"Cumbersome" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pistols or any such playthings in my country. We have a moral security for our lives, and never look upon death as so great an enemy that we must carry deadly weapons to defend it. In fact, pilot," he said in a joking manner, "they're rather cumbersome little bits for a feller's pocket: I'd rather carry my supper and breakfast in my pocket. Now tell us, who do you call niggers in ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... other always had their head bumped whenever the ferry-boat arrived. It was a heavy and cumbersome machine, and the ferry-boy was not a good punter. He admitted this frankly, which was creditable of him. But he made no attempt to improve himself; that is, where he was wrong. His method was to arrange the punt before starting in a line with the point towards which he wished to proceed, and then ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... the sulphuric acid automatically over the chalk in the generator, and to thus obtain a regular and continuous disengagement of carbonic acid gas. The dangers and difficulties in the maneuver of an acid cock are obviated, the gasometer and its cumbersome accessories are dispensed with, and the purification is more certain, owing to the regularity with which ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... choosing the colours, the weaving begins. It is like nothing so much as a piece of fancy-work. If it were not for the cumbersome loom, I am sure ladies would emulate the king who wove for amusement, and would make chair-pieces on the ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... reel, of course I am exasperated when a kingfish takes hold. My brother pulled in this kingfish, which was small, and we rebaited our hooks and went on again. I saw more turtles, and one we almost ran over, he was so lazy in getting down. These big, cumbersome sea animals, once they get headed down and started, can disappear with remarkable rapidity. I rather enjoy watching them, but my boatman, who is a native of these parts and therefore a turtle-hunter by instinct, always wore a rather disappointed ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... a rude bedstead, with a hair mattress and blankets, a looking glass of miniature dimensions, a rifle of English pattern, heavy and cumbersome, a pair of splendid duelling pistols, a long sword with basket hilt, ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... a family Bible. Nowadays, when busy men can only snatch a few seconds en route, the handy volume is the only really practicable form of literature. I'd rather have three small pocketable volumes of BILL NYE'S essays and stories than this one cumbersome work, which, once on the shelf, runs a pretty good chance of being left there. The majority of BILL NYE'S sayings are very amusing, and one of his short papers shows that the humorist can be pathetic on occasion without falling into mock sentiment. It is published by NEELY, of New York, and, if ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 24, 1890 • Various
... to manage than electricity, for there is always the cumbersome tube and the necessity for adding mechanical accessories before a good clear light is secured. Gas lamps are hideous, for some obscure reason, whereas there are hundreds of simple and excellent wall fixtures, drop lights and reading lamps to ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... and use of this element on Mars has been utilized in the solution of our transportation problem. Instead of cumbersome railroads consuming energy at a great loss, we use an almost perfect flying or floating ship. It is made buoyant by being screened from the gravitational ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... contains twenty-four sections, but is by no means cumbersome. It is, in many respects, the most important piece of legislation that has been had in Congress for the past twenty years. It applies to common carriers engaged in the transportation of passengers or property wholly by railroad, or partly by railroad ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... the ordinary functions of the missing member with but slight deterioration. Artificial arms, hands, and legs have been developed to such a degree of perfection that the modern mechanisms of this nature are very unlike the cumbersome ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... scant attention to rock ledges. Each morning she saddled her cayuse and rode into the hills to the southward, crossing divides and following creeks and valleys from their sources down their winding, twisting lengths. After the first two or three trips she left her gun at home. It was heavy and cumbersome, and she realized, in her unskilled hand, useless. Always she felt that she was being followed, but, try as she would, never could catch so much as a fleeting glimpse of the rider who lurked on her trail. Nevertheless, during these long rides which she made for the sole purpose of ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... of moment was an Englishman, Thomas Harriot, whose algebra (Artis analyticae praxis) was published posthumously by Walter Warner in 1631. Its great merit consists in the complete notation and symbolism, which avoided the cumbersome expressions of the earlier algebraists, and reduced the art to a form closely resembling that of to-day. He follows Vieta in assigning the vowels to the unknown quantities and the consonants to the knowns, but instead of using capitals, as with Vieta, he employed the small letters; equality he denoted ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... yer was a hant" observed the man, by way of opening the conversation, when Paul had handed up his bags and taken his place on top. Henley lighted a cigar, and the cumbersome old vehicle ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... though the back of the settle hid the result from me, I judged from the look and attitude of those below that the old colonel's calculations had been made with great exactness, and that the one comfortable seat on the rude and cumbersome bench had been so placed that this leaden weight in descending would at the chosen moment strike the head of him who sat there, inflicting death. That the weight should be made just heavy enough to produce a fatal concussion ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... they are from town, but none the worse for that, William. You have got sadly rude and cumbersome in your ways, or you wouldn't feel as you do towards a suitable young person. 'Tis from getting about with ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... a cumbersome, awkward expression that should be avoided. Occasionally, frequently, at intervals, are among the expressions that may ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... far behind. Despite the use of improved seed varieties, expansion of irrigation, and the heavy use of fertilizers, North Korea has not yet become self-sufficient in food production. Indeed, a shortage of arable lands, several years of poor harvests, and a cumbersome distribution system have resulted in chronic food shortages. The year 1995 was marked by serious summer floods that worsened an already tenuous food situation. Substantial grain shipments from Japan and South Korea offset a portion of the losses. North ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... for fear of losing so good a bargain. When he had sold the last dish, he had recourse to the tray, which weighed ten times as much as the dishes, and would have carried it to his old purchaser, but that it was too large and cumbersome; therefore he was obliged to bring him home with him to his mother's, where, after the Jew had examined the weight of the tray, he laid down ten pieces of gold, with which ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... fire." The next moment the woods echoed the report of his smooth-bore muzzle-loader—the kind of gun used by about 90 per cent. of the fur hunters of the forest. Why? Because of the simplicity of its ammunition. Such a gun never requires a variety of cumbersome shells for different kinds of game, but with varying charges of powder and shot or ball, is ready for anything from a rat or duck to a ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... New York: "Seventeen essays ... remarkable for the omission of all that is tedious and cumbersome in literary appreciations, such as pedantry, muckraking, theorizing, and, in ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser
... deep in his pockets, his pipe sending up clouds of smoke, his tall muscular frame tilted back. His eyes were fixed on an extraordinary object that crawled slowly over the polished floor. It was a gigantic tortoise—a specimen of Testudo elephantopus—a huge cumbersome brute. Its ancient, scaly head was thrust out and its eyes gleamed with a kind of sharp intelligence. The surface of its vast and massive shell was covered over with scribbles in white chalk—notes made by Sarakoff who was in the habit of jotting down ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... real history of the cannon is, that it did certainly belong to the Swedish army; but, Charles, as I have hinted before, being obliged to raise the siege of Christiania to march with his troops elsewhere, many field-pieces, as being too cumbersome to move with celerity, were abandoned, and, among the number, this cannon was left on the heights above Christiania. The Norwegians, when Charles and his army had disappeared, scaled the summit of ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... bloomaries, soft-wood charcoal is preferred. It is found that it is not usually advantageous to build kilns of over 160 to 180 cubic meters in capacity. Larger furnaces have been used, and give as good a yield, but they are much more cumbersome to manage. The largest yield got from kilns is from 50 to 60 bushels for hard wood to 50 for soft wood. The average yield, however, is about 45 bushels. In meilers, two and a half to three cords of wood are required for 100 bushels, or 30 to 40 bushels to the cord. The kiln ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various
... collected; but when the committee met to decide what form the commemorative gift should take, a perplexity arose, many being inclined towards a piece of plate. It was pointed out that a piece of plate worth eight hundred pounds would prove a cumbersome piece of furniture—a white elephant, in fact—in the small house or apartment or flat in which a critic usually lives. The truth of this could not be gainsaid. Other suggestions were forthcoming for your benefit, every one obtaining a certain amount of support, ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... a little respite and we paused long enough to lunch, for which breathing space I was duly thankful. The forenoon saw us on the train, Kennedy carrying a large and cumbersome package which he brought down with him from the laboratory and which we took turns in carrying, though he gave ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... to the shore. Jane brought a rope with her that she had taken from a third boat. This she quickly made fast to the scow, then began pulling it out into the lake. The wind had died out and the rowing was found to be much easier, though of course, the "Red Rover" was as heavy and cumbersome as before. ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... organizations have employed substantial resources to help Iraqis develop their democracy. However, the participation of international nongovernmental organizations is constrained by the lack of security, and their Iraqi counterparts face a cumbersome and often politicized process of ...
— The Iraq Study Group Report • United States Institute for Peace
... that these three big boxes are the ones the professor wants watched?" he observed, pointing as he spoke to several cumbersome cases that stood in a ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... allusions to dusty tomes and original sources, the more thorough is it frequently considered by the faculty. We have failed to realize that this excessive zeal in gathering and collating a large number of not commonly known facts may make the thesis more cumbersome, more complete, but not necessarily more thorough. However, the plea for a new standard in judging doctorate theses ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... shoulders to the forward companionway, endeavoring to clarify his thoughts. Mild confusion prevailed when Captain Jones closed and locked the door of his spacious stateroom behind them and dropped heavily into one of the cumbersome teak chairs. ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... creed of our fathers; old creed, did I say? Ever new creed; for what Time passes by, never grows old. This we would change to suit ourselves, fancying we have outgrown it; or thinking it, like the Spartan iron coin, too cumbersome for general circulation, we would change it for lighter, and as we think, more precious metal. We deem this ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... this most resolute and tenacious of men was obliged to give it up. It was too expensive, too cumbersome, too difficult; it required a vast amount of space; and, in short, it was a system which could not, and cannot, be worked to profit. But though the logographic printing was a failure, the "Daily Universal Register" proved more and more successful. It was a dingy ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... between the proposed 16 per cent. profit tax and an excess profit tax on the British model, at the rate of say twice that figure—to begin with—the general consensus of opinion would consider the latter as much the fairer, much the less cumbersome to handle and collect, and much the less hampering upon business activities. Yet, statistics seem to show that such an excess profit tax would bring in a far larger return than the proposed 16 per cent. profit tax. From figures which were shown ...
— War Taxation - Some Comments and Letters • Otto H. Kahn
... history, and their institutions were modified to suit the Saxon temperament. The race conquered in war became in peace the conquerors. The Normans speedily forgot France, and even warred against it. They began to speak English, dropping its cumbersome Teutonic inflections, and adding to it the wealth of their own fine language. They ended by adopting England as their country, and glorifying it above all others. "There is no land in the world," writes a poet of the thirteenth century, "where so many good kings and saints ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... primitive bishop." He became chaplain to Cromwell and his son Richard. Among his contributions to Puritan theology are "The Good Man the Living Temple of God," and "Vanity of Men as Mortal," He was a man of intellect and imagination. His sermons, tho often long and cumbersome, are marked by warmth of fancy and a sublimity of spirit superior to his style. Howe was a leading spirit in the effort made for the union of the Congregational and Presbyterian ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... vast gor-bellied volume, bigger bulkt than a Dutch hoy, and more cumbersome than a payre of ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... of the heavy artillery, of which about ten pieces were mounted in front of the bivouac, and upon the bank of the river, no account was taken. They were ship's guns, of little value, and extremely cumbersome; consequently their removal, had it been practicable, would scarcely have rewarded the trouble. It was therefore determined to leave them behind; and they were accordingly permitted to retain ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... is not strange that we have not adopted a better method of musical notation before this. Think how long a struggle it required to abandon the cumbersome Roman notation for the short, clear and precise Arabic—how many centuries of feeble infancy the science of mathematics passed before the invention of logarithms rendered the most tedious calculations rapid and easy. Most people take things as they seem, giving but little thought to their meanings ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... descriptions, historical expositions, reflections. Bookish terms and unvisual metaphors, which occur in the preceding pamphlets, though rarely enough, are entirely absent. The tendency toward military brevity and precision is everywhere obvious. The omission of the cumbersome auxiliary, wherever permissible, already characteristically employed in his tale, is conspicuous, as in all his writings and letters. The words are arranged in rhythmical groups without falling into a monotonous sing song. Participial ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... is over. The attacking party, even though it has gained a decisive victory, usually returns with all speed, but in good order, to its boats, carrying with it through the jungle all the loot that is not too cumbersome for rapid portage, especially old beads, gongs, and brass-ware; for they are always in danger of being cut off by a party of their enemies, rallied and reinforced by parties from neighbouring friendly villages. ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... whose natural movements are bold and free trussed up in a small and finicking technique, and others whose bent is towards neatness, struggling manfully with a cumbersome "large style." I have heard a "gentleman" defined as "a man who wears clothes that belong to him." Similarly we may say that a good violinist is one whose technique belongs to him. Every movement should come naturally, it should be as much a part of his personality as his tone ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... one-pan balance; postal scale, baby scale. [Science of gravity] statics. V. be heavy &c. adj.; gravitate, weigh, press, cumber, load. [Measure the weight of] weigh, poise. Adj. weighty; weighing &c. v.; heavy as lead; ponderous, ponderable; lumpish[obs3], lumpy, cumbersome, burdensome; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... pulled on my space-suit and clambered through the air-lock. I ran, until the cumbersome suit slowed me down to a staggering walk through the sand ...
— Out Around Rigel • Robert H. Wilson
... inconvenient in more ways, Have taken much lately to whispering in doorways; Which—considering, you know, dear, the size of the two— Makes a block that one's company cannot get thro'; And a house such as mine is, with door-ways so small, Has no room for such cumbersome love-work at all.— (Apropos, tho', of love-work—you've heard it, I hope, That Napoleon's old mother's to marry the Pope,— "What a comical pair!)—but, to stick to my Rout, 'Twill be hard if some novelty can't be struck out. Is there no Algerine, no Kamchatkan arrived? No Plenipo ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... Christian name was Temple, which became "Temp." His surname was Barom, so he was at once "Temp Barom." In the natural tendency to avoid waste of time it was pronounced as one word, and the letter p being superfluous and cumbersome, it easily settled itself into "Tembarom," and there remained. By much less inevitable processes have surnames evolved themselves as centuries rolled by. Tembarom liked it, and soon almost forgot he had ever ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... extra wheel on the rear of the roadster, but it was heavy and cumbersome, and the girl knew from experience what a dirty job changing a wheel is. She had just about decided to drive home on the rim, when a young man crossed the walk from Erie Street and joined her in her doleful appraisement ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... easily made probable to the States," said the Lord Treasurer, "that the government of the French is likely to prove as cumbersome and perilous as that of the Spaniards; and likewise it may probably be doubted how the French will keep touch and covenants with them, when any opportunity shall be offered to break them; so that her Majesty thinketh no good can be looked for to those countries ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... thimble shown in Fig. 47 is made by splicing the rope to the thimble at running part of halyard and passing back and forth through cleat and thimble. This gives a quick and strong purchase and does away with cumbersome blocks of the old-fashioned jig. The jib-sheet leads aft to the steering cockpit. The main-sheet ends in a jig of a single block and a single block with becket. Be sure that your sail covers are large enough—the sail maker always makes them too tight. The cockpit covers must ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... which, however, to avoid any unnecessary increase to my luggage, I found myself compelled to decline or leave behind; so that I had to forego the advantage of many useful and desirable articles, from their being too cumbersome for my limited means of carriage, and therefore interfering with ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... and picked it up. It was written in an unknown and probably disguised hand—a hand cumbersome ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... aft as rapidly as they could in their cumbersome suits. Several were already on the ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... one say that such richness and possibility of precision is of no importance; many a life's jeopardy has turned on less. Nor can it be said that this unlimited capacity of expression makes the mechanism of the language cumbersome, for the whole scheme of Esperanto can be thoroughly mastered in a ...
— Esperanto: Hearings before the Committee on Education • Richard Bartholdt and A. Christen
... "at home." In a large market-square we saw one of the lumbering old-fashioned diligences arrive, which recalled all that we had read of the days of continental travel before railways. There can be no doubt that the smart stage-coaches of England were very superior conveyances to the cumbersome, cobwebby diligence, which seems better adapted for night than for ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... dollars are too cumbersome to carry in any ordinary purse. If one wishes to draw even a moderate sum, it is necessary to take a cart or carriage. A good sized garden shovel on one side and a big canvas bag on the other expedites bank ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... around the interior of the cabin was completed, she came upon a six-shooter—heavy, cumbersome, like the weapon she had used the day Randerson had taught her to shoot. It reposed on a shelf near the door that led to the porch, and was almost concealed behind a box in which were a number of miscellaneous articles, broken pipes, pieces of hardware, buckles, a ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... composition. Everything which I wrote subsequently to this editorial employment, was markedly superior to anything that I had written before it. Bentham's later style, as the world knows, was heavy and cumbersome, from the excess of a good quality, the love of precision, which made him introduce clause within clause into the heart of every sentence, that the reader might receive into his mind all the modifications ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... Henry Lefroy, referring to the persistence of purpose shown by his party in bringing back the pendulum apparatus, remarked that there was nothing nobler in the annals of scientific heroism than the determination of these hungry men to drag the cumbersome box ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... ancient mansions and palaces, which, although they were empty three parts of the year, yet afforded men the consolation of knowing that they were ample enough to shelter the majority of the homeless—men of this stamp were chagrined by the cumbersome mechanism of exchange, which made these glories of the past impracticable, and they were for introducing counters. But counters, although they had the advantage of lacking intrinsic value, would be quite as bad as actual coins if men could entirely trust one another never to repudiate their obligations. ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... the weight carried on the machine has very little to do with its endurance, but at the same time in future trips would recommend that a carbine be carried instead of the musket, which he considers too heavy and cumbersome to ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 41, August 19, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... Fraulein, who adored her, and shed tears behind her spectacles when obliged to point out a fault. Then the two would repair together to the tennis courts and play a set, the pupil winning by six games to love; or go a bicycle ride, when Rhoda would practise fancy figures, while her good, but cumbersome, companion picked herself up from recumbent positions on the sidewalk, and shook the dust from her garments. At other times Rhoda would put on her riding habit and go a ride round the estate, taking care to emerge from ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... cumbersome enough, but there was no difficulty in levering it along the deck by means of capstan bars, after which the rope running through the block high up was made fast to one side, and the doctor and Bostock began to haul: but the effect was not satisfactory, and Bostock stopped and scratched ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... this, and getting down from the coach-top with great alacrity, cut a cumbersome kind of caper in the road. After which, he went into the public-house, and there ordered spirituous drink to such an extent, that Mr Pecksniff had some doubts of his perfect sanity, until Jonas set them quite at rest by saying, when the coach ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... mother, I do not want a husband who is to be led. He would be too cumbersome a child for me ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... at all like the cumbersome vehicles which are known under that name in England. They were merely large, strongly-built carts on two wheels, drawn by three, four, or five horses, as the nature of the country might require; though, ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston
... was hailed and they all got on board, each carrying a valise, for the Rover boys had decided that trunks would be too cumbersome for the trip. They sat close together, and during the ride the stranger endeavored to make ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield
... door with some difficulty, for it was heavy and cumbersome, and found myself in the hall. Although nothing remarkable met my eye, I was delighted to find everything in keeping with the place. The old-fashioned furniture, the old oak, the grim portraits and quaint heraldry, all ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... Nevertheless, Dru was hopeful that such a system would be devised as would render it unnecessary for either municipalities, counties or states to require any further revenue. Dru directed the board to divide each state into districts for the purpose of taxation, not making them large enough to be cumbersome, and yet not small enough to prohibit the employment of able men to form the assessment and collecting boards. He suggested that these boards be composed of four local men and one ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... Without more ado I swung myself up, and clambered over the sill into the room beside her. I was looking round for something that might serve me for a weapon, when my eye encountered a tall oak press, a heavy, cumbersome affair, but, save the bed, the only furniture the room possessed. Setting my shoulder to it therefore, I began to urge it towards the door. But it was soon apparent that I could not get it there in time, for the creeping footstep was already ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... committed them to heart was pure Japanese, and in that language he dictated them, twenty-nine years later, to the scribe Yasumaro. The latter, in setting down the products of Are's memory, wrote for the most part phonetically; but sometimes, finding that method too cumbersome, he had recourse to the ideographic language, with which he was familiar. At all events, adding nothing nor taking away anything, he produced a truthful record of the myths, traditions, and salient historical incidents credited by the Japanese ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... the enemy got along with smaller trains than ours, and it is true that the rebel army on that account was more easily moved than our own. It was one of the disadvantages of too liberal a government that our movements for two years were weighed down with these cumbersome trains; and even after so long an experience of their evil it was with strong feelings of opposition that the reduction ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... used to signal A, B, C, and D. One light or flag shown from column one would represent A, two flags or lights B, and so on. Thus any word could be spelled out and any message sent. Without doubt the system was slow and cumbersome, but it was a step in the ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers
... is no record of his journey across the deep sounds and along the rock-girt shores of Lake Superior. His contingent was divided into two sections, possibly as soon as it emerged from the St Mary's river and entered Whitefish Bay. Selkirk himself sped forward with the less cumbersome craft, while the soldier-settlers advanced more leisurely in their bateaux. Early in August the vanguard came within sight of the islands that bar the approach to Thunder Bay. Then, as their canoes slipped through the dark waters, they were soon abeam of that majestic headland, Thunder Cape, ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood
... he was at present delivered out of his mouth, he adds, And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom. He shall and will. Here is a man at liberty, here are no cumbersome fears. But how came the apostle by this confidence of his well-being and of his share in another world? Why, "he had committed the keeping of his soul to God," compare 2 Timothy 1:12 with 4:18. For to commit the keeping of the soul to God, if it be done in faith and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... aunt Ann, making one futile effort to rise, like some cumbersome fowl whose wings are clipped. "My land alive! you'll break a blood-vessel, an' then ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... observation with the most imperturbable sang froid, and the conscientious Roque, wisely reflecting that under the head of disposing of cumbersome damsels, there were some ways not altogether in accordance with the dictates ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... one among the bonders named Skeggi Ironbeard, a very rich farmer who cared little for king or earls, but loved only the freedom of his farm, his ale at night, and the warmth of his fireside. He was a huge and cumbersome man with an iron gray beard, and as he stood by the side of his horse his feet were seen to be covered with the mud of his ploughed fields. Near him there was a beautiful girl with very black hair and dark brown eyes. ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... the old man began to understand that if he held on to the prize he would be left far behind in the chase by our people, because it was far too cumbersome to be carried at a rapid pace, and then he regretted having ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... were Pylades and Orestes—a second edition of Damon and Pythias—Theseus and Pirithoiis at the least. You are mistaken, and have given the name of friendship to what, on my part, was mere good-nature and compassion for a raw and ignorant countryman, joined to the cumbersome charge which my father gave me respecting you. Your character, my lord, is of no one's drawing, but of your own making. I introduced you where, as in all such places, there was good and indifferent company to be met with—your ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... is not allowed the same chance. As it is, not a little of his work has never been reprinted at all; some of the rest is difficult of access, and what there is exists in numerous volumes of different forms, some cheap, some dear, the whole cumbersome. And if his prose work seems to me inferior to his poetical in absolute and perennial value, its value is still very great. Not so much English prose has that character of grace, of elegance, which has been vindicated for this, that we can afford to lay aside or to forget ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... and she did not run away as she had meant to do. Presently he asked for a screw-driver and a can of oil, and when she had procured them he did a number of things to the cumbersome loom, the result of which, when she attacked it once more, proved that he had relieved to a certain extent the ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... almost oracle of a large portion of our reformers, it becomes worthy of an answer from every earnest woman in our cause. I will not say one word in defense of our present mode of dress. Not I; but bad as it is, and cumbersome and annoying, I still feel that we can wear it, and yet be lovers of liberty, speaking out our deep feeling, portraying our accumulated wrongs, saving ourselves for a time yet from that antagonism which we must inevitably meet when we don the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... man - all lumber! Throw it overboard. It makes the boat so heavy to pull, you nearly faint at the oars. It makes it so cumbersome and dangerous to manage, you never know a moment's freedom from anxiety and care, never gain a moment's rest for dreamy laziness - no time to watch the windy shadows skimming lightly o'er the shallows, or the glittering sunbeams flitting ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... the production at will of such nuances as forte and piano without recourse to the different registers. This is the reason why the new instrument was first called the pianoforte. The word was long and cumbersome and was cut in half. When it became necessary to assault the note, they used the phrase "to hit the forte." The papers which gave accounts of young Mozart's concerts praised him for his ability ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... had the command of the campaign I would go with rifles only, no cumbersome Maxims and cannon to spoil good rocks with. I would move surreptitiously by night to a point about a quarter of a mile from the Boer camp, and there I would build up a pyramid of biltong and Bibles fifty feet high, and then conceal my men all about. In the morning the Boers would send out spies, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... caves from below would have been cumbersome, but a light knotted rope is easily carried, and though it would have been hard to climb up this, our plan was to descend on each cave mouth from above, and then slip down to the foot of the cliffs, and start again AB INITIO ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... the exact circumstances under which the undertaking progressed. Income from the land as the result of agricultural operations was not absolutely necessary. This acknowledgment does not imply the possession of, or any disrespect for, "the cumbersome luggage of riches," nor any affectation; but rather an accommodating and frugal disposition—the capacity to turn to account the excellent moral that poor Mr Micawber lamented his inability to obey. ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... whatever for the belief which prevails somewhat that the members of such a court would always follow the contention of their own country. Even under the present cumbersome and illogical method of selecting arbitrators we have a recent illustration that men great enough to fill positions of this kind, realizing the dignity and responsibility of the position, will rise above the clamor of their own countrymen and decide the question at issue upon its merits. ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... front, and Blanco had appraised the distance between, the chair left the floor. With the same lightning swiftness of motion that had brought salvos of applause from the bull-rings of Cadiz and Seville, he swung it above his head and brought down its cumbersome weight in an arc. ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... of which I was fortunate enough to secure, had come down to meet us at the railroad station, and was as muddy and cumbersome as usual. As more passengers were waiting for us at the inn-door, the coachman observed under his breath, in the usual self-communicative voice, looking the while at his mouldy harness as if it were to that he ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... he cried, in his heavy cumbersome way. And the sound of his deep voice alone served to ward off the encroachment of that final weakness which, in spite of all her courage, the girl was at ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... with steel, while, at the same time, it could cover a large space of ground with its discharge of lead. Attentive to all kinds of detail, he also gave his soldiers the cartouch-box and knapsack instead of the cumbersome apparatus to which they had been accustomed. In fact, Gustavus Adolphus was the founder of the modern science of battle. In strategy and the grand combinations of warfare, he was the disciple and rival of the ancient masters; for, even if this "divine portion" of the military art be inaccessible ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... journeying carried him from Italy to Denmark, and from the British Islands to Russia, and everywhere the art and social world bowed at his feet in recognition of a genius which in its way could only be designated by the term "colossal." It seems cumbersome and monotonous to repeat the details of successive triumphs; but some of them are attended by features of peculiar interest. He offered, in the summer of 1841, to give the proceeds of a concert ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... high beaver hat observed a jaunty, rakish tilt; his brass-buttoned coat was the colour of wine and of the latest fashion, while his snug fitting pantaloons were the shade of the mouse. He wore no cumbersome cape, but fashioned about his neck and shoulders was a broad, sloping collar of mink. There were silver spurs on his stout riding boots, and the wide cuffs of his gauntlets ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... modification in the present test of criminal responsibility is adopted, there must come an equally, if not even more important, reform in the procedure in insanity cases, which to-day is as cumbersome and out of date as the law itself. As things stand now in New York and most other jurisdictions there are no adequate means open to the State to find out the actual present or past mental condition of the defendant ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... by tough and temporarily painful surgery by a Congress as prepared as the President to face up to this very real political problem. Again, I wish my successor, working with a substantial majority of his own party, the best of success in reforming the costly and cumbersome machinery of the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... have solved the problem of disposing of the cumbersome useless bodies of my hostages, Lee," said Baxter, rubbing his hands together as ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks
... his bunk, removed the cumbersome spacesuit. Her eyes blinked faintly, then sprang open. But they did not see him; they were staring straight ahead. Her mouth opened and shut weakly as though she were speaking, but no sound issued from it. He brought her water, but when ...
— The Beast of Space • F.E. Hardart
... accompanied by Keith, the artist, Professor Ingraham, and five ambitious young climbers from Seattle. We were led by the veteran mountaineer and guide Van Trump, of Yelm, who many years before guided General Stevens in his memorable ascent, and later Mr. Bailey, of Oakland. With a cumbersome abundance of campstools and blankets we set out from Seattle, traveling by rail as far as Yelm Prairie, on the Tacoma and Oregon road. Here we made our first camp and arranged with Mr. Longmire, a farmer in the neighborhood, for pack and saddle animals. The noble ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... haze, and saw, tossing on the rough water, a skiff which seemed to be making toilsome progress toward the doomed craft. Farther up the stream she thought she could discern the party in the yawl, striving to reach shore with the cumbersome cordelle. Pole, nor oar, nor rudder could save the Buckeye from the fury of the eddy. The slender craft, sixty feet in length, was whirled round and round with dizzy rapidity. The violence of the down-pull at the vortex broke her in the middle. All on board fled aft, to the ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... the huge, cumbersome apparatus of beam, irons, and net, the weighty irons being so arranged as to take the trawl to the bottom in the right position so that the net with its stout edge rope should scrape over the ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... has been equally ignorant of the real mental and moral caliber of the Japanese. Dressed in clothing that appeared to us fantastic, and armed with cumbersome armor and old-fashioned guns, it was easy to jump to the conclusion that the people were essentially uncivilized. We did not know the intellectual discipline demanded of one, whether native or foreign, who would master the native language or the native systems ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... with tense muscles and heaving chests, they brought the cumbersome weight over the side, rolled it on top of the rail, and lowered it into the cockpit on the run. The cabin doors were thrown apart, and it was moved along, end for end, till it lay on the cabin floor, ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... a kitchen should not be cumbersome, and should be so made and dressed as to be easily cleaned. There should be plenty of cupboards, and each for the sake of order, should be devoted to a special purpose. Cupboards with sliding doors are ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... hideous idols. Fruits of various kinds were likewise suspended in leafen baskets, from the tops of poles planted uprightly, and at regular intervals, along the lower terraces of both altars. At their base were arranged two parallel rows of cumbersome drums, standing at least fifteen feet in height, and formed from the hollow trunks of large trees. Their heads were covered with shark skins, and their barrels were elaborately carved with various quaint figures and devices. At regular intervals they were bound round by a species of sinnate of ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... culprit is required to go to each person and say that he or she is going on a journey to Rome and ask whether they have anything to send to the Pope. The players load him up with various articles, the more cumbersome the better, which he must carry until every person has been visited. Then he must walk out of the room and back, distributing the articles to ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... of their impending fate! After a while Bianca became aware that tongues were a-wag in Venice, sullying her name with foul calumnies. Her decision for their downfall was swift and terrible. She persuaded her easy-going husband to ride to Naples; then, free of his cumbersome authority, she set to work on the preparations for her world-famous supper party. Picture it if you will: five hundred and eighty-three guests[7] all seated laughingly in the immense banqueting-hall—Bianca at the head of the table, ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... after building, buildings in which hundreds of men toiled on preparations for a possible war. The throb of those engines, sight of the perspiring faces, might suggest that rather large, a trifle extravagant, a bit cumbersome, was the price for peace. But these girls did not seem to be thinking of the possible war, or of the men who earned their bread thwarting it by preparation. One would suppose them to be just two beautifully cared for, careless-of-life girls, thinking of what some man ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... into the cumbersome preservers and prepared themselves for the end they could never have told. Everything seemed a blank, the whole world whirled, all the noises in the universe rolled in their ears. Then they were stumbling, rolling, tearing toward the upper ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... General. And as it was God's ordinance upon him, even so the vehement persuasion and entreaty of his friends could nothing avail to divert him of a wilful resolution of going through in his frigate; which was overcharged upon the decks with fights, nettings, and small artillery, too cumbersome for so small a boat that was to pass through the ocean sea at that season of the year, when by course we might expect much storm of foul weather. Whereof, ...
— Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage to Newfoundland • Edward Hayes
... entire, while I kept the train only attached to the tail of two or three others. When this bird is seen feeding on the ground, it appears wonderful how it can rise into the air with such a long and cumbersome train of feathers. It does so however with great ease, by running quickly for a short distance, and then rising obliquely; and will fly over trees of a considerable height. I also obtained here a specimen of the rare green ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... some cases dead shells of other species, an office performed by the use of an exceptionally long tongue. Its movements are said to be very clumsy and erratic, as if its self-imposed burden was too cumbersome for its strength. Personal observation fails to verify its staggering gait, for dead specimens only have been found. The stones are, no doubt, designedly acquired as a disguise and so represent another form of life insurance. When stationary ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... now to kill. Their horses, too, were as unused to the sight of a buffalo as their riders, and in consequence were badly frightened at the first sight of the ungainly animals. The men, of course, used their rifles, which in those days were altogether too cumbersome for ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... number of robberies of safes that have taken place in London during the last few weeks it is possible that an effort will shortly be made to do away with these cumbersome articles in order to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various
... easily be abreast or ahead of us in such matters as the latest applications of electricity, while retaining in its legal uses certain cumbersome devices that we have long since discarded. Americans still have "Courts of Oyer and Terminer" and still insist on the unanimity of the jury, though their judges wear no robes and their counsel apply to the cuspidor as often as ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... substitute for the cumbersome paddle-wheels as a motive-power for steam-vessels: the Archimedean screw plying under water, and hidden by the counter, communicates motion in the direction of its axis to a vessel, by working against the resisting ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... it would be at least three minutes. You could get through a fair amount of business in three minutes. Was it the candlesticks you wanted?" He looked towards a pair of solid silver candlesticks on the mantelpiece. "They are cumbersome, you know. Or the miniatures? There are three Cosways and four Engleharts. I should recommend ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... written in the words "vexatious discussion and lost chances". The rule that no picture is to be purchased until it has been seen and approved of by the corporation forbids all extraordinary chances, and the unique and only moment is lost in foolish formulae. The machinery is too cumbersome; and chances of sale-rooms cannot be seized; it is instinct and not reason that decides the collector, and no dozen or twenty men can ever be got to ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... extinguished; we were enveloped in pitch-darkness, up to our knees in salt water. There was a moment of awful silence: we could not tell whether the light of day would ever visit us again; we thought perhaps it wouldn't. But the Petrel rose once more upon the watery hilltops and shook herself free of the cumbersome deluge; and at that point, when she seemed to be riding more easily than usual, some one broke the silence: "Well, did the captain of the Perle live to tell ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... the Tartar bow which was brought expressly from Shansi, China, by my brother, Col. B. H. Pope. With this powerful weapon I expected to shoot a quarter of a mile; but with all its dreadful strength, its cast was slow and cumbersome. The arrow that came with it, a miniature javelin thirty-eight inches long, could only be projected one hundred and ten yards. In making these shots both hands and feet were used to draw the bow. A special flight arrow thirty-six inches long was ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... about half filled, and the ship carpenters were at work cutting ports in the Retriever's bows, when Matt Peasley discovered that the mill did not have in hand any order for lumber to be used as stowage to snug up the cumbersome cargo below decks and keep it from rolling and working in a seaway. Accordingly he wired his owners ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... remain near the corpse for four or five days, observing a rigorous fast and keeping apart from their wives. They may not shave or cut their hair, and they are obliged to wear a tall pyramidal and very cumbersome head-dress. They may not touch food with their hands. If they help themselves to it, they must pick it up with their mouths alone or with a stick, not with their fingers. Oftener they are fed by an attendant, who puts the victuals into their mouths as he might do if they ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... surrounds it is a great blot on the appearance of the chapel; no doubt it is necessary that the pedestal should be protected by some kind of barrier, but a light and elegant railing of brass would answer every purpose without marring the general effect, as the present cumbersome erection shown in all the accompanying illustrations of objects in this chapel does. It is to be hoped that either out of the general fabric fund, or by the generosity of some individual donor, this one blot on this fine chapel ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... question have either believed that its chief object was to prevent the stage from ever being altogether empty, whereas in truth the stage was not at all the proper place for the Chorus; or else they have censured it as a superfluous and cumbersome appendage, expressing their astonishment at the alleged absurdity of carrying on secret transactions in the presence of assembled multitudes. They have also considered it as the principal reason with the Greek tragedians for the strict observance of the unity of place, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... and helped them up the ladder when they complied. The tanks were cumbersome when out ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... musk—as soothing as the perfume of violets. The crisp silence of the seashore when absolute calm prevails is as different from the strained, sodden, padded silence of the jungle as the savour of olives from the raw insipidity of white of egg, for the cumbersome mantle of leafage is the surest stifler of noise, ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... by fattening them to such an extent that they have been injured in constitution, and in many cases converted into cripples behind. The prizewinning rough-coated St. Bernard, as he is seen to-day is a purely manufactured animal, handsome in appearance certainly, but so cumbersome that he is scarcely able to raise a trot, let alone do any tracking in the snow. Usefulness, however, is not a consideration with breeders, who have reared the dog to meet the exigencies of the show ring. There is still much left to be desired, and there is room for ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... The cumbersome ablutions of oriental nations are defended on the ground of cleanliness. The divine sanctity of kings is held to be an aid to social obedience. Slavery is alleged to have been at one time necessary to break in mankind to industry. Indissoluble ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... Parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, and to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith makes up the highest perfection."[108] This rather cumbersome definition shows how fully Milton was possessed of the Puritan spirit, which then controlled England, and ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... more clearly now," cried Jack, as for an instant a vagrant desert air blew aside the dust-cloud and revealed several riders, surrounding some cumbersome, moving object ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... be light, warm, loose, and free from pins. (1.) It should be light, without being too airy. Many infant's clothes are both too long and too cumbersome. It is really painful to see how some poor little babies are weighed down with a weight of clothes. They may be said to "bear the burden," and that a heavy one, from the very commencement of their lives! How absurd, too, the practice of making them wear long clothes. Clothes to cover a child's ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... as a bird in the air Despot man doth dare! His humbling cumbersome body at length Light as the lark upsprings, Buoyed by tamed explosive ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... of only sixteen months and was supplanted by the transcontinental telegraph. Yet it was of the greatest importance in binding the East and West together at a time when overland travel was slow and cumbersome, and when a great national crisis made the rapid communication of news between ...
— The Story of the Pony Express • Glenn D. Bradley
... spontaneous. You can hear the creak of the machine as it goes to work. The ever-present jester is a proof that humour is an exotic, which does not grow naturally on the soil, and does not belong more intimately to the American people than did the cumbersome jokes of Archie Armstrong to the monarch who employed him. The humour which simplifies life, and detects a spice of ridicule even in the operations of business and politics, is rarely found in America. ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... elaborate and cumbersome, had supplanted the prophetic oracle. The ritualist is never a prophet; and out of such a formal cult no words of inspiration are apt to flow. With all the greater carefulness, therefore, would the people treasure the messages that had come to them from the past. ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... his busy step and fishing-tackle, and baby Ethel, the wee darling, who ran after Ruth the first time she saw her and begged her to come and play with her; ever since, she formed a part of the drapery of Ruth's skirt or a rather cumbersome necklace about her neck. Every girl who has been debarred the blessing of babies in the house loves them promiscuously and passionately. Ruth was no exception; it amused the ladies to watch her cuddle the child and wonder aloud ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... of old English verbiage, with quaint terms and cumbersome repetition, the stipulations of this contract of were concealed, there can be no doubt that they purported and designed to "ingage" that "the Good ship MAY-FLOWER of Yarmouth, of 9 score tuns burthen, whereof for the ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... obtain from Great Britain more cheaply the various articles of that commerce, than by direct communication with the country itself. This arose from the numerous interests of Great Britain, and the broader foundation of her commercial speculations. The Danish government felt the African possessions cumbersome and expensive, and agreed to cede them, with their guns, stores, property, territorial rights, &c, to her Britannic majesty for the sum of L10,000. A treaty to this effect was signed in London on the 17th of August, and ratified ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... wide, that though he pushed and squeezed like one who had really a mind to get in, yet he could not possibly do so. Then I heard a voice crying, "Woe to him that loadeth himself with thick clay." The poor man felt something was wrong, and even went so far as to change some of his more cumbersome vanities into others which seemed less bulky; but still he and his pack were much too wide for ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... because of the great amount of red tape involved in the handling of the endless detail, and second because of the resulting destruction of initiative and enterprise. Such a centralization of social function would be just as cumbersome as a like centralization of all bodily functions in the higher brain centres. If men were compelled to reason about and to direct each step, each movement of eyes or hands, each breath, each heart-beat, ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing |
