"Blocked" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... peculiar gaudy saddle hood, ornamented with cowrie-shells, accompanied the march; thousands of sheep and goats, driven by Arab boys, were straggling in all directions; baggage-camels, heavily laden with the quaint household goods, blocked up the way; the fine bronzed figures of Arabs, with sword and shield, and white topes, or plaids, guided their milk-white dromedaries through the confused throng with the usual placid dignity of their race, simply passing by with the ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... began to collect their valuables and hide them or pack them to carry to a place of safety, if any such place could be found; and throughout the city there were scenes of indescribable confusion. The streets were blocked with furniture and other goods which people were trying to move. All government store-houses were thrown open, and what could not be carried away was left to be plundered by those who rushed in ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... would settle all problems for him.... But if he missed? At the mere idea he trembled as he trotted on, trying to tell himself that he couldn't miss. No use; always the coward's "if" blocked him; and the coward's rage,—fiercest of all fury,—ravaged him, almost crazing him with his ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... "This effected, we blocked up its egressing mouth, that, should our escape be discovered, the enemy might not find the direct ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... longitude 109 deg. 31' W.; the wind was at north; the weather mild and not unpleasant; and not a bit of ice in view. This we thought a little extraordinary, as it was but a month before, and not quite two hundred leagues to the east, that we were in a manner blocked up with large islands of ice in this very latitude. Saw a single pintadoe peterel, some blue peterels, and a few brown albatrosses. In the evening, being under the same meridian, and in the latitude ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... birth. I'm fond of Eliza; she's got a splendid crust. I wish you'd get excited about my rights; but your interest really goes no further than a hat from Camille Marchais. You are deleterious, Howat. Isn't that a lovely word! Which was the first double?" He blocked and won the game. "Fifty-five," she announced; "and ninety-five before. I owe you ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... enters the woods it is all overgrown, and gone to rack and ruin, from want of use. In my grandfather's time it was a fine, well-kept highway, with posthouses every ten miles, though a rare place for robbery; but nowadays nobody wants it at all, for nobody comes or goes. It will soon be blocked, so the driver says; it will soon be quite choked up what with brambles, and rocks, and fallen trees, and what not. He was black with rage, for he was obliged to go back as he had come, and he said he had been cheated into ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... in 1671, and has since been their home. Various sums of money have been voted at different times for its repair or embellishment. It has once been damaged by fire, and on another occasion severely threatened. In 1825 the entrance into Wood Street was blocked up and the entrance into Silver Street opened. The hall has been a favourite place of meeting for several other companies—the Fruiterers' Company, the Tinplate Workers' Company, the Society of Porters, and other private companies ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... 1609.—He set forth in 1609 in the Half-Moon, a stanch little ship. At first he sailed northward, but ice soon blocked his way. He then sailed southwestward to find a strait, which was said to lead through America, north of Chesapeake Bay. On August 3, 1609, he reached the entrance of what is now New York harbor. Soon the Half-Moon entered the mouth of the river that still bears her captain's name. Up, up the river ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... acted more wisely than in thus at once fixing the government of their country, and putting an end to those rivalries among the leading families, which had so often proved pernicious to the public weal. He struck money, conferred titles, blocked up the fortified towns which were held by the Genoese, and amused the people with promises of assistance for about eight months: then, perceiving that they cooled in their affections towards him in proportion as their expectations were disappointed, he left the island, under the plea of expediting ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... great variety of cabin-trunks and saratogas blocked the corridor of the PENSION. The addresses they bore were in Johanna's ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... the king. They followed close on his heels, and I, who had seen nothing of courts, wondered that so many armed men should be needed in a peaceful hall, and yet watched them as one watches a gay show, till some fifty men of the king's household lined my hall and fifty more blocked the doorway. My people watched too, and I saw a smile cross from one of Matelgar's men to another, ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... home, Frederick slept till seven o'clock. After that he called on the Marechale. She had gone out with somebody—with Arnoux, perhaps! Not knowing what to do with himself, he continued his promenade along the boulevard, but could not get past the Porte Saint-Martin, owing to the great crowd that blocked ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... into a fortified military base. Troops quartered in Broad Street and along the North and East rivers, and on the line of Grand Street permanent camps were established. Forts, redoubts, batteries, and intrenchments encircled the town. The streets were barricaded, the roads blocked, and efforts made to obstruct the navigation of both rivers. Where we have stores and warehouses, Washington fixed alarm and picket posts; and at points where costly residences stand, men fought, died, ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... are very thick, Alberto," observed his father. "All these niches, which have been blocked up, and in the olden time contained statues, have to ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... office in London, fourteen strong. We crossed Waterloo Bridge with the happy design of beginning the sight at London Bridge, and working our way through the City to Regent Street. In a by-street in the Borough, over against a dead wall and under a railway bridge, we were blocked for four hours. We were obliged to walk home at last, having seen nothing whatever. The wretched van turned up in the course of the next morning; and the best of it was that at Rochester here they illuminated the fine old castle, and really made a very splendid ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... apparently endless line of waggons had been blocked by a bad drift below the camp, and the brigade was called upon to help. The road was somewhat improved by throwing into the soft mud stones obtained from a wall, and many waggons had to be hauled by ropes through the spruit. For over forty-eight hours did that collection ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... two girls returned, in the dusk of evening, to the long dark passageway that led to the tenement in which they now had rooms, Mildred trembled with fear as she saw that its entrance was surrounded and blocked by a group of rough-looking young men and boys. Belle pushed boldly through them, although they leered, laughed, and made coarse jests. Mildred followed shrinkingly, with downcast eyes. "We'll tache 'em to be neighborly," were the last words she heard, showing that the ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... feeding their gossip with his own personal remarks, without observing that an old man on foot, but leading a small Irish horse by the bridle, was endeavoring to penetrate the crowd of men and women which blocked up the entrance to the Medici. But at that moment the voice of the stranger ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to be true. Count Tolstoi, the reactionary Minister of the Interior, blocked the further progress of the plans formulated by the Pahlen Commission which should have been submitted in due course to the Council of State. There were persistent rumors to the effect that Alexander III., being decidedly in favor of continuing the policy of ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... assuring herself that no matter how grand they might be when they were all furnished and fitted up, nothing had been done which would interfere with the dear old home which she had loved so long. It is true that one of the windows of the little dining-room was blocked up, but that window was ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... breathless from the hard climb, their carbines spitting fire while the rapidly massing savages began circling their exposed position, the little band fought their way forward a hundred yards. Then they halted, blocked by the numbers barring their path, glancing back anxiously in hope that their effort would encourage others to join them. They could do it; they could do it if only the rest of the boys would come. They poured in their volleys and waited. But Reno made no move. Weir and Brant, determined to ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... filled with tunnellers' sandbags, for it contained three long mine shafts, two of which were already under the German lines. "A2," "3" and "4" were the most peaceful of our sector, and the only disturbance here during the tour was when one of a small burst of crumps blew up our bomb store and blocked the trench for a time. This was on the 5th, and after it we were left in peace, until, relieved by the Staffordshires, we marched back to Ouderdom, feeling that we had escaped from our first tour in the ill-famed salient ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... by the dead and stretched-out hands of those that lay beneath its soil, always obtruded itself. Then the fog deepened, and the crawling train came to a dead stop at the next station. The whole line was blocked. Four precious ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... "We can do it quietly. And she's too big to be mind-blocked. We'd get part of the answer. Perhaps ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... train was still in the cut. As he ran to the key and sent in the signal for Stanwood, Banneker reflected what this might mean. Crippled? Likely enough. Ditched? He guessed not. A ditched locomotive is usually voiceless if not driverless as well. Blocked by a slide? Rock Cut had a bad repute for that kind of accident. But the quality of the call predicated more of a catastrophe than a mere blockade. Besides, in that case why could not the ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... The ice still blocked the Mohawk and St. Lawrence valleys on the east, while on the west it had retreated far to the north. The lakes become confluent in wide expanses of water, whose depths and margins, as shown by their old lake beaches, varied at different times with the position of the confining ice and with warpings ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... stomach over the debris that blocked the trench, and stopped at the entrance to Laburnum Cottage, officially known as Sniper's Post No. 4. In a little recess pushed out to the front of the trench, covered in with corrugated iron and surrounded by sandbags, sprawled the motionless figure ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... water oozes into the softer limestone around and beneath; but, as in all these limestones, it does not ooze indiscriminately, but follows certain more free paths. These become soon lined and finally blocked with stalagmite, and it is these tubes and threads of stalagmite which afterwards in the ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... ben Salim el Bahili[FN121]), I was once, in the days of Haroun er Reshid, in very narrow case and greatly oppressed with debts, that had accumulated upon me and that I had no means of discharging. My doors were blocked up with creditors and I was without cease importuned for payment by claimants, who dunned me in crowds, till I was at my wits' end what to do. At last, being sore perplexed and troubled, I betook myself to Abdallah ben Malik el Khuzai[FN122] and besought him to aid me with ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... the Hotel de Ville built round with a tasteless Classic structure that obscures it from view. The Musee Requien is in an old convent, the chapel of which is given up to the Protestants; it has a rich flamboyant window to the north, unfortunately blocked. ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... was back again at the issue of the pass. The two Indians had vanished. Barboux's gross body alone blocked the pale daylight there. Barboux lingered a moment, stooping over the murdered man; but he too ran at the sound of John's footsteps, and the corpse, as John came abreast of it, slid over in a silly heap, almost rolling ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... speak of him and myself.' Diana dropped her voice. Here was another confession. The proximity of the trial acted like fire on her faded recollection of incidents. It may be that partly the shame of alluding to them had blocked her woman's memory. For one curious operation of the charge of guiltiness upon the nearly guiltless is to make them paint themselves pure white, to the obliteration of minor spots, until the whiteness being acknowledged, or the ordeal imminent, the spots ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... more than one of the ladies gave a cry and half started from their chairs. The marquis burst out laughing, but gave orders to stop him—a thing not to be effected in a moment, for Duncan was in full tornado, with the avenues of hearing, both corporeal and mental, blocked by his own darling utterance. Understanding at length, he ceased with the air and almost the carriage of a suddenly checked horse, looking half startled, half angry, his cheeks puffed, his nostrils expanded, his head thrown back, ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... was not for long. Scarcely had our progress taken us across the front of the deserted agency building, and beyond the ken of the sentinels in the Fort, when a single warrior rose before us as from the ground, and blocked the path. He was a short, sturdy savage, bare to the waist save for a chain of teeth which dangled with sinister gleam about his brawny throat, and, from the wide sweep of his shoulders, evidently possessed of prodigious strength. He held a gun extended in front of him, and made a gesture of warning ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... book prepared it for publication he depended upon the support of all the friends of learning in these islands; and this thought alone has encouraged him to persevere in his work throughout all the difficulties that blocked his way. Now, for the first time is given to the people of Hawaii a book of entertainment for leisure moments like those of the foreigners, a book to feed our minds with wisdom and insight. Let us all join in forwarding this little book as a means ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... bumped and rattled over the stones in a somber valley one hundred and fifty li from where we had killed the sheep [Footnote: A li equals about one-third of a mile]. With every mile the precipitous cliffs pressed in more closely upon us until at last the gorge was blocked by a sheer wall of rock. Our destination was a village named Wu-tai-hai, but there appeared to be no possible place for a ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... where the grey mass of the Cathedral blocked the vale, a faint tapping sound reached them, borne on 'the cessile air.' It came from the Pageant Ground, where workmen were hammering busily at the Grand Stand. It set them talking of the Pageant, of Corona's 'May Queen' ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... For this was iron or steel all through, barring the timber flooring whose planks were a quarter of an inch apart, so that you could kneel down to see the water through if you were too short to see over the advertisements a sordid spirit of commercialism had blocked the side-railings with. And if you were three or four, and there was nobody to hold you up (because they were carrying baby), you did so kneel, and as like as not got tar on your knees, and it wouldn't come off. Anyhow, Miss Gwendolen Arkwright did, ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... the doorway behind him was immediately blocked up by the motley crowd excluded from the interior. Not a warrior in the council looked at him; even the chief, Snoqualmie, did not turn his head. The messenger advanced a few paces into the room, stopped, and stood as ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... the hall,—and when the King, sorrowful and greatly affected, had scarcely turned about to leave the Cavern, the Statue again commenced its accustomed blows upon the floor. After they had mutually promised to conceal what they had seen, they again closed the Tower, and blocked up the gate of the Cavern with earth, that no memory might remain in the world of such a portentous and evil-boding prodigy. The ensuing midnight, they heard great cries and clamour from the Cave, resounding like the noise of Battle, and the ground shaking with a tremendous roar; ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... de Visagra. The gate referred to here is the Puerta Visagra Antigua, an ancient Arab gate of the ninth century, a little to the west of the Puerta Visagra Actual, which latter was not built until 1550. The old Puerta Visagra is now blocked up. It was through this gateway that Alfonso VI entered Toledo. "The work is entirely Moorish, of the first period, heavy and simple, with the triple arches so delightfully curved in horseshoe shape, ...
— Legends, Tales and Poems • Gustavo Adolfo Becquer
... by agriculture, delays in exploiting energy resources (natural gas), insufficient power supplies, and slow implementation of economic reforms. Economic reform is stalled in many instances by political infighting and corruption at all levels of government. Progress also has been blocked by opposition from the bureaucracy, public sector unions, and other vested interest groups. The BNP government, led by Prime Minister Khaleda ZIA, has the parliamentary strength to push through needed reforms, but the party's political will to do so has been lacking in ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... an awful risk she ran? The steeple has fallen, and the whole front of the church is blocked up, a mass of ruins. I could not get in, and feared you were crushed, until I heard Hero bark from the inside and followed the sound, which brought me to the window, whence he jumped out to meet me. At last when you answered my call, I was obliged ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... more hopeful than the face. At one of these Old Bill halted, and led the way up and over a chaos of fallen rock and loose sand. The grey weather had brought on the dark prematurely, and in the half-light it seemed that this ravine was blocked by an unscalable nose of rock. Here Old Bill whistled, and there was a reply from above. Round the corner of the ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... saw the whole of that fight, for it began at noon, as I have said, when Guthrum turned to find the hillward road blocked behind him. And from that time on it raged from spur to spur and point to point, as step by step the Danes won back to the hillsides. But the crest of the hill they never gained, save where for a time they might set foot and be driven headlong in turn by those who had given way before them ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... my friend, where we store up our goods and stable the mules when the pass near here is blocked up by snow or the frontier guards. Well, how do you feel now? Ready to go into hiding where you will be safe, or are you ready to help us against your enemies ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... this chapel were so numerous, that in the hundred and fifty years, since the picture had been placed there, the clergy had been able to purchase numerous lamps and candlesticks of silver, and vessels of silver gilt, and even of gold. The doorway was always blocked by carriages, and a sentinel was placed there to keep order amongst the coachmen; no nobleman would pass by without going in to pray to the Virgin, and to contemplate those 'beata ubera, quae lactaverunt aeterni patris filium'. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... glittering midstream is swept to the clean sheen of a strip of moire, this splendid desolation blocked on each side by crowds half ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... road, alone, for several minutes, before he felt he could begin to resume the round of his own existence. When he came at length to the main street's blaze of light, a deeply packed throng could be seen in all the thoroughfare, compactly blocked in front of a ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... discharge it, but because the garrison hemmed in was well known to be at once numerous and enterprising. The reader may accordingly judge what appearance a country presented which, to the extent of fifteen or twenty miles round, was thus treated; where every house was fortified, every road blocked up, every eminence mined with fieldworks, and every place swarming with armed men. Nor was its aspect less striking by night than by day. Gaze where he might, the eye of the spectator then rested upon some portion ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... continued for some hours. Let the bonnets remain in the liquor all night, and the next morning take them out, dry them in the air, and brush them with a soft brush. Lastly, rub them inside and out with a sponge moistened with oil, and then send them to be blocked. Hats are done in the ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... encamped in a forest, and he surrounded them with a superior army; he then contrived, by attacking and retreating, to lead them into a position from which there was no escape but by the pass by which they had entered, and which he completely blocked ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... twisted toward the right. As the ball is thrown, the weight of the body should be changed to the forward leg and the body swung forward nearly half around from the waist toward the left. The best way to stop the ball is usually by blocking it with both arms; but it may be blocked with the legs or the body. The ball may be tossed from player to player on the same side, either to get it into the hands of the best thrower or to mislead the opponents as to when it will be aimed at their clubs. Players may move about on their own side, but overstepping ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... rocks at the mouth of the bay. Flanagan's old boat was seen a quarter of a mile ahead, running towards a passage which seemed absolutely blocked with rocks. The Tortoise began to overhaul ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... And, as I wondered, the first dim sense of being shut in came filtering through my childish consciousness. I could not cross the river. Big as my playground had always been, I had never been out of sight of the fort's flagstaff up-stream, nor down-stream. The wooded ravines blocked me on the southwest. What lay beyond these limits I had tried to picture again and again. I had been a dreamer all of my short life, and this new feeling of being shut in, held back, from something ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... most absurd fancies took possession of him. He imagined himself riding in a carriage through the streets of a city. Windows were thrown open and people ran out at the doors of houses. "There he is. That's him," they shouted, and at the words a glad cry arose. The carriage drove into a street blocked with people. A hundred thousand pairs of eyes looked up at him. "There you are! What a fellow you have managed to make of yourself!" the eyes seemed to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the Pas de Soucis are these features wanting. Here the river, a narrow green ribbon, disappears altogether, its way blocked with huge masses of rock, as of some mountain split into fragments and hurled by gigantic ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... Dick Steele, Dean Swift—there was no end to them! On certain nights, when all the stolid neighborhood was lapped in slumber, the narrow street stretching beneath Tom Folio's windows must have been blocked with invisible coaches and sedan-chairs, and illuminated by the visionary glare of torches borne by shadowy linkboys hurrying hither and thither. A man so sought after and companioned ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Chinese (1894); Russian railway; Russian fleet at, crippled by Japanese; Japanese attack on, was it warranted?; fleet further crippled; harbour entrance blocked; movements toward; ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... to show that on such waters the little red squares had already blocked a foothold for other owners. Thorpe surmised that he would undoubtedly discover fine unbought timber along their banks, but that the men already engaged in stealing it would hardly be likely to allow ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... Greece, but would have placed two customs frontiers, the Bulgarian and the Greek, between Serbia and the sea, instead of only one, the Turkish, as hitherto. Shut in upon all sides, with all hope of expansion blocked by the powerful Dual Monarchy to north and west and by a big Bulgaria to east and south, Serbia would have found herself in a worse position than before the war. The Bulgarians, intoxicated by their victories over the Turks and seduced by ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... and duties which were exacted by the lords through whose domains his way passed. Not only were duties exacted on the highways, bridges, and at the fords, but those barons who were so fortunate as to have castles on a navigable river blocked the stream in such a way that the merchant could not bring his vessel through without a payment for the privilege. The charges were usually small, but the way in which they were exacted and the repeated delays must have been a serious source of irritation and loss to the merchants. For example, ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... When the internment was completed, some one suggested that the workmen who had made the machinery and concealed the treasure knew the great value of the latter, and that the secret would leak out. Therefore, so soon as the ceremony was over, and the path giving access to the sarcophagus had been blocked up at its innermost end, the outside gate at the entrance to this path was let fall, and the mausoleum was effectually closed, so that not one of the workmen escaped. Trees and grass were then planted around, ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... be added; that the sense of duty of which I speak, which rose sturdily and fiercely above the shifting forms of life, like a peak above the forest, did not appear at once either desirable or even beautiful. It blocked the view and the way; it forbade one to stray or loiter; but the obedience one reluctantly gave to it came simply from a realisation of its strength and of its presence. It stood for an order of some kind, ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... general disaster to the insurrectos at the Esmeralda Mine, and apparently rode straight from there to the mouth of the underground river he had long used to such good advantage. At any rate, when the boys visited it later, they found that a cunningly set explosion had completely blocked the passage for navigation, and the secret route of the forgotten race was forever closed to man. As for the Mesa, you can read all about it scientifically described in Professor Wintergreen's ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... they had become the 'buildings situate within Fort No. 18'; (3) that they were to be deluged with soldiers; and (4) that they were liable to evacuate their tenements on mobilization. They had become a fort unwittingly as they slept, and all their streets were blocked with ramparts. A hard fate; but they should not have built their village just on the brow of a round hill. They did this in the old days, when men used stone instead of iron, because the top of a hill was a good place to hold against enemies; ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... come up the street and was about to slip grumblingly past the little group that blocked the walk. Mary Rose ran ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... over an hour that I waited. It was after ten, and it became more difficult to watch who was going into the gambling joint. In fact, several times the street was so blocked that I could not see very well. But I did happen to catch a glimpse of one familiar figure across ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... which did just as well, and Collier sent his sword through the shoulder of the French soldier who followed next. Claverhouse, seizing this minute of delay, ran with all his might for a hedge, over which dismounted stragglers were climbing in hot haste, and made for the nearest gap. It was blocked by a tall and heavily-built Dutch dragoon, who could neither get through nor back, and was ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... see, and then he believed that he had seen it himself, perhaps conceived it. In some measure the architect seemed to share his delusion, and freely said that Lapham was very suggestive. Together they blocked out windows here, and bricked them up there; they changed doors and passages; pulled down cornices and replaced them with others of different design; experimented with costly devices of decoration, and went to extravagant ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... If for the fair ones' lustre thine own red brilliance wane Carry my salutation to those I love and say, I lie in a far Greek dungeon and cry for help in vain. How can I win to join them, since that the ways with wars Are blocked and the gate of succour is ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... an imposing spectacle, and all Flosston seemed to appreciate the occasion, for windows were jammed with faces, doors were blocked with figures, and even low roofs were spotted with waving, shouting energetic youths. Not since a wartime parade had there been so much excitement, and only a word from the superintendent to the engineer of Fluffdown mills prevented the latter ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... taking the side-track, waited for it. When it arrived, however, Andrews saw, to his surprise and chagrin, that it bore a red flag, indicating another train not far behind. Stepping over to the conductor, he boldly asked: "What does it mean that the road is blocked in this manner when I have orders to take this powder to Beauregard without a minute's delay?" The answer was interesting, but not reassuring: "Mitchel has captured Huntsville, and is said to be coming to Chattanooga, and we are getting everything out of there." He was asked ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... town, and once upon the main street, took a new pair of gloves from his pocket, fitted them carefully, and directed his steps to the elegant residence, whose approach was well-nigh blocked up with carriages. This was the second time that he had been invited by the Hendersons, and he had almost determined to decline as formerly, but something in Irene's chill manner changed his resolution. He knew, from various circumstances, that the social edict against ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... Justice!" cried the Collector. "Here below everything was occupied and blocked up by the Cherusci, Catti, and Sigambri. No the battle was much farther south, near the region of the Ruhr, not far from Arnsberg. Varus had to push his way through the mountains, he had no egress anywhere, and his ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... became more common. I was told that their hands and feet were visible from many. And one poor fellow lay unburied, just as he had fallen, with his horse across him, and both skeletons. That sight I was spared, as the road near which he was lying was blocked up by trees, so we were forced to go through the woods, to enter, instead of passing by, the Catholic graveyard. In the woods, we passed another camp our men destroyed, while the torn branches above testified ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... foolish chances. Come back if the way is blocked, but get the spade if you can. Take your time. You'd better wait an hour than be dead in a minute," and he turned to ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... stationed themselves again at the mouth of the Texel, and blocked up the Dutch in their own ports with eighty sail; but hearing that Van Trump was at Goree, with one hundred and twenty men of war, they ordered all ships of force in the river and ports ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... switches at the critical moment. As Sommers came up to the fence, the switching engine had been thrown into the wrong siding, and had bunted up at full speed against a milk car, sending the latter down the siding to the main track. It took the switch at a sharp pace, was derailed, and blocked the track. The crowd in the court gave a shout of delight. The switching engine had ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... Bushy, the postmaster, with another neighbour who lived east of us, stopped in to get warm. They were on their way to the Shimerdas'. The news of what had happened over there had somehow got abroad through the snow-blocked country. Grandmother gave the visitors sugar-cakes and hot coffee. Before these callers were gone, the brother of the Widow Steavens, who lived on the Black Hawk road, drew up at our door, and after him came the father of the German family, our nearest ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... black box, as it touches the wires of the interrupted circuit it receives a shock as a result of the closing of the key in the circuit by the experimenter, and further, if it continues its forward course instead of retreating from the "stinging" black box, its passage through E is blocked by a barrier of glass temporarily placed there by the experimenter, and the only way of escape to the nest-box is an indirect route by way of B and the white box. Ordinarily the shock was given only when the mouse entered the wrong box, ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... The house stood squarely blocked with cobalt shadows about it, and the hills were brooding in blue-black immensities—but over the valley was a flooding wash ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... recognition of the danger and a frank fighting policy would have saved most of the sacrificed lives. The blame lay, not with those who had disclosed the peril, but with those who had fostered it by secrecy; probing deeper into it, with those who had blocked such reform of housing and sanitation as would have checked a filth disease like typhus. In time this would be indicated more specifically. Tenements which netted twelve per cent to their owners and bred plagues, the "Clarion" observed editorially, were good ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the absence of Melas, was forced to give up his sword. When the old general hurried up in agitation, the battle was lost. The Austrian troops, repulsed and routed, and crowded against the banks of the Bormida, blocked up all the bridges, or cast themselves into the river, everywhere pursued by the victorious French. The cannon, which stuck fast in the Bormida, fell into the hands of the ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... available for wheeled vehicles. Often the mud lay deep on the right and the left; and only a narrow track of firm ground rose above the quagmire. [135] At such times obstructions and quarrels were frequent, and the path was sometimes blocked up during a long time by carriers, neither of whom would break the way. It happened, almost every day, that coaches stuck fast, until a team of cattle could be procured from some neighbouring farm, to tug them out of the slough. But in bad seasons the traveller had to encounter ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... after us into the passage, which she completely blocked. She told me she was delight-ted to have met me, and that she was ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... Wilkes concerning Knox Land is more convincing than any other of his statements relating to new Antarctic land. If they had not already disembarked, we had hoped to land the western party in that neighbourhood. It was, therefore, most disappointing when impenetrable ice blocked the way, before Wilkes's "farthest south" in that locality had been reached. Three determined efforts were made to find a weak spot, but each time the 'Aurora' was forced to retreat, and the third time ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... to the sect of the worshippers.) Suddenly I become aware that it is growing strangely dark; and looking about me, perceive that all the doors and windows and other apertures of the inn are densely blocked up by a silent, smiling crowd which has gathered to look at me. I could not have believed there were so many people ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... of the kind here recorded have been in progress, but the path has always been blocked by fraud and innumerable difficulties. Dr. Ochorowicz did, however, apparently succeed in obtaining photographs of human radiations, of thoughts, and even of materialized hands! What are they? Are they the hands of "spirits," inhabitants ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... becomes from a fashionable point of view, "impossible." If you walk through the richer quarters, you will see only long lines of closed windows. The approaches to the railway stations are blocked with cabs piled with trunks and bicycles. The "great world" is fleeing to the seashore or its chateaux, and Paris will know it no more until January, for the French are a country-loving race, and since there has been no ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... and finally across New Jersey, taking refuge on the south bank of the Delaware. There he gathered it together, and on Christmas night, 1776, while the enemy were feasting and celebrating in their quarters at Trenton, he ferried his army back across the ice-blocked river, fell upon the British, administered a stinging defeat, and never paused until he had driven them from New Jersey. That brilliant campaign effectually stifled the opposition which he had had to fight in the Congress, and resulted in his being given full power over the army, and over ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... he turned to his burrowing with renewed vigor, and worked away at every moment when he thought he could do so unseen. One day, however, when he had reached some distance, he dislodged a large stone which blocked up the opening toward his cell. His terror was frightful. Not only was the air suffocating, and the darkness dreadful, but he knew that if any of the guards were unexpectedly to come into his cell, the opening must be discovered, and all his toil again ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... mockery, it was that this obvious entrance to the country had been blocked by nature! Just at his back was Omar, with its deep and sheltered harbor; the lake he had crossed gave a passage through the guardian range, and this tundra— O'Neil estimated that he could lay a mile of track a day ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... I do not get to work, Pothinus and the rest of them will cut us off from the harbor; and then the way from Rome will be blocked. ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... you live here, Graeme?" I said, as we stood under the old porch, looking out, or rather having our look blocked up by the thickness, and our ears deaved by the eternal screeching and cawing of five thousand ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... war in Upper Burma, and the column advanced up the river in November, 1885, there was hardly any opposition. A little fight there was at the frontier fort of Minhla, but beyond that nothing. The river that might have been blocked was open; the earthworks had no cannon, the men no guns. Such a collapse was never seen. There was no organization, no material, no money. The men wanted officers to command and teach them; the officers wanted authority and ability to command. The people looked ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... trying to intrude himself through the gate; but the servant blocked up the entrance sturdily. "It is no mistake at all, my good lady. I have come to see Madame ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... brought the poisoned odor of decomposed leaves carried by the current of water. English engineers had previously cut through these barriers, and formerly steamboats could ascend from Khartum to Fashoda and farther. At present the river was blocked again and, being unable to run freely, overflowed on both sides. The right and left banks of this region were covered by a high jungle amid which stood hillocks of termites and solitary gigantic trees; here and there the forest reached ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... angle of ninety degrees, and once more began counting. My heart was beginning to beat quickly by this time, and I felt myself trembling with excitement. The course was now more easily followed. True, the growth was as thick as ever, but no rhododendrons blocked my passage. Beating down the creepers that swung across my face, twined around my legs, and caught at my cap, I measured thirty-two paces as nearly as I could, and ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... give the land back to the people, or at least make it possible for people who want it to get what they could use. Those who have the desire to improve land, and improve themselves by improving it, would no longer be blocked. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... of being so soon in a position to extend our observations to the other islands and enjoy a sail over the beautiful sea afforded us much delight, and after dinner we set about making the oars in good earnest. Jack went into the woods and blocked them roughly out with the axe, and I smoothed them down with the knife, while Peterkin remained in the bower spinning, or rather twisting, some strong, thick cordage with which to ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... large part of the territory she had just conquered from Turkey, including her most glorious battle-fields; her original provinces were dismembered; her extension to the Aegean Sea was seriously obstructed, if not practically blocked; and, bitterest and most tragic of all, the redemption of the Bulgarians in Macedonia, which was the principal object and motive of her war against Turkey in 1912, was frustrated and rendered hopeless by Greek and Servian annexations of Macedonian territory extending from the Mesta ...
— The Balkan Wars: 1912-1913 - Third Edition • Jacob Gould Schurman
... perversity of the examiners has always thwarted this excellent intention. That is like the admirable purpose of Cabinet Ministers, bent on reforming their different departments, but dexterously 'blocked' by ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... my correspondents, I was anxious to write another book at once, also in the guise of a romance, to serve as a little lamp of love whereby my readers might haply discover the real character of the obstacle which blocked their way to an intelligent Soul-advancement. But the publisher I had at the time (the late Mr. George Bentley) assured me that if I wrote another 'spiritualistic' book, I should lose the public hearing I had just gained. ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... Sentinel and a spur to the south is a narrow ravine, from which in the rainy season mist rises like jets of steam, and this was the very spot whence the lightning and thunder ranged when the "debil-debil" lifted the mighty stone which blocked the entrance to the cave of the winds. All about was fantastic ground, peopled by evil spirits who resented the intrusion of human beings and inflicted upon trespassers peculiar punishments. Ill befell everyone who invaded that remote, almost inaccessible, uninviting region, at the very centre ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... arrived within a few hundred yards of their destination when their road was blocked by the sheriff and ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 46, September 23, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... from encampment to encampment, before reaching his destination. His vehicle frequently had to stop in order to make way for interminable files of trucks. At other times machine-guns, big guns dragged by tractors, and provision cars with pyramids of sacks and boxes, blocked their road. ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... it out; "if you will take the trouble to go over these, you may read the growth of the poem. Here first you see it blocked out rather roughly, and much blotted with erasures and substitutions. Here next you see the result copied—clean to begin with, but afterwards scored and scored. You see the words I chose instead of the first, and afterwards in their turn rejected, until in the proofs I reached those which I have ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... picture in his own mind. The ramshackle shanties which lined one side of the trail were passed unheeded. The yapping of the camp dogs at the unusual sight of so deplorable a figure at this hour of the day was quite unnoticed by him. The shelving rise of attenuated grassland which blocked the view of Suffering Creek on his left never for a moment came into his focus. His eyes were on the trail ahead of him, and never more than a few feet from where he trod. And those eyes were hot and staring, aching with their ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... could play a little on the piano, and sing a few songs; but I did not know enough of music to venture to propose myself as a teacher; and so with every other study. All the situations of profit in the profession of teaching are now crowded and blocked by girls who have been studying for that express object,—and what could ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... each side and the eunuch told us that the one on the left was the Secondary Wife's bedroom. That there had been an entrance between the two Palaces, but that Lao Fo Yeh (The great old Buddha), as the eunuchs called Her Majesty, had blocked it up so that the Emperor and Empress could not communicate with each other, except through Her Majesty's own Palace. I suppose this was the way she kept watch over them and knew at all times what they were doing. This ...
— Two Years in the Forbidden City • The Princess Der Ling
... that labour must be exercised at the outset to a painful degree. All the shelter he can expect in the first winter of his sojourn is in a house of trees piled together, and his wooden furniture must consist of the rudest construction, blocked out of the timber which he himself has cut down. Though the air is clear and bracing, the intensity of the cold in winter is far beyond what he can conceive, and the heat in summer is so great for a short period as ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... brought Curtis's belongings upstairs. But an atmosphere of suspicion, of non-comprehension, had been created around the missing man, and it was not to be dispelled, even in Steingall's acute mind, by whittling away the mystery of the blocked door to a minor incident which might occur in ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... delighted. Why not begin with her? In fact, why not peruse these pages together—it would lead to some interesting arguments? Why pore over them in this selfish manner all alone and at the dead of night when no one can possibly disturb you, or, since you have blocked the hagioscope, even see you? And why does the door of that safe stand open? Because of the risk of fire if anyone should chance to come in with a candle, I suppose. No, of course it would not be right ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... mere foulness of the battlefield, the stench of decay, bred no pest; our Science had circumvented the old methods through which Natural Law (which is only another way of saying Karma) worked; we had cut the physical links, and blocked the material channels through which wrong-doing flowed into its own punishment.—Whereupon Nature, wrathful, withdrew a little; took thought for her astral and inner planes; found new links and channels there; ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... sonny," and "Better and better" commented his instructor, for the child took to it as a duck to water. In twenty minutes or so he had learnt to turn his paddle slantwise after the stroke, and to drag it so as to assist the steering; which was not always easy, for here and there a snag blocked the main channel, or a pebbly shallow where the eye had to search for the smooth V that signals the best water. Tilda watched him, marvelling at his strange aptitude, and once, catching her eye, he nodded; but still, as he mastered the knack, and the stroke ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... second came tearing through, Carmine dropped the ball and swung his leg and away it floated. A second squad back caught it near the side-line, tucked it under his arm and started back. The third squad's right end had been blocked and now, eager to make up for lost time, he overran and missed his tackle entirely and the second's back came speeding up the field near the side-line, a hastily-formed interference guarding him well. Ten yards, fifteen, twenty, and then Carmine wormed ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... out his wrath over the Villafranca incident, but he didn't waste much time over that. In a few moments he was enthusiastically telling of the new projects he had formed. "We must not look back, but forward," he told his friends. "We have followed one road. It is blocked. Very well, we ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... breathing heavy; "the gangway's blocked, but I give one of 'em a bit of a knock with his own shillelagh, and that's ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... President in your own office in accordance with the provisions of Article 42 of the Provisional Constitution and Article 5 of the Presidential Election Law. As the means of communication is effectively blocked it is feared that the sending of my seal will meet with difficulty and obstruction. Tuan Chih-chuan (Tuan Chi-jui) has been appointed Premier, and is also ordered to temporarily protect the seal, and later to devise a means to forward it on to you. Hereafter everything pertaining ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... all bystanders being pressed into the service, the packing-case mounted the steps upon some fifteen pairs of wavering legs—scraped, loudly grinding, through the doorway—and was deposited at length, with a formidable convulsion, in the far end of the lobby, which it almost blocked. The artisans of this victory smiled upon each other as the dust subsided. It was true they had smashed a bust of Apollo and ploughed the wall into deep ruts; but, at least, they were no longer one of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and very fear gave wings unto his feet; But scarcely was he shut therein, and, breaking down the chains, Had dropped the monstrous rock that erst his crafty father's pains Hung there with iron; scarce had he blocked the doorway with the same, When lo, the man of Tiryns there, who with his heart aflame Eyed all the entries, here and there turning about his face, Gnashing his teeth: afire with wrath, thrice all that hilly place 230 Of Aventine he eyeth o'er, thrice tries without avail The rocky door, thrice ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... ahead of him, a long narrow shape that he could just discern. A length of ceiling fell between them, a sofa, like a thing endowed with malign life, rushed from the wall and blocked his passage. He scrambled over it and saw the stair head, and a clearer light. That meant deliverance—the street one flight below. The floor sagged and cracked, he could feel it going, and with a screaming leap he threw himself at the balustrade, caught and clung. ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... my little Martha, the light of the whole house," said Mrs. Laurie. In a few moments, a sweet-faced child presented herself, and was about entering, when Henry stepped into the door, and, putting a foot against each side, blocked up the way. Martha attempted to pass the rude boy, and, in doing so, fell over one of his feet, and struck her face a severe blow upon the floor. The loud scream of the hurt child, the clattering of Henry down-stairs, and the excited exclamation of the mother as she sprang forward, were simultaneous. ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... knew what an hour might bring forth. It was not even known who was in command. The emperor was somewhere near, but no one knew where. General officers were seeking their army-corps. Private soldiers were wandering in the streets seeking food and quarters. The railway station was blocked with stores which had been hastily discharged from trucks wanted elsewhere. And it was no one's business ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... No thoughts of danger troubled him now, and he was specially careful to light the way for his companion. He perceived several exits, but all were blocked. In one corner lay a few rotten planks, that looked like the ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... to their testimony." The last thing that would be pleasing to him, Mr. Lincoln said, would be to have one of these great channels, extending almost from where it never freezes to where it never thaws, blocked up, but there is a travel from east to west whose demands are not less important than those of the river. It is growing larger and larger, building up new countries with a rapidity never before seen in the history of the world. He alluded to the astonishing growth of Illinois, having grown ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln |
