by a dark barrier from the joy and light of life. Among the mental pictures that thronged her brain was, probably, that of a dainty maiden, rake in hand, glancing archly from under her bonnet at a gallant young Prince, whose eyes spoke love to hers as he rode lingeringly ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... you rulers of a new world; I would destroy your vile civilisations which I have studied with my eyes, that I may build better! To you, Humphrey, I would give my only child in marriage that from you may spring a divine race of kings! And yet you are against me and set up your puny scruples as a barrier across my path of wisdom. Well, I tread them down, I go on my appointed way. But beware how you try to hold me back. If any one of you should attempt to come between me and my ends, know that I will destroy you all. Obey ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... early as the commencement of the twelfth dynasty; and it is probable that, while the dynasty lasted, the pressure was continually becoming greater. Asiatics were from time to time received within the barrier of Amenemhat I., some to sojourn and some to dwell. The eastern Delta was more or less Asiaticized; and a large portion of its inhabitants was inclined to welcome a further ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... a pleural rub was audible at the upper margin of the dulness with the development of the fresh symptoms. Whether this was due to actual pleurisy or to the rubbing of surfaces rough from the breaking down of slight recent adhesions which had formed a barrier to the effusion, I am unable to say, but the signs were fairly constant. In some instances the increase in the amount of fluid was, no doubt, due to pleural effusion resulting from irritation from the presence of blood-clot, or perhaps the shifting ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... goat-hunter, was dreamily thinking of the beautiful young woman at his side and of the queer freak Fortune had played in bringing them together. As he studied her face he could not but lament that marriage, at least, established a barrier between her and the advances his bold heart might otherwise be willing to risk. His black hair straggled down over his forehead and his dark eyes—the patch had been surreptitiously ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... barrier of command, the constable led Arden into the house, past where his sister lay in a swoon, and by the back way got him to jail. The crowd, fascinated by her beauty, which the tempest of passion had ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... "Destroying other people's property and getting innocent folks disliked," but refrained. She had told no one of her interview with Miss Thompson. Grace knew that the principal was still displeased with her. She was no longer on the old terms of intimacy with Miss Thompson. A barrier seemed to have sprung up between them, that only one thing could remove, but Grace was resolved not to expose Eleanor—not that she felt that Eleanor did not richly deserve it, but she knew that it would mean instant expulsion from school. She ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... temperament, Harper was aiming high. There was a standing award of $50,000 for the lucky mathematician who would solve the mystery of the "stress-barrier" encountered by skyscrapers as they were built up toward the 150 story mark. At this height, they encountered stress and strains which mathematical computations and engineering designs had been unable to solve. Harper believed the "stress-barrier" was due to an undetected space-bending ...
— The 4-D Doodler • Graph Waldeyer
... came to her senses she found herself outside the house, running with her rifle, already entering the woods. But, inside the barrier of trees, something blocked her way, stopped her,—a ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... offers nothing but perils, exact guarantees from the barons whom they serve? And if these guarantees can not be denied them, how could they be other than barriers to competition, just as the truce of God, invented by the bishops, was a barrier to feudal wars? By the constitution of society, I said a little while ago, competition is an exceptional matter, a privilege; now I ask how it is possible for this privilege to coexist with equality ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... line of defense on this front, and capturing strongly fortified positions at Falfemont Farm, Leuze Wood, Guillemont, and southeast of Delville Wood, where reached the western outskirts of Ginchy. More important than this gain in territory was the fact that the barrier which for seven weeks the enemy had maintained against our further advance had at last been broken. Over 1,000 prisoners were taken and many machine guns captured or destroyed in the course of ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... Magistrate from his subordinates, and this fence, being made of long splinters of wood placed diagonally, was called cancellus, from its likeness to network, the regular Latin word for a net being casses, and the diminutive cancellus[177]. At this latticed barrier then stood two Cancellarii, by whom, since no one was allowed to approach the judgment-seat, paper was brought to the members of the staff and needful messages were delivered. But now that the office owing to the number ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... her artificial environment and the false standards by which she is surrounded, would like to meet and perhaps eventually marry some young man who is more worth while than the "pet cats" of her acquaintance, she is practically powerless to do so. She is cut off by the impenetrable artificial barrier of her own exclusiveness. She may hear of such young men—young fellows of ambition, of adventurous spirit, of genius, who have already achieved something in the world, but they are outside the wall of money and she is inside it, and there is no way for them to ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... necessity is there for retaining the idea? Is there any barrier in eternal justice? Surely, there cannot be, since Christ has paid a penalty of infinite value for every soul of man. And is there any limit to divine love? That love is infinite, and embraces the ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... some part of the body, and that a return to good health involves treatment for the normal adjustment of the skeleton; he asserts, though any luxation may be only partial, it may cause pressure at some point upon a blood vessel, or a nerve of which the patient may be unconscious, and thus be a barrier to ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... this spot, where your Friend, our illustrious WASHINGTON, raised the first successful barrier against the relentless tide of oppression, which, in the eventful period of seventy-six, was rolling over our country; the hero who, in the succeeding stages of our revolutionary struggle, acted so conspicuous a part, and contributed so essentially to its glorious termination, cannot fail to ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... thought afterwards, must have strengthened herself to speak from the instinctive desire to show Percivale how far she was from being out of sympathy with what he might suppose formed a barrier between him and me—"But," she said, "the lovely feeling in that poem seems to me, as in all the rest of such poems, to belong only to the New Testament, and have nothing to do with this world round about us. These things look as if they were only for drawing ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... on the King's side. He will attempt this either by P- KB3 attacking White's centre or by P-KB4 preventing White from playing P-B5. In the latter case White can only make a breach in the Black barrier by playing P-KKt4 as well. These manoeuvres result in the pawn formations given ...
— Chess Strategy • Edward Lasker
... white settlements are not to be pushed. No political communities can be formed in that extensive region, except those which are established by the Indians themselves or by the United States for them and with their concurrence. A barrier has thus been raised for their protection against the encroachment of our citizens, and guarding the Indians as far as possible from those evils which have brought them to their present condition. Summary authority has been given ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... dance or union meeting, unless accompanied by father, mother or brother. While no one can help deeply respecting the principles of family affection and responsibility which dictate this code of manners, there is equally no blinking the fact that it raises a most serious barrier in the way of organizing girls of Italian parentage. Nor on the other hand is it of the least avail to protect the girl against the evils of the industrial system of which the whole family form a part. In especial it does not serve to shield her from the injurious effects of cruel ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... better sense arrested me, barely in time to escape his eyes. For I said to myself, that even supposing I could contend unarmed with him, it would be the greatest folly in the world to have my secret access known, and perhaps a fatal barrier placed between Lorna and myself, and I knew not what trouble brought upon her, all for the sake of a few eggs and fishes. It was better to bear this trifling loss, however ignominious and goading to the spirit, than to ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... attitude that showed off his silk jacket embroidered in pink, he smiled, and although his lips were rather pale, his voice remained calm, his speech easy, with that polished elegance which never left him when addressing his wife, and which placed a barrier between them like a hard lacquer screen adorned with flowery and intricate arabesques. With one word, one gesture, she put aside the barrier behind which he would fain ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... in the evening of the day on which Samuel Marlowe had sat in the lane plotting with Webster, the valet. At almost the exact moment when Sam, sidling through the windows of the drawing-room, slid into the cupboard behind the piano, Mrs. Hignett was standing at the Customs barrier telling the officials that she had ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... that stubbornly blind? Not quite, I guess, or I'd never have seen what is happening. But he knew he hadn't been too much more perceptive than those around him. Even to an intelligent man, the mask of stupidity can become a barrier to the outside world as well as a concealment ...
— The Highest Treason • Randall Garrett
... him, and by forcing the issue led him to the altar. Needless to say, she ruled the household, and F. B.'s only consolation lay in the crop of children that soon appeared in the house, for timidity is no barrier to parenthood. This consolation rather tends to disappear as the children grow older, for they become his masters. Such men as F. B. have a collar around their necks to which any one may fit ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson |
