"Incumbrance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... without having to accompany her kind act with a deep sigh at the anticipation of the parlor storm it would raise at home. And though Mrs. Henrietta still "waxed fat," her good flesh was no longer an incumbrance to her—the leaven of cheerfulness ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... Grewgious. 'Thank you, my dear! The honour is almost equal to the pleasure. Miss Twinkleton, madam, I have had a most satisfactory conversation with my ward, and I will now release you from the incumbrance of ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... truly noble parents looked on with generous pleasure, and encouraged the mirth of the moment. Priests, ladies, gentlemen of the very first quality, romped with the girls of the house in high good-humour, and tripped it away without the incumbrance of petty pride, or the mean vanity of giving what they expressively call foggezzione, to those who were proud of their company and protection. A new-married wench, whose little fortune of a hundred crowns had been given her by the subscription of many in the room, ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... liberate slaves. Soon, also, he placed pikes in the hands of his black prisoners. But that ceremony did not make soldiers of them, as his favorite maxim taught. They held them in their hands with listless indifference, remaining themselves, as before, an incumbrance instead of a reenforcement. He gave his white prisoners notice that he would hold them as hostages, and informed one or two that, after daylight, he would exchange them for slaves. Before the general fighting ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... neck of the other eagle, and the two smaller ones I tied with a cord round my own waist. Having secured a good stock of provisions, and perceiving the eagles begin to recover, I again took my seat. In half an hour they arose majestically from the place, without taking the least notice of their incumbrance. Each reassumed its former station; and directing their course to the northward, they crossed the Gulf of Mexico, entered North America, and steered directly for the Polar regions, which gave me the finest opportunity of viewing ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... you, sir, that your dignity is tied to it. I know not how it happens, but this dignity of yours is a terrible incumbrance to you; for it has of late been ever at war with your interest, your equity, and every idea of your policy. Show the thing you contend for to be reason; show it to be common-sense; show it to be the means of attaining some useful end: and then I am content to allow it what dignity ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... all showmen, this giant might be worth investing in as a possible successor to his unrivalled namesake. There is surely money in it. Chang's present earnings are rather less than 7s. a month, without board and lodging; he is unmarried, and has no incumbrance; and he is slightly taller and much more massively built than a well-known American giant whom I once had permission to measure, who has been shown half over the world as the "tallest man on earth," his height being attested as "7ft. 11in. in his stockings' soles," and who commands ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... the grantor agrees for himself, "his heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns," that at the time of making the deed he is lawfully in possession, "seized" is the legal term, of the estate described in the deed, that it is free from all incumbrance, and that he will warrant and defend the grantee and his heirs and assigns against all ...
— Business Hints for Men and Women • Alfred Rochefort Calhoun
... I know I am a scandal and incumbrance. There was a time when it was otherwise. But ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... that of all men he should teach me this old-fashioned maxim as though 'twere meant for my own practice. 'Twas well enough for him, it seemed; but 'twas an incumbrance of wisdom in the singular case of the lad that ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... the Prophet Elisha grateful for all the Favours he had received at her House; where she had from time to time accommodated him in his Journies, and thought it an Honour rather than an Incumbrance. She had experienced the Power of his Prayers, in answer to which the Child had been given; and 'tis extremely probable, that she also recollected the Miracle which Elijah had wrought a few Years before, tho' till that Time the like had not been known in Israel, or on Earth; ...
— Submission to Divine Providence in the Death of Children • Phillip Doddridge
... working a great deal harder for his living than most of those who call themselves the laboring classes,—as if none but those whose hands were hardened by the use of farming or mechanical implements had any work to do. He had that sagacity without which learning is a mere incumbrance, and he had also a fair share of that learning without which sagacity is like a traveller with a good horse, but who cannot read the directions on the guideboards. He was not a man to be taken in by names. He well knew that oftentimes very innocent-sounding ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... man. Though wounded to the heart, he may speak. Then what may be chance to say? What looks of reproach may he cast upon me? The musket may miss fire. If I wound him, the wound may be less mortal than I contemplated. Then what may I not have to fear? His dead body will be an incumbrance to me. It must be moved from the place where it lies. It must be buried. How is all this to be done by me? By one precipitate act, I have involved myself in a long train of loathsome and ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... have you, that's why. Arethusa isn't your incumbrance, in any way. She's my daughter, and I'm not such a pauper that I can't manage to support her, for I most certainly did not marry you to have you caring for my various relatives. You write your letter, and ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... be thinking. Then he added, looking up keenly under his brows: "How about the—the incumbrance on the property? Of course, when I go I'll have to ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... time had thrown it away before the end of our first day's pilgrimage, it being as much as we could do to drag ourselves along without being hampered with an empty cask that might after all be a useless incumbrance. ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... declared his resolution of not going away. He would be as little incumbrance as possible to Captain and Mrs Harville; but as to leaving his sister in such a state, he neither ought, nor would. So far it was decided; and Henrietta at first declared the same. She, however, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Sir George Templemore and the Captain brought up the rear. Grace wondered the young baronet did not offer her his arm, for she had been accustomed to receive this attention from the other sex, in a hundred situations in which it was rather an incumbrance than a service; while on the other hand, Sir George himself would have hesitated about offering such assistance, as an act of ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... young vagabond; and instead of one old woman knocking me about and starving me, everybody of all ages knocked me about and starved me. They were right; they had no business to do anything else. I was a nuisance, an incumbrance, and a pest. I know ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... made no claim on Mr. Fairfax, who, for his part, acknowledged none. Bessie's near kinsfolk on her mother's side were all departed this life; there was nobody who wanted the child, or who would have regarded her in any light but an incumbrance. The rector's widow therefore kept her unquestioned; and being a woman of much sense and little pride, she moved no farther from the rectory than to a cottage-lodging in the town, where she found some teaching amongst the ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... now been out of office for some time, but he was soon to have employment again. Tangier, which was acquired at the marriage of the King to Katharine of Braganza, had long been an incumbrance, and it was resolved at last to destroy the place. Colonel Legge (now Lord Dartmouth) was in August, 1683, constituted Captain-General of his Majesty's forces in Africa, and Governor of Tangier, and sent with a fleet of about ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... restrain the Indians, who were an incumbrance to his army, and whose conduct alienated great numbers of Loyalists from the ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... fragrant region of unspoilt romance; and, still more than this, he remains an example of one who made a great and triumphant resignation of all that he held most dear, for the sake of doing what he thought to be right. He was not an ascetic, giving up what is half an incumbrance and half a terror; nor was he naturally a melancholy and detached person; but he gave up work which he loved passionately, and a life which he lived in a full-blooded, generous way, that he might try to share his blessings with others, out of a supreme pity for those ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... prey of fungi.[L] That known at Guadaloupe under the name of La Guepe Vegetale, or vegetable wasp, has been often cited as evidence that, in some instances at least, the fungus attacks the insect whilst still living. Dr. Madianna states that he has noticed the wasp still living with its incumbrance attached to it, though apparently in the last stage of existence, and seeming about to perish from the influence of its destructive parasite.[M] This fungus is called by Tulasne Torrubia sphecocephala.[N] About twenty-five species of this genus ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... A Stone Shirt, killed Sikor', the Crane, and stole his wife, and seeing that she had a child and thinking it would be an incumbrance to them on their travels, he ordered her to kill it. But the mother, loving the babe, hid it under her dress and carried it away to its grandmother. And Stone Shirt carried his captured ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... ill for some days, and has left me and still keeps me so weak and dispirited, that, if I shall not soon be able to get some repose, my poor head or body will not be able to resist. For the empty title, I trust you do not suppose it is any thing but an incumbrance, by larding my busy mornings with idle visits of interruption, and which, when I am able to go out, I shall be forced to return. Surely no man of seventy-four, unless superannuated, can have the smallest pleasure in sitting at home in his own room, as I almost always do, and being ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... the Object, or distrust the Perfection of his Sight; he saw his dear Lady, who had so captivated him the preceeding Day, he saw her in all the heightning Circumstances of her Charms, he saw her in all her native Beauties, free from the Incumbrance of Dress, her Hair as black as Ebony, hung flowing in careless Curls over her Shoulders, it hung link'd in amorous Twinings, as if in Love with its own Beauties; her Eyes not yet freed from the Dullness of the late Sleep, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... socket, which prevents the necessity of the cross-bar feet at bottom, and possesses this advantage, that it may be taken out when done with, and hung up by the side of the wall, so as to allow the area of the room to be quite clear of any incumbrance, and to be used for any other purpose. No. 2, is the socket which should be let into the floor and screwed fast to the side of a joist, so as to keep it perfectly steady; the socket is to be open at bottom ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... considerable discussion over this, and Long finally gave in, although he expressed himself as certain that the boys would prove a great incumbrance. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... a little above the middle height, well limbed and muscular; with little incumbrance of flesh beyond that which gives shape and manliness to the outline of the figure; with a firm tread, an erect carriage, a countenance strongly patrician, both in feature, profile, and expression, ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... a common practice with the Pawnees, and probably with other roving tribes, when departing on a distant expedition, which will not admit of incumbrance or delay, to leave their aged and infirm with a supply of provisions sufficient for a temporary subsistence. When this is exhausted, they must perish; though sometimes their sufferings are abridged by hostile prowlers who may visit ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... the note he had not thought of danger to Clodomiro, regarding him only as a fearless messenger, but if the boy should prove an incumbrance to Cavayso after they were free of Soledad, that might prove another matter, and as old Isidro had stated, no one trusted a Perez man when a woman was ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... the discouragement of land speculation on a large scale a further provision is made by the enactment of a further tax upon all lands held by individuals or corporations of a value exceeding $25,000 clear of incumbrance. This is called the graduated land tax, and provides for a farther taxation on all such lands, beginning at one-eighth in addition to the original tax, and rising by advances of an additional eighth ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... these privations, as well as suffered for want of many comforts which his situation demanded. Strangely enough, in the midst of this accumulated misery, the woman's heart went out with an unconquerable sympathy for the foundling so unexpectedly left at her door. So far from proving an additional incumbrance, it seemed to be a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... him against his will to the bishopric of Geneva, and he thought it his obligation to keep it till his death; that the small revenue he had sufficed for his maintenance, and more would only be an incumbrance. The king was astonished at his disinterestedness, when he understood that the bishopric of Geneva, since the revolt of that city, did not yield the incumbent above four or five thousand livres, that is, not two hundred and fifty-nine ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... not free himself, but by redeeming his libertie, with De la Pooles captiuity. This accomplished, he made choyce to take ship again at Falmouth, that so by the shortest cut, hee might leaue least power in fortune, to thwart him any second incumbrance. ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... the advantage of a cash-credit accommodation, and can immediately report to his superiors any circumstances which may render it advisable that the credit should be contracted or withdrawn. So far are we from holding that the multiplication of branch banks is any evil or incumbrance, that we look upon it as an increased security not only to the banker but the dealer. The latter, in fact, is the principal gainer; because a competition among the banks has always the effect of heightening the rate of interest given upon deposits, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... which had been invested. He hadn't a piece of real estate that was not covered with mortgages, even to the wild tract which Philip was experimenting on, and which had, no marketable value above the incumbrance on it. ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 6. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... problem necessarily presented itself to Bentham in a form in which selfishness is the predominating force, and any recognition of independent benevolence rather an incumbrance than a help. If we take the 'self-preference principle' absolutely, the question becomes how a multitude of individuals, each separately pursuing his own happiness, can so arrange matters that their joint action may secure the happiness of all. Clearly a man, however ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... creature to whom these words were addressed, the appeal would not have been in vain. But his original stock of this attribute had been limited, and he had long since disposed of the little he once possessed. Such an attribute as honor or pity was viewed by him as a useless incumbrance, for he was a miserable, heartless wretch, seeking the gratification of his own depraved appetite, and careless of who ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... received a crisp little parcel,—bank-notes, apparently. He knew the hand, and held it long enough to press it to his lips, the only form which had ever occurred to him of expressing his gratitude to her without the incumbrance of clumsy words, a vehicle at the best of times but rudely suited to such delicate merchandise. The hand was hastily withdrawn, as if the treatment had been unexpected. Then seemingly moved by second thoughts she bent forward and said, 'Is the night ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... impression that its owner must be well-to-do in the world. As we have heretofore hinted, however, Ward Glazier failed to prosper there. Why this was the case it is hard to tell. A late writer has suggested that "not only the higher intellectual gifts but even the finer moral emotions are an incumbrance to the fortune-hunter." That "a gentle disposition and extreme frankness and generosity have been the ruin in a worldly sense of many a noble spirit;" and he adds that "there is a degree of cautiousness and ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... was brought to agree to a compromise. "The purchaser that I have ready," says he, "will be much displeased, to be sure, at the incumbrance on the land, but I must see and manage him; here's a deed ready drawn up; we have nothing to do but to put in the consideration money and our names to it." "And how much am I going to sell?—the lands of O'Shaughlin's Town, and the lands of Gruneaghoolaghan, and the lands of Crookagnawaturgh," ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... matter of surprise to some persons that Mr. and Mrs. Squeers should have taken so much trouble to repossess themselves of an incumbrance of which it was their wont to complain so loudly; but the services of the drudge, if performed by any one else, would have cost some ten or twelve shillings per week in the shape of wages; and furthermore, all runaways were, as a matter of policy, made severe ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... family the hairs are tubular, the tubes being intersected by partitions, resembling in some degree the cellular tissue of plants. Their hollowness prevents incumbrance from weight, while their power of resistance is increased by having their traverse sections rounded ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... large and judicious plantation by a proprietor, as a provision for his younger children. The premium in this case will not need to run longer than twenty-five years, and he has not only beautified his estate and made it more valuable, but also transmitted it to his heir without incumbrance. ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... accident than any other species. Where one of that sort go down, twenty Right Whales do. This difference in the species is no doubt imputable in no small degree to the greater quantity of bone in the Right Whale; his Venetian blinds alone sometimes weighing more than a ton; from this incumbrance the Sperm Whale is wholly free. But there are instances where, .. after the lapse of many hours or several days, the sunken whale again rises, more buoyant than in life. But the reason of this ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... earnest. That gentleman's financial condition was such as to render the three or four hundred dollars of ready money which Nimbus could pay by no means undesirable, while the property itself seemed of so little value as to be regarded almost as an incumbrance to the plantation of which it was a part. Such was its well-established reputation for poverty of soil that Desmit had no idea that the purchaser would ever be able to meet one of his notes for the balance of the purchase money, ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... house being to be paid by the ladies, every one that entered should have only this incumbrance—that she should pay for the whole year, though her mind should change as to ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... generally popular for the night. Mr. Lupton came in, a gentleman well known in all fashionable circles, parliamentary, social, and racing, who was rather older than his company on this occasion, but still not so much so as to be found to be an incumbrance. Lord Glasslough too, and others joined them, and a good deal was said about the horse. "I never keep these things dark," said Tifto. "Of course he's an ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... Downs now set himself to steadily forgetting all the genius he had learned, feeling that it would be nothing but an incumbrance in his new career; and he succeeded so well that in the course of a few years he had become ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... story, all crying out to me, "Finish, finish, make an entire end, make us strong, shapely, viable creatures!" It's enough to put a man crazy. Moreover, I have my thesis given out now, which is a fifth (is it fifth? I can't count) incumbrance. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... The night was bright moonlight. I could see the lion distinctly. He was a huge, black-maned brute, and he held Luki by the shoulder. The poor lad kept screaming frightfully. The man-eater must have dragged me forty yards before he became aware of a double incumbrance to his progress. Then he halted and turned. By Jove! he made a devilish fierce object with his shaggy, massive head, his green-fire eyes, and his huge jaws holding Luki. I let go of Luki's foot and bethought myself of the gun. But as I lay there ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... require between five and six instalments, which will carry us to the end of 1833, or thirteen years from this time. My individual opinion is, that we had better not open the institution until the buildings, library, and all, are finished, and our funds cleared of incumbrance. These buildings once erected, will secure the full object infallibly at the end of thirteen years, and as much earlier as the legislature shall choose. And if we were to begin sooner, with half funds only, it would satisfy the common mind, prevent ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... Setting the interior tribe, of whom they held the land, at defiance, these Fishmen put an interdict upon their trading with foreigners, except through their own agency. Eight or ten years ago, however, the inland natives sold the land to the Colonization Society, subject to the incumbrance of the Fishmen's occupancy, during good behavior; a condition which the colonists likewise pledged themselves to the Fishmen to observe, unless the conduct of the latter should ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... to say that the Reverend Matthew and Mrs. Cotton were the incumbents of the parish church of Cluhir (and had been profanely described as "the incumbrance of Cluhir"); even to speak of them as, respectively, its curate and its rector, might, though more accurate, be, perhaps, considered flippant. It would also be open to the reproach of lack of originality. Yet, unoriginal though the dominant clergywoman of fiction may ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... secretary Hedges to tell the house of commons that she had remitted the arrears of the tenths to the poor clergy; that she would grant her whole revenue arising out of the first fruits and tenths, as far as it should become free from incumbrance, as an augmentation of their maintenance; that if the house of commons could find any method by which her intentions to the poor clergy might be made more effectual, it would be an advantage to the public, and acceptable to her majesty. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... when the firing commenced at the camp, they were fastened at top to his belt, but hanging loose below. Although an active runner, yet he found that the pursuers were gaining and must ultimately overtake him if he did not rid himself of this incumbrance. For this purpose he halted somewhat and stepping on the lower part of his leggins, broke the strings which tied them to his belt; but before he accomplished this, one of the savages approached and hurled a tomahawk at him. It ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... brother and sister were both dead. They had been carried off by the small-pox; and she rightly enough conjectured that the rector would not be the less prone to pardon her for being clear of further incumbrance. She enjoined me to intercede in her behalf, and I very sincerely promised to speak as soon as ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... vows, at the end of your meditation. You are to employ yourself in this manner interiorly through all the variety of your outward business; giving an hour in every day to the consideration of the most holy life of our Lord Jesus, in whatsoever affair, or in whatsoever incumbrance, you are engaged. You may practise this with most convenience, by allowing half-an-hour in the morning, and another half in the afternoon, according to ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... group, lies the Aletsch reservoir of snow or neve. As this spot presented a natural pause between the laborious ascent already accomplished and the immense declivities which lay before them yet to be climbed, they named it Le Repos, and halted there for a short rest. Here they left also every needless incumbrance, taking only a little bread and wine, in case of exhaustion, some meteorological instruments, and the inevitable ladder, axe, and ropes of the Alpine climber. On their left, to the west of the amphitheatre, a vast ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... was hardly successful. He had thought that he could explain the reasons to the Minister, but found himself incapable of explaining them to himself. In regard to means of subsistence he was no better off now than when he began the world. He was, indeed, without incumbrance, but was also without any means of procuring an income. For the last twelve months he had been living on his little capital, and two years more of such life would bring him to the end of all that he had. There was, no doubt, one ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... upon wants that England can supply if she keeps shop in the proper way, if, that is, she makes it to their interest to buy in her market. Indeed, colonies of all kinds seem to him quite useless. They ever are, he says, and ever were, "a drain to and an incumbrance on the Mother-country, requiring perpetual and expensive nursing in their infancy, and becoming headstrong and ungovernable in proportion as they grow up." All wise relations depend upon self-interest, and that needs no compulsion. If Gibraltar and Port Mahon ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... also found sympathy, and at the end of nine years, in which they sought no relief from the usual claims of social and religious obligations, every debt was discharged and their real estate freed from all incumbrance. The example was most commendable, illustrating the sterling virtue and high determination of the men in circumstances where weak minds would have faltered, and unconscientious persons ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... lying at length upon that very couch, the scene of Mr. H....'s polite joys, in an undress, which was with all the art of negligence flowing loose, and in a most tempting disorder: no stays, no hoop..., no incumbrance whatever. On the other hand, he stood at a little distance, that gave me a full view of a fine featured, shapely, healthy country lad, breathing the sweets of fresh blooming youth; his hair, which was of a perfect shining black, played to his face ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... population,—the mass shifting and the individuals shifting, in place, circumstances, requirements. The movement is inevitable, and, whether desirable or not, we must conform to it. So we naturally build cheaply and slightly, that the house be not an incumbrance rather than a furtherance to our life. It is agreeable to the feelings to be well rooted and established, and the results in outward appearance are agreeable. But it is not desirable to be so niched into the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... the guests came in shoals: Mr. and Mrs. Quiverful and their three grown daughters. Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick and their three daughters. The burly chancellor and his wife and clerical son from Oxford. The meagre little doctor without incumbrance. Mr. Harding with Eleanor and Miss Bold. The dean leaning on a gaunt spinster, his only child now living with him, a lady very learned in stones, ferns, plants, and vermin, and who had written a book about petals. A wonderful woman in her way was Miss Trefoil. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... ninety-ninth demand of mine) that he thought he could get me some money; and inclosing a letter from a respectable firm in the city of London, connected with the mining interest, which offered to redeem the incumbrance in taking a long lease of certain property of ours, which was still pretty free, upon the Countess's signature; and provided they could be assured of her free will in giving it. They said they heard she lived in terror of her life from me, and meditated a separation, in which case she might ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... earnest invitation to come again. Best of all, she had cleverly played upon the feminine instinct for fine raiment, slyly mentioned a trunk that she had brought with her from the East, packed to the top with substantial finery which was not in the least needed by her—an incumbrance, rather—and which, she hinted, might become the property of another, if ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... he can live comfortably for three hundred pounds a-year; but, as he has a son to educate, we will allow him five hundred; then there will be an accumulating fund of seven hundred a-year, principal and interest, to pay off the incumbrance; and, I think, we may modestly add three hundred, on the presumption of new-leasing and improving the vacant farms: so that, in a couple of years, I suppose there will be above a thousand a-year appropriated to liquidate a debt of ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... for you and for my poor nag, on whose back you shall be in three minutes," rejoined the landlord. "I have spoken to you as I would to my own son, if I had such an incumbrance.—Here, you ragamuffin; saddle the gray, and lead him round ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... in the one as in the other. We are not calling for any change in the character of our institutions or one which they afford no means of effecting, but the removal by a method which they themselves provide of an incumbrance which impairs their nature and impedes their working. No partial measure will suffice—none that will depend for its efficacy on the disposition of those whose duty it will be to enforce it—none that will be exposed to the attacks ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... forest several shots were fired at them from the covert. No damage was done beyond one man wounded slightly, and Dick, under orders, led a short pursuit. He was glad that they found no one, as prisoners would have been an incumbrance, and it was not the custom in the United States to shoot men not in uniform who were defending the soil on which they lived. He had no doubt that those who had fired the shots were farmers, but it had been easy for them to make good their escape ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... constant fidget the wearers are in, under the incumbrance of a dress so foolishly long as to require the use of both hands to keep it at a cleanly elevation. I presume the ladies wear these ridiculous trains because they think they look more graceful in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... With choicest viands heaps the liberal board, To crown our triumphs, and reward our toils. Here must the instructive Muse (but with respect) Censure that numerous pack, that crowd of state, With which the vain profusion of the great Covers the lawn, and shakes the trembling copse. 180 Pompous incumbrance! A magnificence Useless, vexatious! For the wily fox, Safe in the increasing number of his foes, Kens well the great advantage: slinks behind And slily creeps through the same beaten track, And hunts them step by step; then views escaped With inward ecstasy, the panting throng In their ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... under whose roof we now were. Dr. Johnson was much pleased with the Laird of Macleod, who is indeed a most promising youth, and with a noble spirit struggles with difficulties, and endeavours to preserve his people. He has been left with an incumbrance of forty thousand pounds debt, and annuities to the amount of thirteen hundred pounds a year. Dr. Johnson said, 'If he gets the better of all this, he'll be a hero; and I hope he will[519]. I have not met with a young man who had more desire ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... answer much of the effect of what you have been saying will depend. In effecting these various improvements, and in the building of that house, have you been obliged to embarrass yourself, or are they free from incumbrance?"—"Your question," he said, "is a reasonable one, and I will answer it with the frankness you are kind enough to ascribe to me. I have ever made it a rule not to exceed my income. Mrs. ****** bore our first trials with so much cheerfulness, and contributed so much to my happiness and my ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... arrears due to them in merchandize, and the remainder in cash. The arrangement was rejected, at the secret instance of Don John. While the Governor affected an ingenuous desire to aid the estates in their efforts to free themselves from the remaining portion of this incumbrance, he was secretly tampering with the leading German officers, in order to prevent their acceptance of any offered terms. He persuaded these military chiefs that a conspiracy existed, by which they were not only to be deprived of their wages but of their lives. He warned ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... "what will you do here? You have no longer a home when your father marries; unless you can consent to be subject to the woman who was once his housekeeper. You will have no place in the world; you will only be an incumbrance; your step-mother will wish you out of the way, and your father will learn to wish as his new wife does. Oh, Kate, come with me! Come to Glen Keith, and reign there; we will travel over the world; you shall have every luxury that wealth can procure; your every wish shall be gratified; you shall ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... doubt they have," replied Fancy. "I got off by saying I would ride on to Pendle Hill, and, stationing myself on its summit, give them a signal when they should advance upon their prey. And now, good mistress, I pray you dismiss me. I want to cast off this shape, which I find an incumbrance, and resume my own. I will return when it is time for you ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Germans have no notion of pampering themselves with good beef. Their system is, not to fatten the beast, and then kill him; but to work him as long as he is fit for work, and then to kill him lest he should become an incumbrance. Neither can their sheep boast much of the symmetry of their proportions, or of the high flavour of their flesh when it comes to table. The wool, as everybody knows, is, indeed, excellent; but the mutton is but sorry food, at least to an Englishman. As I stated ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... influence on the progress and preservation of things technical and communicable. Respect for the ancients is the salvation of art, though it sometimes blinds us to its ends. It increases the power of the painter, though it diminishes his liberty; and if it be sometimes an incumbrance to the essays of invention, it is oftener a protection from the consequences of audacity. The whole system and discipline of art, the collected results of the experience of ages, might, but for the fixed authority of antiquity, ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... his liabilities? Than to do this, would it not be safer, for fear of overissues by unscrupulous creditors, to say that all debt obligations are obliterated in the United States, and now we commence anew, each possessing all he has at the time free from incumbrance? These propositions are too absurd to be entertained for a moment by thinking or honest people. Yet every delay in preparation for final resumption partakes of this dishonesty, and is only less in degree as the hope is held out that a convenient season will at last arrive for the good work of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant • Ulysses S. Grant
... was read to the sepoys they bewailed their folly, he adds that if they were all sent away disgraced, no one would be to blame but themselves. He brought them to Hassane's, but they were useless, though they begged to be kept on: I may give them another trial, but at present they are a sad incumbrance. South-west of this the Manganja begin; but if one went by them, there is a space beyond in the ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... easier means; let them observe the hind of the forest, and the linnet of the grove; let them consider the life of animals, whose motions are regulated by instinct; they obey their guide, and are happy. Let us, therefore, at length, cease to dispute, and learn to live; throw away the incumbrance of precepts, which they, who utter them, with so much pride and pomp, do not understand, and carry with us this simple and intelligible maxim: That deviation from nature is ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... sir! I know you! I've had my eye upon you! You'll play false if you can, and are trying to smother up your d—d rebel meanings with genteel airs! Get away, sir!" he bellowed, stamping his foot. "Get away aft! You're a lumping useless incumbrance! But by thunder! I'll give you two for every one you try to give me! ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... raised his eyes as he heard the tone, and then he took off his spectacles as though he felt them an incumbrance. Phillis had a very good view of a pair of handsome eyes, with a lurking gleam of humor in them, which speedily died ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... help thinking how droll it was that a person whom we all considered a sort of incumbrance and superfluity at first should really turn out an object of prime importance to us all. ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... young man, firmly; "I have an alternative, and I solemnly believe the only one which will win this noble girl to become my wife. Instead of embezzling my father's property, which does not belong to me, if I marry her, I can renounce that which brings so cruel an incumbrance." ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... rest. Though thus weighed down at once by the shield belonging to a heavy-armed foot-soldier, and by the heavy cuirass[55] of a horseman (who carried no shield), he nevertheless put forth all his strength to advance under such double incumbrance, and to continue his incitement to the rest. But the soldiers around him were so indignant at the proceeding of Soteridas, that they reproached and even struck him, until they compelled him to resume his shield as well as his place in the ranks. ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... Hereward defrayed all the expenses of the burial, and settled upon the widow an income sufficient to enable her to live in comfort and respectability. With the full consent of the unloving mother, who was but too willing to be relieved of her incumbrance, the young Duchess of Hereward adopted little Marie Perdue; "perdue" no longer, but the cherished pet ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... through experience. Both reach beyond the sensible into the supersensible or ideal realm; Telemachus hears the story of Proteus, which teaches the essence in all appearance; Ulysses descends to Hades and there communes with pure mind without its terrestrial incumbrance, in the case of Tiresias and others. Such is the internal preparation; now they are to do the deed. The idea they possess, the next is to ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... fellow," said Lord Marney, "you don't know what it is to have to keep up an estate like this; and very lucky for you. It is not the easy life you dream of. There's buildings—I am ruined in buildings—our poor dear father thought he left me Marney without an incumbrance; why, there was not a barn on the whole estate that was weather-proof; not a farm-house that was not half in ruins. What I have spent in buildings! And draining! Though I make my own tiles, draining, my dear fellow, is a something of which you ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... cases, if the pain and terror are so modified as not to be actually noxious; if the pain is not carried to violence, and the terror is not conversant about the present destruction of the person, as these emotions clear the parts, whether fine or gross, of a dangerous and troublesome incumbrance, they are capable of producing delight; not pleasure, but a sort of delightful horror, a sort of tranquillity tinged with terror; which, as it belongs to self-preservation, is one of the strongest of all the passions. Its object is the sublime.[33] ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... vessel on the shore, able to carry me on the sea, which he had given orders to fit up with my own assistance and direction; and he hoped in a few weeks both empires would be freed from so insupportable an incumbrance. ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... him to use often long Latin-English instead of short Saxon-English words, that is, words that in most cases lend themselves less readily to poetic expression. Mr. Dayman, not translating line for line, is free from this prosaic incumbrance; but as he makes it a rule to himself that every English canto shall contain the same number of lines as its original, he is obliged, much more often than Mr. Longfellow, to throw in epithets or words ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... such a charge? Further, is the regular incapable of being a proper parish priest, or is he not? If he is, why, if the secular cura is perpetual—so that, if he does not become unworthy, neither the ordinary nor the vice-patron can remove him—will not the regular also remain a cura, supposing the incumbrance of collation and canonical institution? Why does that institution give all favorable things to the secular and deprive the regular of all relief? It imposes upon the regular the duty of feeding the sheep. It binds him to the territory, so that the provincial cannot remove him without ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... which was at first a corruption, is at last grown necessary, and what every good subject must now fall in with, though he may be allowed to wish it might soon have an end; because it is with a kingdom, as with a private fortune, where every new incumbrance adds a double weight. By this means the wealth of the nation, that used to be reckoned by the value of land, is now computed by the rise and fall of stocks: and although the foundation of credit be still the same, and upon a bottom that can ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... of a great nation. The staff and hope of Protestant Europe was saved from a subtle—a Jesuitical attempt—to introduce Popery and arbitrary government. The time of his death, as a release from the incumbrance of a material body, was fixed by infinite wisdom and love at that juncture, and it ought not to be a cause of regret. His interest in the welfare of the church ceased not with his mortal life. How swiftly would ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... barricade &c (defense) 717; wall, dead wall, sea wall, levee breakwater, groyne^; bulkhead, block, buffer; stopper &c 263; boom, dam, weir, burrock^. drawback, objection; stumbling-block, stumbling-stone; lion in the path, snag; snags and sawyers. encumbrance, incumbrance^; clog, skid, shoe, spoke; drag, drag chain, drag weight; stay, stop; preventive, prophylactic; load, burden, fardel^, onus, millstone round one's neck, impedimenta; dead weight; lumber, pack; nightmare, Ephialtes^, incubus, old man of the sea; remora. difficulty &c 704; insuperable ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... how thankfully would I trust my child in such keeping, but would your means support the incumbrance of a wife." ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... said, with emphasis. I forgot my tears; for some way my heart had got so strangely light and glad, tears seemed an unnecessary incumbrance; and even the thought that had been awaked by the disturbing harmonies of Beethoven's majestic conceptions were folded peacefully away in their still ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... school; with this additional feature, that it is to be available for both sexes. This, of course, presupposes two separate distinct schools. As these schools are to be built on land belonging to the Dramatic College, there will be from the first no charge, no debt, no incumbrance of any kind under that important head. It is, in short, proposed simply to establish a new self-supporting public school, in a rapidly increasing neighbourhood, where there is a large and fast accumulating middle-class population, and where property in land is fast rising in value. But, inasmuch ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... and his box of cigars were at their service, and his dress was that of a gentleman. His natural drollery took on a very amusing form during his sickness, and the men found him a source of pleasure rather than an incumbrance. ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... and self-respect revolted at this idea. He did not intend to be an incumbrance on any one, and became offended in his turn at the mute reproach which he imagined he could read in his cousin's troubled countenance. This misconception, confirmed by the obstinate silence of both parties, and aggravated by its own continuance, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... tow heads, blue eyes, and all complexions from black to pale white. Many of these homeless half-breeds are farmed out with relatives, by their mothers, when single, thus leaving them free to go and come without incumbrance. Barrenness, disease and early death are the fruits of such promiscuous intercourse, to such an extent that their utter extinction from these causes is inevitable, unless they are speedily removed. Their only ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden
... brother. He therefore resolved not to wait until their means were totally exhausted: the next day he disposed of all his clothes except one suit, and found himself richer than he had imagined. Having paid his landlord the trifle due for rent, without any other incumbrance than the packet of articles picked up in the trunk at sea, three pounds sterling in his pocket, and the ring of Madame de Fontanges on his little finger, Newton, with his father, set off on foot ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... know whether she was in Italy or in America. She had glimmerings on the subject of her privilege to carry her own nationality into her own drawing-room. And then she was called upon to deal between an Italian Count with an elder brother, and an English Honourable, who had no such incumbrance. Which of the two was possessed of the higher rank? "I've found it all out, Aunt Mary," said Livy. "You must take the Count." For Livy wanted to give her sister every chance. "How have you found it out?" said ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... plan, he informed her that all opposition on her part was unavailing, as he had already selected another partner; and that, if she could not see his new wife as a friend, she must receive her as a necessary incumbrance, for he was resolved that she should be an inmate in his house. The poor Dark-Day heard these words in silent consternation. Watching her opportunity, she stole away from the cabin with her infants, and fled to her father, who lived at a considerable distance from the place of her husband's residence. ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... let it, and a tenant has come in already. He is a poor half-pay major in the army, named Milroy, a meek sort of man, by all accounts, with a turn for occupying himself in mechanical pursuits, and with a domestic incumbrance in the shape of a bedridden wife, who has not been seen by anybody. Well, and what of all this? you will ask, with that sparkling impatience which becomes you so well. My dear Lydia, don't sparkle! The man's family affairs seriously concern us both, for, as ill luck will have it, ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... Spinners would be very young, and of little strength, and consequently to imploy one foot all the time they Spin, will be very tiresome; nay, the strongest body cannot do it, without easing the same, neither can they imply both hands so freely, as when they are discharged of that burthen, or incumbrance. ...
— Proposals For Building, In Every County, A Working-Alms-House or Hospital • Richard Haines
... compulsory service, and appropriating a certain amount to the payment, first, of the mortgage debts due in England, and, second, of the owner, who, even if he found his land delivered to him free of incumbrance, was in most cases left without a shilling to enable him to carry on the work of his plantation. The slaves were set free, but there existed no capital to find them employment, and from the moment of emancipation it became almost impossible to borrow money on mortgage ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... family, and was ridiculous. As often as I caught the younger brother's eyes, their expression reminded me that he disliked me deeply, for knowing what I knew from the boy. He was smoother and more polite to me than the elder; but I saw this. I also saw that I was an incumbrance in the ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... Empire. To its resources and exigencies we now seem for the first time to awaken.[see Note 46] Hitherto we have been content to consider it as a magnificent incumbrance, that testified to our greatness but had nothing to do with our interests or the welfare of our ...
— A Letter from Major Robert Carmichael-Smyth to His Friend, the Author of 'The Clockmaker' • Robert Carmichael-Smyth
... sufficient to establish this general conclusion, that in all cases in which a vowel serves neither to exhibit the vocal sound, nor to modify the articulations of the syllable to which it belongs, it may be reckoned nothing better than an useless incumbrance. There seems, therefore, much room for simplifying the present system of Gaelic Orthography, by the rejection of a considerable number of ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart
... his place in the field with the others, and proved himself a good worker, but still kept on his kihei, which it would be natural to suppose that he would lay aside as an incumbrance when engaged in hard labor. At last some of the more venturesome of the younger folks managed to tear his kapa off, as if accidentally, when the shark-mouth on his back was seen by all the ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... damned! Tell, if yer can!" he cried. "I've been treated worser'n a dorg by your blooming back-lickers. They 'as set me on, only to turn aginst me. I am the only man 'ere. They clouted me, kicked me—an' yer laffed—yer black, rotten incumbrance, you! You will pay fur it. They giv' yer their grub, their water—yer will pay fur it to me, by Gawd! Who axed me ter 'ave a drink of water? They put their bloomin' rags on yer that night, an' what did they giv' ter me—a clout on the bloomin' mouth—blast their... S'elp me!... ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... no sooner said than done. The Rough Soldiers burst into the House, and, to prevent any misunderstanding about me, a Cloth (for which I was quite unprepared) was thrown over my head from Behind; and while I was yet struggling to free myself from this blinding Incumbrance, the Gyves were passed over my Wrists and Ankles. And then they removed the Cloth, and, laden with heavy Chains, I had to behold in Despair their Invading the Sanctity of my Harem, and tearing therefrom my Lilias. In vain did I Shout, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... a bony hand, and gave them a greeting. Though his speech and limbs had failed him, his intelligence was evidently still intact, and there was a tenderly-cared-for look about him, rendering his condition far less pitiable than that of Richard Birkenholt, who was so palpably treated as an incumbrance. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his gaff toward the pan ice, to be rid of the incumbrance of it, and lifted himself on his palms and toes. By this the distribution of his weight was not greatly disturbed. It was not concentrated upon one point. It was divided by four and laid upon four points. And there were no fearsome ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... coaxingly put on an appearance of wishing me to stay to supper; I did not, however, comply, but told them I proposed remaining longer with them on my return; leaving as a deposit my little packet, that had come by water, and would have been an incumbrance, had I taken it with me. I continued my journey the next morning, well satisfied that I had seen my father, and had taken ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... crept up the narrow stairs, glad enough to get away and be alone. I had never loved Chevet, but he had taught me to fear him, for more than once had I experienced his brutality and physical power. To him I was but a chattel, an incumbrance. He had assumed charge of me because the law so ordained, but I had found nothing in his nature on which I could rely for sympathy. I was his sister's child, yet no more to him than some Indian waif. More, he was honest about ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... sincere desire to bear worthily an honored name? Who shall say that the eccentricities of a certain celebrity of acknowledged talent, whose name would be quickly recognized, were not the result of the same cause, the length, and weight of the name given him at his birth proving too great an incumbrance for him to overcome. ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... popular approval of his efforts came in an increased subscription list, and this, of course, made the paper more profitable. At the end of twelve months, the two partners had paid off the money borrowed from Professor Henderson, and owned the paper without incumbrance. ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... little this incumbrance among my friends, I caused a number of similar tubes to be blown at our glass-house, with which they furnish'd themselves, so that we had at length several performers. Among these, the principal was Mr. Kinnersley, an ingenious neighbour, who, being out of business, I encouraged ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... advantage it would have, as the permanent system of a country, over a currency convertible into coin; while it is not at all difficult to see what would be its disadvantages, since land is far more variable in value than gold and silver; and besides, land, to most persons, being rather an incumbrance than a desirable possession, except to be converted into money, people would submit to a much greater depreciation before demanding land, than they will ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... neighbouring magistrate, Lord Milton, or Lord Fitzwilliam, for instance, if they were within reach, and I would tell him that I had left my wife and family chargeable to the parish, as I was unable to support them by my labour; but as I knew the leaving of my family as an incumbrance upon the parish was an offence against the laws, for which I was liable to be committed to prison, and as I did not wish to give the parish officers more trouble than was absolutely necessary, I had come to request his lordship to make out my mittimus, that I might ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... buying and selling, of letting and hiring, of alliances between men for purposes of business, of delegation of business from one man to another; and this is no doubt the consideration which led the Romans, as it has led most societies, to relieve these transactions from technical incumbrance, to abstain as much as possible from clogging the most efficient springs of social movement. Such motives were not of course confined to Rome, and the commerce of the Romans with their neighbours must have given them abundant opportunities for ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... rough and hairy; and Pan has struck his hoof against it!—A camel is a picturesque ornament in a landscape or history-piece. This is not merely from its romantic and oriental character; for an elephant has not the same effect, and if introduced as a necessary appendage, is also an unwieldy incumbrance. A negro's head in a group is picturesque from contrast; so are the spots on a panther's hide. This was the principle that Paul Veronese went upon, who said the rule for composition was black upon white, and while upon black. He was a pretty good judge. His celebrated ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... down fairs and markets, when I happen to be in them reading a page or two of mankind, and "catching the manners living as they rise," whilst the men of business jostle me on every side as an idle incumbrance in their way. But, I daresay, I have by this time tired your patience; so I shall conclude with begging you to give Mrs. Murdoch—not my compliments, for that is a mere commonplace story; but my warmest, kindest wishes for her welfare; and accept the same for yourself, ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... fierce dogs trained to hunting the deer, and these, the knight hoped, would do good service in tracking the outlaws. He and the knights and the men-at-arms with him were all dismounted, for he felt that horses would in the forest be an incumbrance, and he was determined himself to lead the ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... of wood upholstered in velvet. But a throne is a seat of power too. The form of government is the shape of a tool—an instrument. But twenty thousand bladders inflated by the noblest sentiments and jostling against each other in the air are a miserable incumbrance of space, holding no power, possessing no will, ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... extraordinary and characteristic manner; and obeying, as I ever did, the first impulse of my heart, I prepared to grapple once more with the difficulties that yet remained to be surmounted. In order to do this, it was necessary that my feet and hands should be utterly without incumbrance; for it was only by dint of climbing that I could expect to reach that part of the projecting rock to which my attention had been directed. Securing my gun between some twisted roots that grew out of and adhered to the main body of the rock, I commenced the ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... play. Mr. Warrington is no other than the Fortunate Youth about whom so many stories have been told in the Public Advertiser and other prints. He has an estate in Virginia as big as Yorkshire, with the incumbrance of a mother, the reigning Sovereign; but, as the country is unwholesome, and fevers plentiful, let us hope that Mrs. Esmond will die soon, and leave this virtuous lad in undisturbed possession. She is aunt of that polisson of a Castlewood, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and the rifle which were slung at his back, together with the well filled, and carefully guarded pouch and horn, he had carelessly cast a keen and bright wood-axe across his shoulder, sustaining the weight of the whole with as much apparent ease, as if he moved, unfettered in limb, and free from incumbrance. ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... his return has effected everything English, and looks quite like the dude of the period. He, too, seems interested in your return; and I don't know but you might be mistress of Tracy Park, if you could fancy the incumbrance. Dick St. Claire is going to Vassar to see you and Nina graduate; and Harold, too, if he possibly can. He is very busy just now with something he must finish, and perhaps he cannot be there. Tom is going, and Fred Raymond, and Billy Peterkin—quite ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... no way out for her. She could get work, I knew, for there was always work for a woman in our pioneer houses. The hired girl who went from place to place could find employment most of the time; but the baby would be an incumbrance. It would be a thing that the eye of censure could not ignore, like the scarlet "A" on the breast of the girl in Nathaniel Hawthorne's story. I could not foresee how the thing would work out, and lay awake pondering on it until after midnight, and I had hardly fallen asleep, it seemed ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... than the steam in a low-pressure engine, by the amount of the pressure of the uncondensed steam on the other side of the piston. An engine working on this principle has therefore been called a high-pressure engine. Such an engine is relieved from the incumbrance of all the condensing apparatus and of the large supply of cold water necessary for the reduction of steam to the liquid form; for instead of being so reduced, the steam is in this case simply allowed to escape into the atmosphere. The operation, therefore, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 575 - 10 Nov 1832 • Various
... furniture; whatever she likes that way. To draw money from my business is impossible. My business fluctuates like quicksilver, and it is enormously extended. If they should have two thousand a year, it would be a princely income; I should feel so now, if they had it clear of incumbrance." ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... The stolen fortune, on which they had counted, had slipped through their fingers. The berths in the steamer for New York had been taken and paid for. James had married a woman with nothing besides herself to bestow on him, except an incumbrance in the ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... valuable service rendered to me on one occasion, and as a mark of my regard and interest, I give and bequeath the sum of five thousand dollars; and to his mother, as a token of gratitude for her faithful nursing when I was dangerously sick with the smallpox, I give and bequeath, free of all incumbrance, the cottage in which she at ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... wing is in no haste to charge. Happily Ziethen, blocked by that incumbrance of the Bridge mending, "finds a ford higher up," the assiduous Ziethen; splashes across, other regiments following; forms in line well leftward; and instead of waiting for the Austrian charge, charges home ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... overland,—live wholly on vegetable food. They are large, very robust, and strong; and bear prodigious burdens on their backs, travelling over mountains too steep for loaded mules to ascend, and with a speed which few of the generality of men can equal without incumbrance.' ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon
... every rag of sail, and did their best with their oars to gain the nearest port. But in order that the rowers might exert themselves to the utmost, it was necessary that the soldiers, who were a useless incumbrance on deck, should go below. Thus only could the ship be properly handled. The captain, anxious to save his ship and his life, consented. Most of the soldiers were sent beneath the hatches: a few were ordered to sit on the benches among the slaves. Now there had been a secret understanding for ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... It was not, however, unnecessary: many casual visitors and masters of merchantmen obtained grants, which they sold instantly and cleared a considerable sum. Land speculators were greatly disconcerted by the incumbrance: many were anxious to throw up land orders, and attempted to recover money for the goods given in exchange. A trial (1825), in which Mr. Underwood, of Sydney, was the plaintiff, is a curious example of this traffic. The defendant had given in payment ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... when the bubble burst like the gas of the Pall-Mall lamp-lighter: Reason's dragon-teeth had been buried long enough, and a race of men succeeded. The worshipful John Bull acted the part of the cow, in Tom Thumb. Ridicule, that infallible emetic of sick minds, had eased your stomach of its baby incumbrance; Miss Mudie returned to her mamma, and Master Betty also retired to break Priscian's head, and hide his own in ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... the manner of the South Sea islanders. As about twenty of them were counted, and seemed to be coming on with much resolution, our people prepared for whatever might be the event. The sloop was put under easy sail, her decks cleared of every incumbrance, and each man was provided with a competent number of musket balls, pistol balls, and buck shot, which were to be used as the distance might require; for it was intended that not a man should escape if they commenced ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... however, that it discriminates men and things more clearly than does the horse. In going over difficult ground it studies its surface, and picks its way so as to secure a footing in an almost infallible manner. Even when loaded with a pack, it will consider the incumbrance and not so often try to pass where the burden will become entangled with ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... have kind friends, too. But Flora, I am too proud to be indebted to friends for the common necessaries of life; and without doing something to improve our scanty means, it might come to that. The narrow income which has barely supplied our wants this year, without the incumbrance of a family, will not do so next. There remains no alternative ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... her second child-bed. The powers of the parish clapped their hands; political economy was glad; prudence chuckled; and a coarse-featured farmer (he meant no ill), who occasionally had given Roger work, heartlessly bade him be thankful that his cares were the fewer and his incumbrance was removed; "Ay, and Heaven take the babies also to itself," the Herodian added. But Acton's heart was broken! scarcely could he lift up his head; and his work, though sturdy as before, was more mechanical, less high-motived: ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... was only an incumbrance, he was left behind, and, taking the trail of the warriors, the three put their horses to their best, confident the chase would be a long one. On such occasions, the red men are accustomed to travel a long distance before making a halt. With so much booty in their hands, they were liable to be set ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... other to guide the horse. Cavalry is never really efficient unless trained to rush into close contact with the enemy. To see the whites of their eyes is not sufficient; they must ride over the foe. In the rapid charge the carbine is not only useless, but a positive incumbrance. The saber is comparatively harmless; it serves to frighten the timid, but rarely ever deals a death-wound. Let two men encounter each other in the charge, one relying upon his pistol, the other upon his saber, and the former, though an ordinary marksman, will ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... necessary to the safety of the army. Among these, the most vehement were Almagro and his followers. They had not witnessed the seizure of Atahuallpa. They had no sympathy with him in his fallen state. They regarded him only as an incumbrance, and their desire now was to push their fortunes in the country, since they had got so little of the gold of Caxamalca. They were supported by Riquelme, the treasurer, and by the rest of the royal officers. These men had ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... class. A friend of mine, on leaving an hotel at Niagara, offered a douceur in the shape of half a dollar to one of these, but she drew herself up, and proudly replied, "American ladies do not receive money from gentlemen." Having left my keys at the Bend, I found my valise a useless incumbrance, rather annoying after ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... may not be: From lechery fast you flee. For incumbrance it will bring thee, And all that to ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... pendant diamonds let thy Fanny take, Their trembling lustre shows how much you shake; Or bid her wear thy necklace row'd with pearl, You'll find your Fanny an obedient girl. 50 So, for the rest, with less incumbrance hung, You walk through life, unmingled with the young; And view the shade and substance as you pass With joint endeavour trifling at the glass, Or Folly dress'd, and rambling all her days, To meet her counterpart, and grow by praise: Yet still sedate yourself, and gravely ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... clothing were kept on deck until nearly the hour when we were to be ordered below for the night. During this interval * * * the decks washed and cleared of all incumbrance, except the poor wretches who lay in the bunks, it was quite refreshing after the suffocating heat and foul vapors of the night to walk between decks. There was then some circulation of air through the ship, and, ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... which the continued annual appropriation of $8,000,000 would, besides paying the interest on the Louisiana debt, reimburse within a period of less than seven years, or before the end of the year 1815. After that year no other incumbrance would remain on the revenue than the interest and reimbursement of the Louisiana stock, the last payment of which in the year 1821 would complete the final extinguishment of the public debt. The conversion act was ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... ponies; drive straight to Mapleton, and don't mention me. You will be admitted to mother. Father is there, and Frank; give them the least chance, and they will tell you about Sybil, and then you can manage the rest. Tell them to bring her back, even with that beastly incumbrance. They will listen to you; they won't to me. If you fail ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... room for slaves, dependent and incapable. One of the first large companies included some scores of bondmen; they landed to face a fierce and hungry winter, and straightway the bondmen were set free,—as slaves they would be an incumbrance; as freemen they could get their own living. The thrifty colonists of a later generation did a driving business in African slaves for their southern neighbors, but they had small ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... to the De Beers Mine, and impudently endeavoured to shell it. They seized a second position at Kamfers Dam, and placed a second gun there. We had good people in Kimberley who asserted that the gentle Boer knew not how to use a gun; that he considered it so much lumber, an incumbrance. These were apart from the school given to postulate that the farmers had no guns to use. No need to say that both theories were dispelled, by sight as well as by hearing. Much attention was devoted to Otto's Kopje—our most exposed position—and many missiles dropped dangerously ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... their fall Confusion to your elements ensued. The others kept their station: and this task, Whereon thou lookst, began with such delight, That they surcease not ever, day nor night, Their circling. Of that fatal lapse the cause Was the curst pride of him, whom thou hast seen Pent with the world's incumbrance. Those, whom here Thou seest, were lowly to confess themselves Of his free bounty, who had made them apt For ministries so high: therefore their views Were by enlight'ning grace and their own merit Exalted; so ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... earthly joy, In fondly imaging their blest employ! How oft, dear Cowper! at the close of day, When contemplation sheds her mental ray, I seem, through optics of the mind to see Thy sainted spirit, from incumbrance free! Marking how quick, in various hearts, arise Those seeds of virtue, that thy verse supplies! What joy, not speakable by mortal tongue, What praises, to the harp of seraph sung, May glad thee, now repaid for all thy woes, While boundless vision ...
— Poems on Serious and Sacred Subjects - Printed only as Private Tokens of Regard, for the Particular - Friends of the Author • William Hayley
... trocha[obs3]; barricade &c. (defense) 717; wall, dead wall, sea wall, levee breakwater, groyne[obs3]; bulkhead, block, buffer; stopper &c. 263; boom, dam, weir, burrock[obs3]. drawback, objection; stumbling-block, stumbling-stone; lion in the path, snag; snags and sawyers. encumbrance, incumbrance[obs3]; clog, skid, shoe, spoke; drag, drag chain, drag weight; stay, stop; preventive, prophylactic; load, burden, fardel[obs3], onus, millstone round one's neck, impedimenta; dead weight; lumber, pack; nightmare, Ephialtes[obs3], incubus, old man of the sea; remora. difficulty ...
— Roget's Thesaurus |
