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More "Encumber" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my instructions, and for whom I am not otherwise responsible. That person is the person from whom you derive your expectations, and the secret is solely held by that person and by me. Again, not a very difficult condition with which to encumber such a rise in fortune; but if you have any objection to it, this is the time to mention ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... your hands; but the very fragments of it, which you are inclined to neglect and overlook, will form in time a heap of unexpected treasure. Plans which you have thrown aside, because they seemed to fail, details which seemed to encumber you, accessory work which formed no part of your original plan, all will be of use ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... and herrings in powers Of silvery showers All number out-numbered; And great ling so lengthy Was there in such plenty The shore was encumber'd. ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... heavy, and thought I should make an abatement. He grew by degrees less civil, put on more of the master, frequently found fault, was captious, and seem'd ready for an outbreaking. I went on, nevertheless, with a good deal of patience, thinking that his encumber'd circumstances were partly the cause. At length a trifle snapt our connections; for, a great noise happening near the court-house, I put my head out of the window to see what was the matter. Keimer, being in the street, look'd up and saw me, call'd out to me in a loud voice and angry ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... labourer, manufacturer and artisan, till it comes to the higher degrees of rule which one cultivated man has to exercise over another in the performance of the greatest functions. See, throughout, what difficulties and temptations encumber this relation. How boundless is the field of thought which it opens to us, how infinite the duties which it contains, how complete an exercise it is for the whole faculties of man. Observe what wretchedness is caused by a misunderstanding of this relation in domestic matters. See the selfish ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... of the Iroquois forces was directed against the Neutrals. They carried two frontier villages, in one of which were more than 1600 men, the first at the end of autumn, the second early in the spring of 1651. The old men and children who might encumber them on their homeward journey were massacred. The number of captives was excessive, especially of young women, who were carried off to the Iroquois towns. The other more distant villages were seized with terror. The Neutrals abandoned their houses, their property and ...
— The Country of the Neutrals - (As Far As Comprised in the County of Elgin), From Champlain to Talbot • James H. Coyne
... Patrick says professionally of Scotch Marriages in this chapter is taken from this high authority. What the lawyer (in the Prologue) says professionally of Irish Marriages is also derived from the same source. It is needless to encumber these pages with quotations. But as a means of satisfying my readers that they may depend on me, I subjoin an extract from my list of references to the Report of the Marriage Commission, which any persons who may be so inclined ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... secondary, higher subjects. Between the agregation and the doctorat, there are four years, and naturally we shall want three examinations just to see how the future professor is getting on with his theses, to encumber him with assistance and to prevent him doing them alone; first examination called the Bibliography of the Theses for the Doctorat, second examination called the Methodology of the Doctorat, third examination called the Preparation for the Sustaining of the Thesis, and then ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... I think we should return to our former place of concealment, and watch their motions. There is no saying when the party with Miss Percival may return; they may have arrived while we have been away, or they may come to-morrow. It will be better, therefore, not to encumber ourselves with more prisoners ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... encumber my narrative by any statement of the questions which I felt it my duty to put to her under these circumstances. My inquiries informed me that Captain Stanwick had in the first instance produced a favorable impression on her. The less showy qualities of Mr. Varleigh had ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... or the man, slept or wept: these doubtfull speaches were vsed much in the old times by their false Prophets as appeareth by the Oracles of Delphos and and of the Sybille prophecies deuised by the religious persons of those dayes to abuse the superstitious people, and to encumber their busie braynes with vaine hope or ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... much praise and incense as the foundress of this community. It has been quite easy for her to found so vast an establishment with the treasures of France, since she herself had remained poor, by her own confession, and had neither to sell nor encumber Maintenon, her sole property. ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... ordinary times, a yataghan or pistol may be dispensed with; but whatever may be the occupation of man or boy, the gun is never left behind, whether ploughing, or cutting wood, or carrying the heaviest burdens. It is almost extraordinary that they should thus encumber themselves, as, within their own boundary, none are so safe, and their mountains seldom afford them a living mark. I believe it arises very much from a fondness for the weapon. The greatest care is taken of it, and it undergoes a complete cleaning after every shot. The arms ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... and noble stock. The family of Graham can be traced back in unbroken succession to the beginning of the twelfth century; and indeed there have been attempts to encumber its scutcheon with the quarterings of a fabulous antiquity. Gram, we are told, was in some primeval time the generic name for all independent leaders of men, and was borne by one of the earliest kings of Denmark. Another has surmised that if Graham be the ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... her father for these generous offers, but told him that she would on no account encumber herself with a husband. However, being urged by the King again and again, she said, "Not to show myself ungrateful for so much love I am willing to comply with your wish, provided I have such a husband that he has no ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... with the dawn, and prepared to execute his design, hiding his upper garment, which might encumber him; he then proceeded to the Palace of Tears. He found it lighted up with an infinite number of flambeaux of white wax, and perfumed by a delicious scent issuing from several censers of fine gold of admirable workmanship. As soon as he perceived ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... to keep his means of further defence in the best condition, he directed all the guns to cease, and the damages to be repaired. Then he went with a party toward the boat that had fallen into his hands. To encumber himself with prisoners of any sort, in his actual situation, would have been a capital mistake, but to do this with wounded men would have been an act of folly. The boat had tourniquets and other similar appliances in it, and ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... this is thy best security for my constancy to the desperate course I have adopted. My life is solitary and independent, reckless of all results. Lead then to the combat, and where slaughter stains the way, and where shrieks and groans encumber the air, where death is busiest, there! thou mayest exultingly cry, there is ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... hordes were unable to overcome the brave resistance of the Belgae. The leaders accordingly resolved, now that their numbers were thus swelled, to enter in all earnest on the expedition to Italy which they had several times contemplated. In order not to encumber themselves with the spoil which they had heretofore collected, they left it behind under the protection of a division of 6000 men, which after many wanderings subsequently gave rise to the tribe of the Aduatuci on the Sambre. But, whether from ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... waters, the King, having directed Talmash to superintend the retreat, put himself at the head of a few brave regiments, and by desperate efforts arrested the progress of the enemy. His risk was greater than that which others ran. For he could not be persuaded either to encumber his feeble frame with a cuirass, or to hide the ensigns of the garter. He thought his star a good rallying point for his own troops, and only smiled when he was told that it was a good mark for the enemy. Many fell on his right hand and on his left. Two led horses, which in the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... for the Heart Ach," is by this time so well known that to relate the fable of it here, would be uselessly to encumber the work. Of the quality of this production it would be difficult for criticism to speak candidly, without adverting to the present miserable state of dramatic poetry in England, which from the days of Sam Foote has been gradually descending to its present deplorable condition. The body ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... after the wedding Patin could no longer understand how he had ever imagined Desiree to be different from other women. What a fool he had been to encumber himself with a penniless creature, who had undoubtedly inveigled him with some drug which she had ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... do not now influence me; I speak the language of the natural, of the visible world.—You love not me, Annot—you love Menteith—by him you are beloved again, and Allan is no more to you than one of the corpses which encumber ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... frequently hear it said that women will not vote if they have the opportunity; or, if permitted to vote, such an inconsiderable number will exercise the privilege that it will not be worth while to encumber the electoral system by granting it. In all matters in which women have an interest, as large a percentage vote as of the other sex. They have the same interest in all which pertains to good government. They have exercised the privilege of voting not in a careless and indifferent ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... Phinnes and Timothy Murphy testified the same, and to show the bloody disposition of this wretch, William Booth testified that Williams proposed afterwards to the company that if they took any more ships they should not encumber themselves with the men, having already so many prisoners that in case of a fight they should not be safe with them; but that they should take them and tie them, back to back, and throw them all ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... couples and triads, the extreme diversity of deities, and thus indicate a reason for the very peculiar aspect of the cylinders and engraved stones of Chaldaea, for the complex forms of the gods, and for the multitude of varied symbols which encumber the fields of her sculptured reliefs. Some of the figures that crowd these narrow surfaces are so fantastic that they astonish the eye as much as they pique ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... childhood she had looked with awful veneration. This girl was regarded with an unfavourable eye by all the competitors, honest Dinmont only excepted; the rest conceived they should find in her a formidable competitor, whose claims might at least encumber and diminish their chance of succession. Yet she was the only person present who seemed really to feel sorrow for the deceased. Mrs. Bertram had been her protectress, although from selfish motives, and her capricious tyranny was forgotten at the moment, ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... There, under shadow of his sacred plumes Swaying the world, till through successive hands To mine he came devolv'd. Caesar I was, And am Justinian; destin'd by the will Of that prime love, whose influence I feel, From vain excess to clear th' encumber'd laws. Or ere that work engag'd me, I did hold Christ's nature merely human, with such faith Contented. But the blessed Agapete, Who was chief shepherd, he with warning voice To the true faith recall'd me. I believ'd His words: and what he taught, now plainly see, As thou ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... size. The moment having arrived to think about winter, the Voles spread themselves about the steppe. Each hollows little pits around the roots he wishes to extract. After having bared them he cleans them while still in position, so as not to encumber his storehouses with useless earth. This preparatory labour having been completed, he divides the root into slices of a weight proportioned to his strength, and carries away the fragments one by one. Seizing each ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... strengthenst. It is true that these are rough words, in any form you can give them; but let us remember, that needless apostrophes are as rough to the eye, as needless st's to the ear. Our common grammarians are disposed to encumber the language with as many of both as they can find any excuse for, and vastly more than can be sustained by any good argument. In words that are well understood to be contracted in pronunciation, the apostrophe is now less frequently used than it was formerly. Walker says, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... the Almighty Redeemer? Perish the thought. Still how common is the question, which one of the disciples put to his master, 'Lord, are there few that be saved?' How striking the answer! 'Strive to enter in at the strait gate' (Luke 13:23). Encumber not thy mind with such needless inquiries, but look to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... no waiting on the part of the defenders, who began firing as soon as the advance commenced, with the result that several Indians dropped, to encumber the way and unsettle the serried band of plunging steeds, while the rest, on breasting the rocks, recoiled, and in a state of panic turned, regardless of yells and blows, to gallop back after the fashion of their kind, crowding ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... not encumber our pupils with accurate demonstration. The application of mathematics to mechanics is undoubtedly of the highest use, and has opened a source of ingenious and important inquiry. Archimedes, the greatest name amongst mechanic philosophers, scorned ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... is breaking!' Nay, some tower Far eastward sendeth forth that light; We yet may spend another hour, Not yet shall end the precious night. May sleep, thou sun, thee long encumber, And waking may'st thou linger still, For Frithjof's sake may'st freely slumber Till Ragnaroek, be ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... that convenient size which would admit of its being squeezed into any odd corner, but Dick the hostler got it in somehow, and Mr Chuzzlewit helped him. It was all on Mr Pinch's side, and Mr Chuzzlewit said he was very much afraid it would encumber him; to which Tom said, 'Not at all;' though it forced him into such an awkward position, that he had much ado to see anything but his own knees. But it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good; and the wisdom of the saying was verified in this instance; for the cold air came ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... is useful unless it calls up living things in the soul. To read a mystic book truly is to invoke the powers. If they do not rise up plumed and radiant, the apparitions of spiritual things, then is our labor barren. We only encumber the mind with useless symbols. They knew better ways long ago. "Master of the Green-waving Planisphere,... Lord of the Azure Expanse,... it is thus we invoke," cried the ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... he thought it in me, which resisted his urgency. But I was averse to noting down, because I was conscious that it did better for me to keep the things in my head, if they suited my purpose; and if they did not, they would only encumber me. I knew that, when I wrote down, I put the thing out of my care, out of my head; and that, though it might be put by very safe, I should not know where to look for it; that the labour of looking over a note-book would never do when I was in the warmth ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... covetousness, pride, lust, or whatever else thy heart may be inclining unto, which may hinder thee in this heavenly race. Men that run for a wager, (if they intend to win as well as run,) do not use to encumber themselves, or carry those things about them that may be a hindrance to them in their running. "Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things." That is, he layeth aside every thing ...
— The Heavenly Footman • John Bunyan
... fortune, gentlemen, in the course of the inquiries which I have since made, to obtain further confirmation of my opinion. Without attempting any of that species of oratory which may be necessary to cover falsehood, but which would encumber instead of adorning truth, I shall now, in the simplest manner in my power, lay the evidence ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... art, Great be the manners of the bard. He shall not his brain encumber With the coil of rhythm and number; But leaving rule and pale forethought He shall aye climb For his rhyme. 'Pass in, pass in,' the angels say, 'In to the upper doors, Nor count compartments of the floors, But mount to paradise By the stairway ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... hemmer is a valuable attachment of a sewing-machine. An extension, as of a railroad or of a franchise, carries out further something already existing. We add an appendix to a book, to contain names, dates, lists, etc., which would encumber the text; we add a supplement to supply omissions, as, for instance, to bring it up to date. An appendix may be called an addendum; but addendum may be used of a brief note, which would not be dignified ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... making crosses of them, to be sewn on the shoulders of the people. An exhortation from the Pope was read to the multitude, granting remission of their sins to all who should join the Crusade, and directing that no man on that holy pilgrimage should encumber himself with heavy baggage and vain superfluities, and that the nobles should not travel with dogs or falcons, to lead them from the direct road, as had happened to so many during the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... suddenly attacked, Tu Kiu must give way; should victory declare for them decisively, it was easy to foretell what would happen. Tu Kiu falling back in disorder would confuse the regiments of Choo Hoo coming to his assistance, a panic would arise, and the incredible host of the barbarians would encumber ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... Monsieur le Marquis, I will state the facts in a few words, without going into particulars. Thanks to an expedient devised by me, we shall obtain for twenty hours a release from all the mortgages that now encumber your estates. On that very day we will request a certificate from the recorder. This certificate will declare that your estates are free from all encumbrances; you will show this statement to M. de Chalusse, and all his doubts—that is, if he has any—will vanish. ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... national dances already alluded to, are chosen by Chopin in preference. Even when he treats the larger forms of the concerto or the sonata this concentrated, not to say pointed, character of Chopin's style becomes obvious. The more extended dimensions seem to encumber the freedom of his movements. The concerto for pianoforte with accompaniment of the orchestra in E may be instanced. Here the adagio takes the form of a romance, and in the final rondo the rhythm of a Polish dance becomes recognizable while the instrumentation throughout ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... hostile people in detail. It is also of the utmost importance that our wagons should not be loaded with any thing but provisions and ammunition. All surplus servants, noncombatants, and refugees, should now go to the rear, and none should be encouraged to encumber us on the march. At some future time we will be able to provide for the poor whites and blacks who seek to escape the bondage under which they are now suffering. With these few simple cautions, he hopes to lead you to achievements equal in importance ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... the armoury, where 'tis right they should be; for men of peace, as these most surely are, encumber not themselves with the ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... they are constantly with us on all the surfaces of the body; masses live on the intestinal surfaces and the excrement is largely composed of bacteria. It has been said that life would be impossible without bacteria, for the accumulation of the carcasses of all animals which have died would so encumber the earth as to prevent its use; but the folly of such speculation is shown by the fact that animals would not have been there without bacteria. It has been shown, however, that the presence of bacteria in the intestine of the higher animals is not essential for life. The ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman
... attention, and we found Jackeroo the centre-piece of the camp, preparing to repeat some performance. For a second or so he stood irresolute; then, clutching wildly at an imaginary something that appeared to encumber his feet, with a swift, darting run and a scrambling clamber, he was into the midst of a sapling; then, our silence attracting attention, the black world ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... southwesterly after leaving its source in the chain of hills dividing Ugogo from Magunda Mkali. During the rainy season it must be nearly impassable, owing to the excessive slope of its bed. Traces of the force of the torrent are seen in the syenite and basalt boulders which encumber the course. Their rugged angles are worn smooth, and deep basins are excavated where the bed is of the rock, which in the dry season serve as reservoirs. Though the water contained in them has a slimy and greenish appearance, ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... the doctrines of Leo Tolstoi, and especially in non-resistance, and the possessing little or no property to encumber their free souls. In the village they had become the guides of the Tahitians in the ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... to conceal the sneering smile that crept over it. His wife, indeed! as if he were going to encumber himself with marriage before he had made a fortune, and even then it was questionable as to whether he would surrender the freedom of bachelorhood for ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... the organization of our judicial system is at once a difficult and delicate task. To extend the circuit courts equally throughout the different parts of the Union, and at the same time to avoid such a multiplication of members as would encumber the supreme appellate tribunal, is the object desired. Perhaps it might be accomplished by dividing the circuit judges into two classes, and providing that the Supreme Court should be held by these classes alternately, the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... seems to have been at once determined on. As a first step, the whole fleet, except some dozen vessels, was burned, since twelve was a sufficient number to serve as pontoons, and it was not worth the army's while to encumber itself with the remainder. They could only have been tracked up the strong stream of the Tigris by devoting to the work some 20,000 men; thus greatly weakening the strength of the armed force, and at the same time hampering ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... not, they are so very bulky. He says we shall find plenty as we go on, and that he will not encumber the wagons with a skin until we leave the Val River, and turn homeward. Now, Bremen and Omrah, come ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... subjects, which had become blasphemous under the treatment of men like the Caracci. Gods without power, satyrs without rusticity, nymphs without innocence, men without humanity, gather into idiot groups upon the polluted canvas, and scenic affectations encumber the streets with preposterous marble. Lower and lower declines the level of abused intellect; the base school of landscape [Footnote: Appendix II, "Renaissance Landscape."] gradually usurps the place of the historical painting, which had sunk into prurient pedantry,—the Alsatian sublimities ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... But he is by no means fond of gratuitously tasking his strength; and food being so abundant that he obtains it without an effort, it is not altogether apparent, even were he able to do so, why he should assail "the largest trees in the forest," and encumber his own haunts with their broken stems; especially as there is scarcely anything which an elephant dislikes more than venturing ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... for them awhile no cares encumber Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken, The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... waste of admirable labor, so pathetic a uselessness of obedient genius? It was yours to have directed, yours to have raised and rejoiced in, the skill, the modesty, the patience of this entirely gentle and industrious race;—copyists with their heart. The common painter-copyists who encumber our European galleries with their easels and pots, are, almost without exception, persons too stupid to be painters, and too lazy to be engravers. The real copyists—the men who can put their soul into another's work—are employed at home, in their narrow ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... it better not to encumber the address to working men with details. Firstly, because they would detract from whatever fiery effect the words may have in them; secondly, because writing and petitioning and pressing a subject upon members and candidates are now so clearly understood; ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... not, then they will be lost," I cried out in desperation. For Mary was shrieking that she would not go, and I knew that Humphrey did not know the way, and could not find it and launch the boat in time with that struggling maid to encumber him, for already the door ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... should have been too late," Count Charles replied. "We lost no time when your messenger came, Guy, but it took some time to rouse the men-at-arms and to saddle our horses. You must have made a stout defence indeed, judging by the pile of dead that encumber your passage." ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... engage men who would have been standing in their arms and arranging themselves for battle at their leisure, whilst they were making a long march with all their beasts of burden and their camp followers to encumber them. As the generals were arguing about this matter, a Numidian courier came from Otho with orders to lose no time, but give battle. Accordingly they consented, and moved. As soon as Caecina had notice, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... calmer spirit than at that past date when they had rushed into each other's arms and vowed to be one for the first time, she ever and anon caught herself reflecting, 'Were it not that for my honour's sake I must re-marry him, I should perhaps be a nobler woman in not allowing him to encumber his bright future by a union ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... reform. The question of villeinage and serfage finds no place in it. In the seventy years which had intervened since the last peasant rising, villeinage had died naturally away before the progress of social change. The Statutes of Apparel, which from this time encumber the Statute-book, show in their anxiety to curtail the dress of the labourer and the farmer the progress of these classes in comfort and wealth; and from the language of the statutes themselves it is plain that as wages rose both farmer and labourer went on clothing themselves ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... themes, where, still expressing disapproval, one may do it with some grace, one of the few limitations to Mr. Hardy's great charm as a writer lies in his tendency to encumber his page with detail. At a supremely romantic moment one of his people sits down to contemplate a tribe of ants, and watches them through two whole printed pages. In another case a man in imminent deadly peril surveys through two pages ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... motto was, "One book at a time." He would not encumber himself with books any more than he would with shoes. But that the mind might not go barefoot, he always bought a new book before destroying the one in hand. Destroying? Yes; for after reading or studying a book, he warms his hands upon ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... T'offend whom thou canst not appease? Death is not (wherefore dream'st thou thus?) The son of Night and Erebus, Nor was of fel1 Erynnis born5 In gulphs, where Chaos rules forlorn, 30 But sent from God, his presence leaves, To gather home his ripen'd sheaves, To call encumber'd souls away From fleshly bonds to boundless day, (As when the winged Hours excite, And summon forth the Morning-light) And each to convoy to her place Before th'Eternal Father's face. But not the ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton
... impossible and unattemptable,—exults along with him; and perhaps whispers to his own poor heart, nearly choked by the immeasurable imbroglio of Blue-books and Parliamentary Eloquences which for the present encumber Heaven and Earth, "MELIORA SPERO." To Mirabeau, the following details, from first-hand, but already of twenty-three years distance, were not known, [Appeared first in Tome v. of "OEuvres Posthumes de Frederic ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... serviceable horse for his own riding, and a pony for his baggage, together with blankets and other necessaries for the journey. His mining outfit he decided to get at Sacramento, as, although the cost would be considerable, he did not wish to encumber himself with it on his journey across the plains. The rifle and revolver had been presented him by Mr. Willcox, and he determined to practise steadily with both on his voyage up the river, as his life might depend on his proficiency with ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... and not on the territory in question, is, that he says "it will be a question likewise, whether colonization of this kind, could be effected without an Indian war, and fighting for every inch of the ground." Why the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations should encumber their report with the opinion of General Gage, on what he calls the settlement of a "foreign country" that could not be effected without "fighting for every inch of ground," and how their Lordships could apply that case, to the settlement of a territory, purchased by his Majesty ...
— Report of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations on the Petition of the Honourable Thomas Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, John Sargent, and Samuel Wharton, Esquires, and their Associates • Great Britain Board of Trade
... Gibbon's Memoirs and Letters are of such easy access that I have not deemed it necessary to encumber these pages with references to them. Any one who wishes to control my statements will have no difficulty in doing so with the Miscellaneous Works, edited by Lord Sheffield, in his hand. Whenever I advance anything that seems to require corroboration, I have ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... have no such aggressive tendencies. With eyes fixed on the noble goal to which "per aspera et ardua" they tend, they may, now and then, be stirred to momentary wrath by the unnecessary obstacles with which the ignorant, or the malicious, encumber, if they cannot bar, the difficult path; but why should their souls be deeply vexed? The majesty of Fact is on their side, and the elemental forces of Nature are working for them. Not a star comes to the meridian at its calculated time but testifies to the justice of their methods—their beliefs ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... folds of gold-embroidered drapery encumber her supple limbs; but her skirts are of the scantiest, (what Miss Flora MacFlimsey would call skimped,) and pitifully mean as to quality. By no means have the imperial looms of Benares contributed to her professional costume a veil of wondrous fineness and a Nabob's price; but a narrow ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... sides of the question. At length a majority seemed satisfied that the traffic on the coast of Hudson's-bay could not be preserved without forts and settlements, which must be maintained either by an exclusive company, or at the public expense; and, as this was not judged a proper juncture to encumber the nation with any charge of that kind the design of dissolving the company was laid aside till a more ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... there was an opportunity for an attack, they send their light-armed cohorts to commit depredations on the Roman territory. For [they concluded] either that the Romans would suffer that injury to pass off unavenged, that they might not encumber themselves with an additional war, or that they would resent it with a scanty army, and one by no means strong. The Romans [felt] greater indignation, than alarm, at the inroads of the Tarquinians. On this account the matter was neither taken up with great preparation, nor ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... it had been in rhyme; for although an interpreter of poetry undeniably has the difficulties of form to struggle with, yet there is, on the other hand, an inspiration and waft of feeling in the metre which lends him wings and helps him on. If Mr. Stern does not encumber his style with a betrayal of the difficulties he has got over—if he does not give us pedantry and double-epithets, so common in vulgar renderings from the German—he certainly shows no timidity in turning the polished familiarity of Heine's prose into our commonest vernacular. "What ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... use in the autumn. In digging, great care should be taken to remove the small as well as the full-grown; for those not taken from the ground will remain fresh and sound during the winter, and send up in the spring new plants, which, in turn, will increase so rapidly, as to encumber the ground, and become troublesome. In localities where the crop has once been cultivated, though no plants be allowed to grow for the production of fresh tubers, yet the young shoots will continue to make their appearance from time ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... the power is born of the time and the need, and not a burden to encumber us on our way. It is not of material nature; cannot be packed and stored away for some occasion that may arise, but is proportioned and adapted to the kind and ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... luggage. Let no traveller encumber himself or herself with a trunk on the Continent. A valise or a carpet bag that can be carried in the hand, will hold enough. Four or five changes of linen, and one dress, besides the travelling costume, are all sufficient. Washing can be done in a few hours anywhere. A lady ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... are the hussars. How much more they carry to battle than at reviews. The hay in those great nets must encumber them. [She turns and sees that her daughter has become pale.] Ah, now I know! HE has just gone by. You exchanged signals with him, you wicked girl! How do you know what his character is, or if ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... The rain-drops encumber The hawthorn's crest: My thoughts have no number: You would not slumber If laid at my breast, Little sister, I'll ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum
... mean that you should not stifle love with civilization, nor encumber civilization with love. What have they to do with each other? You think you want a fellow student of economics. You are wrong. You think you want a dancing partner. You are mistaken. You want a revelation of ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... smile, as though he had heard other words than those—perchance an unconscious wish, the hope that the old aunt might die before he himself did, that he would inherit the promised half-million of francs, and then not long encumber his family. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the matter considerably darker than it looked before,—that the only chance of acquiring the requisite knowledge was through the clear, crystal medium of a pure and virgin intelligence, like that of the fair Alice. Not to encumber our story with Mr. Pyncheon's scruples, whether of conscience, pride, or fatherly affection, he at length ordered his daughter to be called. He well knew that she was in her chamber, and engaged in no occupation that could not readily be laid aside; for, as ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Lane.—7. The railing in of Lower China Street and the lower part of Hog Lane, and the garden walls to be kept free from Chinese buildings, excepting the military and police stations already erected.—8. Removal of the stationary boats which at present encumber the avenue to the factory gardens at ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... resist the toil of men, and conspire against their fame; which are cunning to consume, and {112} prolific to encumber; and of whose perverse and unwelcome sowing we know, and can say assuredly, "An enemy ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... the one possible means—if it withdraws all solicitude about the handicap this entails to women as a whole, introducing a spirit of laissez-faire competition between men and women, the women with sense enough to see the point will not encumber themselves with children. For each one of these who has no children, some other woman must have six instead of three. And some people encourage this in the name ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... Delia had the sense to put a finger to her lip. The man wheel'd round without another word, led us aft over the blocks, cordage, and all manner of loose gear that encumber'd the deck, to a ladder that, toward the stern, led down into darkness. Here he sign'd to us to follow; and, descending first, threw open a door, letting out a faint stream of light in our faces. 'Twas the captain's cabin, lin'd ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... woman may convey or encumber any real estate or interest therein belonging to her, and may control the same, or contract with reference thereto, to the same extent, and in the same manner as ...
— Legal Status Of Women In Iowa • Jennie Lansley Wilson
... which stands guard for the great ice-caps beyond. Winter snows, summer fogs and rains have washed the hillsides clean; they are leached out and they present a lifeless, forbidding front to travelers. In many places the granite fragments which still encumber them lie piled one above another in such titanic chaos as to discourage man's puny efforts to climb over them. Nevertheless, men have done so, and by the thousands, by the tens of thousands. On this particular morning an unending procession of human beings was straining up and over and through ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... assume from my absence that the rebel right extended far, because if it did not I should return to him; in one hour, therefore, he must start to meet our advancing troops; in that case he was not to encumber himself with my horse; I might be able to get back to the spot later in the day. I added that I seriously doubted my ability to get back before the advance of the Union troops should reach the ground, and impressed upon Jones the necessity of communicating with General Morell ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... through Colonial life abreast of graver competitors. So the settler who built a loaf of station-bread into the earthen wall of his house, alleging that it was the hardest and most durable material he could procure, did not, we may believe, find a sense of humour encumber him in the troubles of a settler's life. For there were troubles. The pastoral provinces were no Dresden-china Arcadia. Nature is very stubborn in the wilderness, even in the happier climes, where she offers, for ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... as the Major was anxious not to encumber himself with all his heavy waggons to the junction of the Darling, as he would have to return again, a depot was formed, and the men divided. Mitchell, with a lightly equipped party following down the river, leaving Stapylton in charge of ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... less touched by him than any other; that would be a schoolgirl's reason, which I consider quite beneath me. I actually love no one, sir; you know it, do you not? I do not then see why, without real necessity, I should encumber my life with a perpetual companion. Has not some sage said, 'Nothing too much'? and another, 'I carry all my effects with me'? I have been taught these two aphorisms in Latin and in Greek; one is, I believe, from Phaedrus, and the other from Bias. Well, my dear father, in the shipwreck of life—for ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... which, among many valuable works, conspicuously selected with an eye to our special objects, I recall with amusement certain ancient encyclopaedias, contributed apparently by well-wishers from stock which had begun to encumber their shelves. Howbeit, like Quaker guns, these made a brave show if not too closely scrutinized, and spared us the semblance of poverty in vacant spaces. Every military man understands the value of an imposing front towards the enemy. When I arrived, I was the sole occupant of the building; and ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... which to grow trees for the mere purposes of timber? Are there not soils and situations even in England, where none but timber-trees can grow? And is not the timber of many fruit-trees as useful as the timber of many of the lumber-trees which now encumber our soil? It is true, that, when wood constituted the fuel of the country, the growth of lumber-tree was essential to the comforts of the inhabitants; but that is no longer our condition. I conceive, therefore, that a wise and provident government, ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... this island, Captain Furneaux agreed to receive on board his ship a young man named Omai, a native of Ulietea; where he had had some property, of which he had been dispossessed by the people of Bolabola. I at first rather wondered that Captain Furneaux would encumber himself with this man, who, in my opinion, was not a proper sample of the inhabitants of these happy islands, not having any advantage of birth, or acquired rank; nor being eminent in shape, figure, or complexion: For their people of the first rank are much fairer, ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... it is not a friend that I am seeking, not one of those uncertain, light-hearted, capricious relations which encumber life without adding to it. I am dreaming like a child, of a woman who should realise the greatest possible amount of beauty in her mind and person and who should add her strength to mine in the service of the same ideals. Rose, are you that woman? Will you help ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... Christian doctrine of redemption, is monstrous. There is no proof that Abel know anything about it. The probabilities lean all the other way. It is a pity those self-satisfied theorizers have not something else to do, than to encumber religion and perplex good people by ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... lower. In 1848 Austria consumed 40,000 tons, of which 8,000 were beet-root. Last year (1851,) she produced 15,000 tons. The production of the continent rising to 200,000 tons, and the consumption remaining nearly stationary, it is evident that Brazilian and Cuban sugars will encumber the English market, independently of the refined sugar of Java, which Holland sends to Great Britain. When the continental system was established by the decrees of Milan and Berlin, the Emperor Napoleon asked the savans to point out the means of replacing the productions which he proscribed: ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... can not convey or encumber her separate real estate without the joinder of her husband. The husband can sell or mortgage all his real estate without her joinder, but subject to her dower. They are both free agents ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... which I have seen you and your children lead a life of deeds as new to me the Jew, as they would be to Hypatia the Gentile. I have watched you for many a day, and not in vain. When I saw you, an experienced officer, encumber your flight with wounded men, I was only surprised. But since I have seen you and your daughter, and, strangest of all, your gay young Alcibiades of a son, starving yourselves to feed those poor ruffians—performing for them, day and night, the offices of menial ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... is practically flat with the ground, for incendiaries have destroyed hundreds and hundreds of houses, and the Chinese commanders are favouring low-lying barricades, which are hard to pick out from the enormous mass of partially burned ruins which encumber the ground. Just as in South Africa we were reading only the other day, before this plight overtook us, that the hardest thing to see is a live Boer on the battlefield, so here it is the merest chance to make out the soldiery that is attacking us. ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... 1868, on the emperor's fete-day, filled with the glittering Imperial troops. I saw it again, a wide, empty waste, bounded by four symmetrical barricades, dotted with slouching figures whose clothes and arms seemed to encumber them.... I thanked my friend for his politeness, and returned to my carriage. The young woman smiled at me, as much as to say: 'Is he not a fine fellow?' I thought he was; and there may be other fine fellows as much out of place in the ruffianly mass ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... availed ourselves of the confusion which always reigns among a ship's company preparatory to going ashore, to confer together and complete our arrangements. As our object was to effect as rapid a flight as possible to the mountains, we determined not to encumber ourselves with any superfluous apparel; and accordingly, while the rest were rigging themselves out with some idea of making a display, we were content to put on new stout duck trousers, serviceable pumps, and heavy Havre-frocks, which with a ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... have tasted it, and sometimes not to have liked it: a Russian ambassador, in 1639, who resided at the court of the Mogul, declined accepting a large present of tea for the Czar, "as it would only encumber him with a commodity for which he had no use." The appearance of "a black water" and an acrid taste seems not to have recommended it to the German Olearius in 1633. Dr. Short has recorded an anecdote ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... those ancient Religions which once ruled the minds of men, and whose ruins encumber the plains of the great Past, as the broken columns of Palmyra and Tadmor lie bleaching on the sands of the desert. They rise before us, those old, strange, mysterious creeds and faiths, shrouded in the mists of antiquity, and ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... so very long on hand, That I despair of all demand; I've advertised, but see my books, Or only watch my Shopman's looks;— 30 Still Ivan, Ina,[78] and such lumber, My back-shop glut, my shelves encumber. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... my father, as proprietor of Covent Garden Theater, in consequence of this lawsuit and the debts which encumber the concern, is liable at any time to be called upon for twenty-seven thousand pounds; which, for a man who can not raise five thousand, is not a pleasant predicament. On the other hand, Mr. Harris, our adversary, and joint proprietor ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... in our power to take care of one thing, and apply ourselves to it, we choose rather to encumber ourselves with many—body, property, brother, friend, child, slave—and thus we are burdened and weighed down. When the weather happens not to be fair for sailing, we sit screwing ourselves and perpetually looking out for the way ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... joyful in their choice; When, poised upon the gale, my form shall ride, Or, dark in mist, descend the mountain's side; Oh! may my shade behold no sculptured urns To mark the spot where earth to earth returns! No lengthen'd scroll, no praise-encumber'd stone; My epitaph shall be my name alone: If that with honor fail to crown my clay, Oh! may no other fame my deeds repay! That, only that, shall single out the spot; By that remember'd, or with ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... necessary; much as so many people assume the relation of Church and State in England to be the typical and normal condition of the Church, which should be everywhere reproduced. Evidently the heathen man is not treated fairly if we encumber our ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that the dress should be so well made that it can in no way encumber you, even in drawing ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... had attached very little importance to the intelligence. An old soldier himself, he entertained the most unmitigated contempt for the Realista volunteers, whom he looked upon as a set of tailors, whose muskets would rather encumber them than injure any body else; and who, on the first appearance of regular troops, would infallibly throw down their arms, and betake themselves to their homes. As to the parties of insurgent guerillas which he was informed were beginning to show themselves at various ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... will, this symbolic Word—this knowledge of divine Truth—is never thoroughly attained in this life, or in its symbol, the Master Mason's lodge. The corruptions of mortality, which encumber and cloud the human intellect, hide it, as with a thick veil, from mortal eyes. It is only, as I have just said, beyond the tomb, and when released from the earthly burden of life, that man is capable of fully receiving and appreciating the revelation. Hence, then, when we ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... There is little room for inquiry if one have the real feeling of life itself. Poetry is that which gleans most by keeping nearest to life. Books and firesides avail but little. Secretaries for the baggage of erudition do not enhance poetic values, they encumber them. Poetry is not declamation, it is not propaganda, it is breathing natural breaths. There is nothing mechanical about poetry excepting the affectation of forms. Poetry is the world's, it is everybody's. You count poetry by its essence, and no amount of studied effect, or bulging erudition will ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... adapted for modern warfare; but during the long interval of security, the extensive suburbs, with the villas and gardens of the nobles and opulent citizens, had been suffered to encroach on the glacis and encumber the approaches; and the ruins of these luxurious abodes, imperfectly destroyed in the panic arising from the unexpected celerity of the enemy's movements, were calculated at once to impede the fire from the walls, and to afford shelter and lodgement to the besiegers. Such preparations ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... to be not at all the formidable and haughty person she would have had people believe her; not too far gone in middle age, preserving, despite her spinsterhood, much of her bloom and many of those little roundnesses of contour which adorn but do not encumber. ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... forewarning us, as he had been ordered, and said a thousand things in his justification. But without believing the half of his fine protestations, we felt very happy in having overtaken him; for it is most certain they had no intention of encumbering themselves with our unfortunate family. I say encumber, for it is evident that four children, one of whom was yet at the breast, were very indifferent beings to people who were actuated by a selfishness without all parallel. When we were seated in the long boat, my father dismissed the ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... cells in the organs and tissues of the body. The more rapid and vigorous this vibratory activity, the more powerful is the repulsion and expulsion of morbid matter, poisons and germs of disease which try to encumber or ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... habitation at that time in the quarter, whence I started at early dawn, expecting to reach Fort Coulonge before night. The lumbermen having commenced sledging their winter supplies, the road formed by these vehicles presented a hard, smooth surface, on which I made good speed, as I had nothing to encumber me, ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... whole story is told; yet it is always easy to put aside the parasitical growth and get at the solid and useful idea. The book was not written for critics who desire to have everything summed up in a single sentence, and who are apt to praise the volumes which encumber the book-seller's shelves rather than those which run through seven editions in as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... of men that the incentives to progress chiefly spring. They behold the errors which encumber old systems—they are, indeed, too apt to conceive them as wholly composed of errors. To them, the common and current beliefs appear to be simply superstitious. It irks them that humanity should wallow in its ignorance and blindness. They chafe and fret against ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... wind; New powers are claim'd, new powers are still bestow'd, Till rude resistance lops the spreading god; The daring Greeks deride the martial show, And heap their valleys with the gaudy foe; The insulted sea with humbler thoughts he gains, A single skiff to speed his flight remains; The encumber'd oar scarce leaves the dreaded coast Through purple billows and a floating host. 240 The bold Bavarian,[3] in a luckless hour, Tries the dread summits of Caesarean power, With unexpected legions bursts away, And sees defenceless realms receive his sway: ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... except its owner had then taken the trouble to make the least inquiry into its history. To Willie it was just the Priory, as naturally in his father's garden as if every garden had similar ruins to adorn or encumber it, according as the owner might choose ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... sultan arose with the dawn, and prepared to execute his design, hiding his upper garment, which might encumber him; he then proceeded to the Palace of Tears. He found it lighted up with an infinite number of flambeaux of white wax, and perfumed by a delicious scent issuing from several censers of fine gold of admirable ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... was written for the stage, it is this one. And on the stage there is nothing to take the place of the notes and introductory explanations that so frequently encumber the printed volume. On the stage all explanations must lie within the play itself, and so they should in the book also, I believe. The translator is either an artist or a man unfit for his work. As an artist he must have a courage that cannot even be cowed by his reverence ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... So I encumber the earth, do I, according to you? (to Artamo and slaves) March him off inside! yes, and tie him to a pillar—tight! (to Chrysalus) You shall never take ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... the faults he avoided so perpetually upon our notice. He had no verbiage. We do not merely mean by this that he never used a superfluous word (which, in fact, he rarely did), but that he kept quite clear of the hazy, half-relevant ideas which encumber meaning and are the chief source of prolixity. He threw away every idea that did not decidedly help on his argument, and expressed the others in the fewest words that would make them clear. He began at once where the pith of his ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... to the majestic repose and ideality of the Gluck music-drama (to use a name now naturalized in art by Wagner) the keenest dramatic vigor. Though he had a strong command of effects by his power of delineation and delicacy of detail, his prevalent tastes led him to encumber his music too often with overpowering military effects, alike tonal and scenic. Riehl, a great German critic, says: "He is more successful in the delineation of masses and groups than in the portrayal of emotional scenes; his rendering of ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... of the first degree is to symbolize the struggles of a candidate groping in darkness for intellectual light, that of the second degree represents the same candidate laboring amid all the difficulties that encumber the young beginner in the attainment of learning and science. The Entered Apprentice is to emerge from darkness to light; the Fellow Craft is to come out of ignorance into knowledge. This degree, therefore, by fitting emblems, is intended to typify these struggles of the ardent mind for ...
— Masonic Monitor of the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason • George Thornburgh
... more will meddle With the painful piano-pedal, They'll only touch the pedal of their "Humber"; Like their grannies, they begin At an early age to "spin," But the road it is their spinning-wheels encumber. ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton
... extraordinary enthusiasm, are described by him in a shrewd, gay, and natural style, and even with some degree of fidelity. But he inaugurates the pleiad of amateur, curious, and commercial travellers. He is the first of that prolific race of tourists who each year encumber geographical literature with numerous volumes, from which the savant finds nothing to ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... for automatic musical tendencies to ferment in his mind, proving it to be fertile in devices, comparisons, and bold assimilations. Yet inspiration alone will lead him astray, for his art is relative to something other than its own formal impulse; it comes to clarify the real world, not to encumber it; and it needs to render its native agility practical and to attach its volume of feeling to what is momentous in human life. Literature has its piety, its conscience; it cannot long forget, without forfeiting all dignity, that it serves a burdened and perplexed creature, a human ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... here to be great boys, didn't we? I am sure you look a dozen years younger than when I last saw you, Mrs. Grandmother. By-the-by, it was a bold stroke to encumber yourself with that brat; ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the appearance of a newly-discovered colony than 72the suburbs of an ancient city.{5} And what, sir, will be the pleasant consequences of all this to posterity? Instead of having houses built to encumber the earth for a century or two, it is ten to one but they disencumber the mortgagee, by falling down with a terrible crash during the first half life, and, perhaps, burying a host of persons in their ruins. Mere paste-board palaces are the structures of the present ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... bequest. The legatees were to erect a statue to Colleoni on the Piazza of S. Mark. This, however, involved some difficulty; for the proud Republic had never accorded a similar honour, nor did they choose to encumber their splendid square with a monument. They evaded the condition by assigning the Campo in front of the Scuola di S. Marco, where also stands the Church of S. Zanipolo, to the purpose. Here accordingly the finest bronze equestrian statue in Italy, if we except the Marcus ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... work which is surprising having regard to their size. The moment having arrived to think about winter, the Voles spread themselves about the steppe. Each hollows little pits around the roots he wishes to extract. After having bared them he cleans them while still in position, so as not to encumber his storehouses with useless earth. This preparatory labour having been completed, he divides the root into slices of a weight proportioned to his strength, and carries away the fragments one by one. Seizing each ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... the subject. I cannot stop to take up the old proofs from causation, from statistics, from the certainty with which we can foretell one another's conduct, from the fixity of character, and all the rest. But there are two words which usually encumber these classical arguments, {149} and which we must immediately dispose of if we are to make any progress. One is the eulogistic word freedom, and the other is the opprobrious word chance. The word ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... about the cactuses runs just the other way; they are all stem and no leaves; what look like leaves being really joints of the trunk or branches, and the foliage being all dwarfed and stunted into the prickly hairs that dot and encumber the surface. All plants of very arid soils—for example, our common English stonecrops—tend to be thick, jointed, and succulent; the distinction between stem and leaves tends to disappear; and the whole weed, accustomed at times to long drought, acquires the habit of drinking in water ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... courage that he had never known before, he picked up Peter Westcott in his hands, held him, that miserable figure, high in air, raised him, then flung him with all his strength out, away, far into space, never to return, never to encumber ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... think, will allow me on an average to go to every other meeting. But it is grievous how often any change knocks me up. I will further pledge myself, as I told Lyell, to resign after a year, if I did not attend pretty often, so that I should AT WORST encumber the Club temporarily. If you can get me elected, I certainly shall be very much pleased. Very many thanks for answers about Glaciers. I am very glad to hear of the second Edition (Of the Himalayan Journal.) ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... charity, and mercy, and restitution, you talk to the deaf; his heart and soul, with all his senses, are got among his bags, or he is gravely asleep, and dreaming of a mortgage. Tell a man of business, that the cares of the world choke the good seed; that we must not encumber ourselves with much serving; that the salvation of his soul is the one thing necessary. You see, indeed, the shape of a man before you, but his faculties are all gone off among clients and papers, thinking how to defend a bad cause, or find flaws in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 477, Saturday, February 19, 1831 • Various
... Roseline: it is not a friend that I am seeking, not one of those uncertain, light-hearted, capricious relations which encumber life without adding to it. I am dreaming like a child, of a woman who should realise the greatest possible amount of beauty in her mind and person and who should add her strength to mine in the service of the same ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... interruption. Meanwhile, heaven only could tell, what his interference in poor Curzon's business might not involve. These serious reflections took about ten seconds to pass through my mind, as the grave-looking old servant proceeded to encumber himself with my cloak and my pistol-case, remarking as he lifted the latter, "And may the Lord grant ye won't want the instruments this time, doctor, for they say he is better this morning;" heartily wishing amen to the benevolent prayer of the honest domestic, for more ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... his chin. "Nicholas," said he, "you heard me. I have no wish to encumber you with useless instructions. Your errand is before you. Very much depends upon it, as you have heard. All I can say is, keep your head, keep your feet, and keep ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... commenced. The impetuosity of the onset was irresistible. In a few moments the walls were scaled, the streets flooded with the foe, the pavements covered with the dead, and the city on fire in an hundred places. The conquerors did not wish to encumber themselves with captives. All were slain. Laden with booty and crimsoned with the blood of their foes, the victors dispersed in every direction, burning and destroying, but encountering no resistance. During the month they took fourteen cities, slaying all the ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... but it is the case just at present; I have great need of a few thousand pounds upon my personal security. My estate is already a little mortgaged, and I don't wish to encumber it more; besides, the loan would be merely temporary. You know that if at the age of eighteen Miss Cameron refuses me (a supposition out of the question, but in business we must calculate on improbabilities), ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book III • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... catalogues, categories, things not clearly visualised or even remotely perceived, but swept relentlessly in, like the debris of some store-room, all these are ugly mannerisms which simply blur and encumber the pages. The question is not whether they offend a critical and cultured mind, but whether they produce an inspiring effect upon any kind ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of his kind. It is not, either, that my heart is less touched by him than any other; that would be a schoolgirl's reason, which I consider quite beneath me. I actually love no one, sir; you know it, do you not? I do not then see why, without real necessity, I should encumber my life with a perpetual companion. Has not some sage said, 'Nothing too much'? and another, 'I carry all my effects with me'? I have been taught these two aphorisms in Latin and in Greek; one is, I believe, from Phaedrus, and the other from Bias. Well, my dear father, in the shipwreck of ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... is a free port, and, in my opinion, ought never to be otherwise than free. Let its harbour be a refuge for the shipping of all nations, and its stores will then be filled with their goods. I would not encumber the commerce of this Island with one single dollar of charges: no port-charges ought for a moment to be thought of; and, as for import and export duties, the most moderate charges of this kind would ruin the place. What brought Singapore forward so rapidly, was, the entire ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... had purchased a strong, serviceable horse for his own riding, and a pony for his baggage, together with blankets and other necessaries for the journey. His mining outfit he decided to get at Sacramento, as, although the cost would be considerable, he did not wish to encumber himself with it on his journey across the plains. The rifle and revolver had been presented him by Mr. Willcox, and he determined to practise steadily with both on his voyage up the river, as his life might depend on his proficiency ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... first-rate in their range, though their range is different; and with poetry second-rate in quality no one ought to be allowed to trouble mankind. There is quite enough of the best,—much more than we can ever read or enjoy in the length of a life; and it is a literal wrong or sin in any person to encumber us with inferior work. I have no patience with apologies made by young pseudo-poets, 'that they believe there is some good in what they have written: that they hope to do better in time,' &c. Some good! If there is not all good, there is no good. If they ever hope to do better, why do they ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... timber? Are there not soils and situations even in England, where none but timber-trees can grow? And is not the timber of many fruit-trees as useful as the timber of many of the lumber-trees which now encumber our soil? It is true, that, when wood constituted the fuel of the country, the growth of lumber-tree was essential to the comforts of the inhabitants; but that is no longer our condition. I conceive, therefore, ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... let such useless lumber Useful bookshelves so encumber? I will tell thee; for thy question Of wonders brings me to the best one. There's a future wonder, may be— Sure a present magic baby; (Patience, friend, I know your looks— What has that to do with books?) With her sounds of molten speech Quick a parent's ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... part of the church plate of Portugal has long since disappeared, for few chapters had the foresight to hide all that was most valuable when Soult began his devastating march from the north, and so he and his men were able to encumber their retreat with cart-loads of the most beautiful ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... are necessary to explain phenomena to him: and if by pure head-work combined with results of physical observation he can construct his universe, he must be a very unphilosophical man who would encumber himself with a useless Creator! There is something tangible about my method, says he; yours is vague. He requires it to be granted that his system is positive and that yours is impositive. So reasoned the stage coachman when the railroads began to depose him—"If you're upset in a stage-coach, ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... approach those ancient Religions which once ruled the minds of men, and whose ruins encumber the plains of the great Past, as the broken columns of Palmyra and Tadmor lie bleaching on the sands of the desert. They rise before us, those old, strange, mysterious creeds and faiths, shrouded in the mists of antiquity, and stalk dimly and undefined along the line which divides Time ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... the others, Dame Garsende has recourse to a stratagem to overcome him, which fails in regard to him, but overwhelms her son in confusion, and causes his defeat: she cuts the cord of a canopy under which the knight has to pass, in the hope that it will fall in his way, and encumber his advance; but he adroitly catches it on the end of his spear, and Odon, in falling from his horse after the knight's attack, gets entangled in the garlands and drapery, and makes a very ridiculous figure. Of course the stranger-knight is made happy in the chaplet placed on ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... neither eat nor drink with you," replied M'Brair. "I am come upon my Master's errand! woe be upon me if I should anyways mince the same. Hall Haddo, I summon you to quit this kirk which you encumber." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... no killing. We will go down and see him together. We will let him know that the orders are probably already on the road for his arrest, and that he had best lose not an hour, but at once cross the water. I should not think that he would wish to encumber himself with women, for I never thought he showed the least affection to either his wife or daughter. At any rate, we will see that he does not take them with him. I will tell him that, if he goes, and goes alone, I will do my best to hush ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... calls up living things in the soul. To read a mystic book truly is to invoke the powers. If they do not rise up plumed and radiant, the apparitions of spiritual things, then is our labor barren. We only encumber the mind with useless symbols. They knew better ways long ago. "Master of the Green-waving Planisphere,... Lord of the Azure Expanse,... it is thus we invoke," ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... the sufferers with caresses. I will not stand by and see my fellow-man drowning, without stretching out a hand to help him, till he has, by his own efforts and presence of mind, reached the shore in safety, and then encumber him with aid. With suffering Greece, now is the crisis of her fate—her great, it may be her last struggle. Sir, while we sit here deliberating, her destiny may be decided. The Greeks, contending with ruthless oppressors, turn their eyes to us, and invoke us, by their ancestors, by ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... on at once," interrupted George; "the third dog has turned tail, like a craven, luckily for us. Now slip the bight of the lanyard over your neck, and follow me. Leave the cane-knives; they will only encumber us, and perhaps throw us down the face of the precipice. Now, look out, I'm going ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... return to our former place of concealment, and watch their motions. There is no saying when the party with Miss Percival may return; they may have arrived while we have been away, or they may come to-morrow. It will be better, therefore, not to encumber ourselves with more prisoners unless ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... upon some roses. Sir Rudolph entered; rich and bright Was all that met his ravished sight; Soft tapestries from far countries brought, Rare cabinets with gems inwrought, White vases of the finest mould, And mirrors set in burnished gold. Upon a couch a grayhound slumbered; And a small table was encumber'd With paintings, and an ivory lute, And sweetmeats, and delicious fruit. Sir Rudolph lost not time in praising; For he, I should have said was gazing, In attitude extremely tragic, Upon a sight of stranger magic; A sight, which, seen at such ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... Leo's." I recognised it indeed as the one Leo had with him. Fatigue alone could have made him throw it aside; and perhaps, hoping soon to reach the Europeans of whom he had heard, he would no longer encumber himself with it. Securing it to the ox's back, we went on still more eagerly, looking carefully about on every side. I expected every moment to overtake Leo. We went on for another mile or more, when to my dismay we found his rifle on the ground. That he ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... objected, saying they ought to wait, and not immediately after a journey engage men who would have been standing in their arms and arranging themselves for battle at their leisure, whilst they were making a long march with all their beasts of burden and their camp followers to encumber them. As the generals were arguing about this matter, a Numidian courier came from Otho with orders to lose no time, but give battle. Accordingly they consented, and moved. As soon as Caecina had notice, he was much surprised, and quitted his post on the ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... expression both in her face and in her shoulders (which in her sex and at her age are very expressive of discontent), sat playing draughts with a younger girl, who was the youngest of the House of Wilfer. Not to encumber this page by telling off the Wilfers in detail and casting them up in the gross, it is enough for the present that the rest were what is called 'out in the world,' in various ways, and that they were Many. So many, that when one of ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... bribes as all might see, Still, as of old, encumber'd villainy! 50 Could France or Rome divert our brave designs, With all their brandies, or with all their wines? What could they more than knights and squires confound, Or water all the quorum ten miles round? A statesman's slumbers ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... will be suitable for use in the autumn. In digging, great care should be taken to remove the small as well as the full-grown; for those not taken from the ground will remain fresh and sound during the winter, and send up in the spring new plants, which, in turn, will increase so rapidly, as to encumber the ground, and become troublesome. In localities where the crop has once been cultivated, though no plants be allowed to grow for the production of fresh tubers, yet the young shoots will continue to make their appearance from time to time for ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... attended to by these three descriptions of men? Will not the landholder know and feel whatever will promote or insure the interest of landed property? And will he not, from his own interest in that species of property, be sufficiently prone to resist every attempt to prejudice or encumber it? Will not the merchant understand and be disposed to cultivate, as far as may be proper, the interests of the mechanic and manufacturing arts, to which his commerce is so nearly allied? Will not the man of the ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... a vindication of what seem to me several Latter-day failures. I suppose it is as hard for him to relinquish his Vocation as other men find it to be in other callings to which they have been devoted; but I think he had better not encumber the produce of his best days by publishing ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... brave resistance of the Belgae. The leaders accordingly resolved, now that their numbers were thus swelled, to enter in all earnest on the expedition to Italy which they had several times contemplated. In order not to encumber themselves with the spoil which they had heretofore collected, they left it behind under the protection of a division of 6000 men, which after many wanderings subsequently gave rise to the tribe of the Aduatuci on the Sambre. But, whether from ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the prisoners to be transported on board the Karteria; and as he could ill spare any of his provisions, and could not encumber his vessel with enemies who required to be guarded, he resolved to release them immediately. He therefore informed the Turkish commandant that he would send him to Missolonghi in a monoxylon, or canoe used in the lagoons, in order to procure two large flat-bottomed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... without a dial in his mind. His notebooks impair his memory; his libraries overload his wit; the insurance office increases the number of accidents; and it may be a question whether machinery does not encumber; whether we have not lost by refinement some energy, by a Christianity intrenched in establishments and forms, some vigor of wild virtue. For every Stoic was a Stoic; but in ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... glacier—a pallid, weeping sentinel which stands guard for the great ice-caps beyond. Winter snows, summer fogs and rains have washed the hillsides clean; they are leached out and they present a lifeless, forbidding front to travelers. In many places the granite fragments which still encumber them lie piled one above another in such titanic chaos as to discourage man's puny efforts to climb over them. Nevertheless, men have done so, and by the thousands, by the tens of thousands. On this particular morning an unending procession ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... collect them. If he was himself the debtor, the marriage cancels the debt. If she has earned money during marriage, he may collect it. In regard to realty (real estate) he controls the income, and without her consent he can not encumber, or dispose of the property beyond his own life." Women, married or single, have no political rights whatever. While single, their legal rights are the same as those of men; when married, their legal rights are chiefly suspended. "The condition ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... difficult for the vulgar. A commoner is compelled to have some restraint in all his doings. He is tied down to rigid probity; but a gentleman enjoys the honour of fighting for his king and his pleasure, and does not need to encumber himself with foolish trifles. I have seen active service under M. de Villars, and in the War of Succession, and have also run the risk of being killed without any reason in the battle of Parma. The ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... a man die that a dog may live? Must a mother's gray hairs be brought in sorrow to the grave; must the heart of a wife be crushed within a bloody hand and children never know a father's loving care, that such a thing as thou may'st yet encumber this fair earth? Precious indeed must be that life, ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... I could make, I stripped off my clothes and flung them upon the rocks. My shoes and stockings followed—even my shirt was thrown aside, lest it might encumber me, and just as if I was going in to have a bathe and a swim, I launched myself upon the water. I had no wading to do. The water was beyond my depth from the very edge of the reef, and I had to swim from the first plunge. Of course, I struck out directly ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... heaven, as covetousness, pride, lust, or whatever else thy heart may be inclining unto, which may hinder thee in this heavenly race. Men that run for a wager, if they intend to win as well as run, they do not use to encumber themselves, or carry those things about them that may be a hindrance to them in their running. "Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things"; that is, he layeth aside everything ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... an interpreter of poetry undeniably has the difficulties of form to struggle with, yet there is, on the other hand, an inspiration and waft of feeling in the metre which lends him wings and helps him on. If Mr. Stern does not encumber his style with a betrayal of the difficulties he has got over—if he does not give us pedantry and double-epithets, so common in vulgar renderings from the German—he certainly shows no timidity in turning the polished familiarity ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... after a successful negotiation returned to consult the governor at Quebec; but unhappily for him he left behind a small box, filled with some necessaries of his simple life, with which he did not wish to encumber himself on this flying visit. The medicine-men or sorcerers, who always hated the missionaries as the enemies of their vile superstitious practices, made the Indians believe that this box contained ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... morning, soon after sunrise, Tom and I were climbing over the rocks that barred the mouth of the cave. We had plenty of provision and plenty of candle. Each man, too, carried his own tinder-box and a small coil of knotted cotton rope, which served as a girdle, and so was not allowed to encumber our movements. ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... answered. "I left Bert's letter with my maid, to give to Fanny. I left the girl too, to stay with her if she will take her. I didn't wish to encumber—Your chaise is broken down: get into this one. Oh, Phil!—I couldn't bear to have you go away—and leave me—after I had seen you again. 'Twas something to know you were in London, at least—near ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Many locks encumber the descending levels of the Stratford-on-Avon Canal, and they kept Sam busy. In the intervals the boat glided deeper and deeper into a green pastoral country, parcelled out with hedgerows and lines of elms, behind which here and there lay a village half hidden—a ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... speaches were vsed much in the old times by their false Prophets as appeareth by the Oracles of Delphos and and of the Sybille prophecies deuised by the religious persons of those dayes to abuse the superstitious people, and to encumber their busie braynes with vaine hope or ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... except one, which will be found so remarkable as certainly to deserve a very particular relation. Where the place or the persons do not contribute to the zest of the conversation, it is unnecessary to encumber my page with mentioning them. To know of what vintage our wine is, enables us to judge of its value, and to drink it with more relish: but to have the produce of each vine of one vineyard, in the same year, kept separate, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... of air was stirring, they decided not to encumber the small boat with mast or sail, but to row leisurely across with just as much energy as suited their holiday humour. The channel was on the whole free from currents, and, as Roger knew the landing-places as well as the oldest sailor in the place, any precaution in ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... that night, and, the next day, being singularly fine for an English summer, he resolved to go to Moleswich on foot. He had no need this time to encumber himself with a knapsack; he had left sufficient change of dress in his ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... our bargain with him at once, and at once proceeded to make preparations. Chiefly we prepared by stripping ourselves bare of everything except "must-haves." A birch, besides three men, will carry only the simplest baggage of a trio. Passengers who are constantly to make portages will not encumber themselves with what-nots. Man must have clothes for day and night, and must have provisions to keep his clothes properly filled out. These two articles we took in compact form, regretting even the necessity of guarding against ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... suppliant's response. That is a very characteristic right-about-face of the crowd, who one moment were saying, 'Hold your tongue and do not disturb Him,' and the next moment were all eager to encumber him with help, and to say, 'Rise up, be of good cheer; He calleth thee.' No thanks to them that He did. And what did the man do? Sprang to his feet—as the word rightly rendered would be—and flung away the frowsy rags that he had wrapped round him ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... the approving stage; Fled is the bloom of youth — the manly air — The vigorous mind that spurn'd at toil and care; Gone is the voice, whose clear and silver tone The enraptur'd theatre would love to own. As clasping ivy chokes the encumber'd tree, So age with foul embrace has ruined me. Thou, and the tomb, Laberius, art the same, Empty within, what hast thou ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... replete with thoughts of other men; Wisdom in minds attentive to their own. Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass, The mere materials with which wisdom builds, Till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place, Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich. Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much, Wisdom is humble that he knows no more. Books are not seldom talismans and spells By which the magic art of shrewder wits Holds an unthinking multitude enthralled. ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... less unpleasing themes, where, still expressing disapproval, one may do it with some grace, one of the few limitations to Mr. Hardy's great charm as a writer lies in his tendency to encumber his page with detail. At a supremely romantic moment one of his people sits down to contemplate a tribe of ants, and watches them through two whole printed pages. In another case a man in imminent deadly peril surveys through two pages ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... dictate the equipment of the soldier; namely, that it should be light, simple, and safe, as far as is possible. Yet the equipment of the European soldier, at the commencement of the French war, seemed to be intended only to give him trouble, to encumber him, and to expose his personal safety. The Austrian soldier's dress was an absolute toilette. The Prussian, even with all the intelligence of the Great Frederic to model it, was enough to perplex a French milliner, and to occupy the wearer half the day ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... agony he endured excited him, and thus gave new power to strike the lion again across the eyes. The beast fell backward, but drew the hunter with him with his paw, and another struggle took place upon the ground. He felt that the gun-barrel was his safeguard; and though it rather seemed to encumber his hands, he clung tenaciously to it. Rising up from the ground in terrible pain, he managed to thrust it into the throat of the lion with all his might. That thrust was fatal; and the huge animal fell on ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... shall expect you to take Amochol, dead or alive, before this command marches into the Chinisee Castle. How you are to accomplish this business is your own affair. I leave you full liberty, except," turning to Boyd, "you, sir, are not to encumber yourself again with any such force as you now have with you. Twenty men are too many for a swift and secret affair. Four is the limit—and four of ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... the general scope of this little treatise to encumber a simple argument by controverting any of the trite objections of habit or fanaticism. But there are two; the first, the basis of all political mistake, and the second, the prolific cause and effect of religious error, which it seems ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... when it is in our power to take care of one thing, and apply ourselves to it, we choose rather to encumber ourselves with many—body, property, brother, friend, child, slave—and thus we are burdened and weighed down. When the weather happens not to be fair for sailing, we sit screwing ourselves and perpetually looking out for the way of ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... salons, whilst all around medallions large and small of heads and figures, male, female and infantile, with a variety of vine-wreathed Bacchuses and bow-drawing Cupids, which are considered especially fit to decorate cafes, cluster along the mouldings, encumber the panels or fill up the niches. Huge mirrors reflect the pea-green walls, the crystal chandeliers, the gilding, glass and divans; cats perambulate the apartments; people come and go—black, elegant fellows, with broad-rimmed hats, pretty canes, good clothes, good fits; absinthe-drinkers, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... dream, monsieur," she said with sad finality. "It is folly to encumber one's life ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... read. I am all of a tremble. What a tale! What a— But why encumber these sheets with words of mine? I will insert the letter and let it tell its own portion of the strange and terrible history which time is slowly ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... private purposes, but to the eternal and the general—they seek the truth and the meaning of life, they seek God, the soul, and when they are harnessed to passing needs and activities, like pharmacies and libraries, then they only complicate and encumber life. We have any number of doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, and highly educated people, but we have no biologists, mathematicians, philosophers, poets. All our intellectual and spiritual energy is wasted on temporary passing needs.... Scientists, writers, painters work and work, and ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... earnest, madam?" said the doctor, opening his eyes. "Would you really encumber yourself with a person whose reason is in suspense, and may ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... to encumber the address to working men with details. Firstly, because they would detract from whatever fiery effect the words may have in them; secondly, because writing and petitioning and pressing a subject upon members and candidates are now so clearly understood; and thirdly, because the paper was meant ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... Cumming's numerous publications, and likely to become the most popular, and the most lasting in its popularity, for it has enduring qualities which belong to all ages and generations. The text is simply and clearly opened—critical explanations are given only when they are required—so as not to encumber, but to elucidate; and the practical applications are such as to suit all classes of persons."—Church of England ...
— The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth Edition • Anonymous
... Held, near the mountains, whence he issued first. There, under shadow of his sacred plumes Swaying the world, till through successive hands To mine he came devolv'd. Caesar I was, And am Justinian; destin'd by the will Of that prime love, whose influence I feel, From vain excess to clear th' encumber'd laws. Or ere that work engag'd me, I did hold Christ's nature merely human, with such faith Contented. But the blessed Agapete, Who was chief shepherd, he with warning voice To the true faith recall'd ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... Army it was certainly a peculiar collection, few or none of these articles being included in the Field Service regulations. Still, not more peculiar than some of the things with which solicitous friends and relatives encumber officers at ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... practically flat with the ground, for incendiaries have destroyed hundreds and hundreds of houses, and the Chinese commanders are favouring low-lying barricades, which are hard to pick out from the enormous mass of partially burned ruins which encumber the ground. Just as in South Africa we were reading only the other day, before this plight overtook us, that the hardest thing to see is a live Boer on the battlefield, so here it is the merest chance to make out the soldiery ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... of one of my schoolfellows is going to be married," she said. "He has a pretty bachelor cottage in the neighbourhood of the Regent's Park—and he wants to sell it, with the furniture, just as it is. I don't know whether you care to encumber yourself with a little house of your own. His sister has asked me to distribute some of his cards, with the address and the particulars. It might be worth your while, perhaps, to look at the cottage when ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... the original definition of the terms. If the same method were made use of in reasoning on other subjects, they would approach to the mathematics in simplicity and in truth, and the science of medicine in particular would be stripped of the heaps of learned rubbish which now encumber it, and would appear in true and native simplicity. Such is the method I propose to follow: I am certain of the rectitude of the plan; of the success of the reasoning it does not become ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... to the forms of judgments and of syllogisms, on their conversion and on their various relations, which still encumber treatises on Logic, are therefore destined to become less, to be transformed, to be reduced to ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... Tan Fah Pao Tan King (Roku-so-ho-bo-dan-kyo), a collection of his sermons. It is full of bold statements of Zen in its purest form, and is entirely free from ambiguous and enigmatical words that encumber later Zen books. In consequence it is widely read by non-Buddhist scholars in China and Japan. Both Hwui Chung (E-chu), a famous disciple of the Sixth Patriarch, and Do-gen, the founder of the Soto Sect ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... have said in the strange, calm bitterness that possessed my soul: "What value has life to you and your deformed one? Poor, widowed, sickly, and despised, why should you wish to live? Why encumber me?" ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... description of the fabulous cortege which he has in preparation. Lackeys innumerable, a legion of pages and gentlemen, fiocches and carriages, emblazoned with gold, a suite with which in the present day a sovereign would not encumber himself, and which ate up the remainder of her fortune, all these marvels by means of which it was proposed to win over the admiration of the Spaniards to the new dynasty, were not unserviceable also in gaining over the young Duchess of Burgundy, and the details ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... of this great light and thunder; It is through my fury that they such noise doth make. My fearful countenance the clouds so doth encumber That off-times for dread thereof the very earth doth quake. Look, when I with malice this bright brand doth shake, All the whole world from the north to the south I may them destroy with ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... than a week ago beneath one fiery kiss, here topple and moulder into rest. A white smoke-wreath rising occasionally, enwraps a shattered wall as in a shroud. A gleam of flame shoots a grotesque picture of broken arches and ragged chimneys into the brain. Huge piles of debris begin to encumber the sidewalks, and even the pavements, as we go on. The streets in some places are quite choked up from walking. We are among the ruins of half a city. The wreck, the loneliness, seem interminable. The memory of lights in houses above, beheld while upon ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... the retreat, put himself at the head of a few brave regiments, and by desperate efforts arrested the progress of the enemy. His risk was greater than that which others ran. For he could not be persuaded either to encumber his feeble frame with a cuirass, or to hide the ensigns of the garter. He thought his star a good rallying point for his own troops, and only smiled when he was told that it was a good mark for the enemy. Many fell on his right hand and on his left. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... overweight you—nor encumber your memory with pledges— these two and no more. And here we part. See what it is to sin against society. I, whom your conversation has so interested, to whom your company is so agreeable—in one word, I, who love you, can find no kinder word to say to you to-day than this—let ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... behind. In ordinary times, a yataghan or pistol may be dispensed with; but whatever may be the occupation of man or boy, the gun is never left behind, whether ploughing, or cutting wood, or carrying the heaviest burdens. It is almost extraordinary that they should thus encumber themselves, as, within their own boundary, none are so safe, and their mountains seldom afford them a living mark. I believe it arises very much from a fondness for the weapon. The greatest care is taken of it, and it undergoes a complete cleaning after every shot. The arms of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... her letter, to write another, which she addressed to the steamer which was to carry him the greater part of his long journey. She did not give her address; she told him how she believed it would be for his advantage not to encumber his noble career with concern for her. She had added that, if it were destined for them to meet, nothing would give her greater pleasure than to see him again. She ended by wishing him God-speed, a safe return, ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... fair and judicial presentment it is, too. While the general reader will find it of interest, it has been prepared more particularly for the young, who are easily wearied by the prolix details which encumber so many of the histories prepared for them. Mrs. Parmele very truly remarks that the child, bewildered in a labyrinth of unfamiliar names and events, fails to grasp the main lines and soon dislikes ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 16, February 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... lain so very long on hand, That I despair of all demand; I've advertised, but see my books, Or only watch my Shopman's looks;— 30 Still Ivan, Ina,[78] and such lumber, My back-shop glut, my shelves encumber. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... description of the triclinium of Scaurus will give the reader the best notion of the style in which such an apartment was furnished and ornamented. For each particular in the description he quotes some authority. We shall not, however, encumber our pages with references to a long list of books not likely to be in the possession of ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... experience of twenty-five, and to this he superadded the active imagination of a newspaper man. A plot to rob the bank? These mysterious absences, that luggage which he doubted not was empty and intended for spoil! But why encumber herself with the two children? Here his common sense and instinct of the ludicrous returned ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... gun; take these pistols. Ha! you have a pair in the holsters. See if they are loaded. These spurs—so—cut loose that heavy piece from the saddle: the cloak, too; you must have nothing to encumber you. When you come near the camp, leave your horse in the chaparral. Give this ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... disappointed when Margaret, with great regret, told her that the Dauphin had to go out of his way to visit some castles on his way to Chalons sur Marne, and that he could not encumber his hosts with so large a train as the presence of two royal ladies rendered needful. They were, therefore, to travel by another route, leading through towns where there were hostels. Madame de Ste. Petronelle was to go with them, and an escort of trusty Scots archers, and all would ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that as they went forth they must expect to meet with dangers. "I send you forth as lambs in the midst of wolves." They were, however, to encumber themselves with nothing superfluous and they were to waste no time in idle ceremonies; they must journey as men who are impelled by one supreme motive. ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... was straddling up and down the room, a pent volcano ready to explode. He knew Whaley's advice was good. It would be suicide to encumber himself with this girl in his flight. But he had never disciplined his desires. He wanted her. He meant to take her. Passion, the lust for revenge, the bully streak in him that gloated at the sight of some one young and fine trembling before him: all these were factors contributing ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... [Fr.]; stick at, stick in the mud, stick fast; come to a stand, come to a standstill, come to a deadlock; hold the wolf by the ears, hold the tiger by the tail. render difficult &c adj.; enmesh, encumber, embarrass, ravel, entangle; put a spoke in the wheel &c (hinder) 706; lead a pretty dance. Adj. difficult, not easy, hard, tough; troublesome, toilsome, irksome; operose^, laborious, onerous, arduous, Herculean, formidable; sooner said than done; more easily ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... 8,000 were beet-root. Last year (1851,) she produced 15,000 tons. The production of the continent rising to 200,000 tons, and the consumption remaining nearly stationary, it is evident that Brazilian and Cuban sugars will encumber the English market, independently of the refined sugar of Java, which Holland sends to Great Britain. When the continental system was established by the decrees of Milan and Berlin, the Emperor Napoleon asked the savans to point out the means of replacing the productions which he proscribed: ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... laid bare in its height and depth as far as it extended, and displayed in its precincts, at a little distance from the course of the stream, the towering and lordly castle to which it gave the name. The mist which continued to encumber the valley with its fleecy clouds, showed imperfectly the rude fortifications which served to defend the small town of Douglas, which was strong enough to repel a desultory attack, but not to withstand what was called in those days a formal siege. The most striking feature was its ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... when I was young and he might have led me. Her power and his idolatry made me jealous, and what I did in a fit of petulance was so fastened on that I could not draw back. Why did not he wait a little longer to encumber himself with that girl! No—that wasn't what I had to say— it's all over now. It is the ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... might be accomplished by the Hakluyt Society should in some measure be disappointed, is only what might naturally be anticipated of all very sanguine expectation. Cheap editions are expensive editions to the publisher; and historical societies, from a necessity which appears to encumber all corporate English action, rarely fail to do their work expensively and infelicitously. Yet, after all allowances and deductions, we cannot reconcile ourselves to the mortification of having found but one volume in ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... confusion which always reigns among a ship's company preparatory to going ashore, to confer together and complete our arrangements. As our object was to effect as rapid a flight as possible to the mountains, we determined not to encumber ourselves with any superfluous apparel; and accordingly, while the rest were rigging themselves out with some idea of making a display, we were content to put on new stout duck trousers, serviceable pumps, ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... stream at our door in Arden whispered to us by day and by night the sweet secret of the happiness in the Forest, where no man strives to outshine his neighbour or to encumber the free and joyous play of his life with those luxuries which are only another name for care. Our modest little home sheltered but did not enslave us; it held a door open for all the sweet ministries ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Puntales, affords generally good anchorage, and contains a harbour formed by a projecting mole, where vessels of small burden may discharge. The entrance to the bays is rendered somewhat dangerous by the low shelving rocks (Cochinos and Las Puercas) which encumber the passage, and by the shifting banks of mud deposited by the Guadalete and the Rio Santi Petri, a broad channel separating the Isla de Leon from the mainland. At the mouth of this channel is the village of Caracca; close beside ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... missionaries, would lay to heart the words of a missionary Bishop![20] "Ihave for years thought," writes Bishop Patteson, "that we seek in our missions a great deal too much to make English Christians..... Evidently the heathen man is not treated fairly, if we encumber our message with unnecessary requirements. The ancient Church had its 'selection of fundamentals.' .... Any one can see what mistakes we have made in India.... Few men think themselves into the state of the Eastern mind.... We seek to denationalize ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... of friend! say I; the friend who will encumber himself with the responsibility of thinking what's to become of you, when you are down in the world. Those tender-hearted souls who can't bear to think of your misfortunes are a much more ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... Iroquois forces was directed against the Neutrals. They carried two frontier villages, in one of which were more than 1600 men, the first at the end of autumn, the second early in the spring of 1651. The old men and children who might encumber them on their homeward journey were massacred. The number of captives was excessive, especially of young women, who were carried off to the Iroquois towns. The other more distant villages were seized with terror. The Neutrals abandoned their ...
— The Country of the Neutrals - (As Far As Comprised in the County of Elgin), From Champlain to Talbot • James H. Coyne
... among the casks, cases, bales, packages and anchors, and guns stuck upright with their muzzles in the ground, and bits of iron chain and spars, and broken boats, and here and there a capstan or a windlass, tall cranes, and all sorts of other articles such as encumber the wharves of a mercantile seaport. As they went along the Baron asked the same question which he had put to the burly individual of several other persons whom he and his friend encountered; some laughed and did not take the trouble of replying, others said ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... around us. But in school we often have so many things to learn that we have no time to think. At least half the meaning of things lies not in themselves, but in their relations and effects. Therefore, to get ideas without getting their significant relations, is to encumber the mind with ill-digested material. A sensible man of the world has little respect for this ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... among many valuable works, conspicuously selected with an eye to our special objects, I recall with amusement certain ancient encyclopaedias, contributed apparently by well-wishers from stock which had begun to encumber their shelves. Howbeit, like Quaker guns, these made a brave show if not too closely scrutinized, and spared us the semblance of poverty in vacant spaces. Every military man understands the value of an imposing front towards ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... eagerness to assist, and anxious to enter on my duties; but the skipper motioned me aside, saying that he'd put me into a watch and give me regular work to do as soon as we had got fairly to sea, for he "didn't want any idlers hanging round them to encumber the men." So, acting on the principle that "a nod was as good as a wink to a blind horse," I sheered over to the other side of the deck. Here, Sam Pengelly was standing by the taffrail, and from this coign of vantage we both watched with much interest the operation of getting the ship ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... wedding Patin could no longer understand how he had ever imagined Dsire to be different from other women. What a fool he had been to encumber himself with a penniless creature, who had undoubtedly inveigled him with some drug which she ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... occasions, however deficient in other requisites of their art, seem to have an unfortunate knack at preserving likenesses. Heads powdered even whiter than the originals, laced waistcoats, enormous lappets, and countenances all ingeniously disposed so as to smile at each other, encumber the wainscot, and distress the unlucky visitor, who is obliged to bear testimony to the resemblance. When one sees whole rooms filled with these figures, one cannot help reflecting on the goodness of Providence, which thus distributes self-love, in proportion as it denies those gifts ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
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