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More "Incumbrance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you, sir, that your dignity is tied to it. I know not how it happens, but this dignity of yours is a terrible incumbrance to you; for it has of late been ever at war with your interest, your equity, and every idea of your policy. Show the thing you contend for to be reason; show it to be common-sense; show it to be the means of attaining some useful end: and then I am content to allow it what dignity ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... all showmen, this giant might be worth investing in as a possible successor to his unrivalled namesake. There is surely money in it. Chang's present earnings are rather less than 7s. a month, without board and lodging; he is unmarried, and has no incumbrance; and he is slightly taller and much more massively built than a well-known American giant whom I once had permission to measure, who has been shown half over the world as the "tallest man on earth," his height being attested as "7ft. 11in. in his stockings' soles," and who commands ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... the grantor agrees for himself, "his heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns," that at the time of making the deed he is lawfully in possession, "seized" is the legal term, of the estate described in the deed, that it is free from all incumbrance, and that he will warrant and defend the grantee and his heirs and assigns against all ...
— Business Hints for Men and Women • Alfred Rochefort Calhoun
... I know I am a scandal and incumbrance. There was a time when it was otherwise. But ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... that of all men he should teach me this old-fashioned maxim as though 'twere meant for my own practice. 'Twas well enough for him, it seemed; but 'twas an incumbrance of wisdom in the singular case of the lad that ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... the Prophet Elisha grateful for all the Favours he had received at her House; where she had from time to time accommodated him in his Journies, and thought it an Honour rather than an Incumbrance. She had experienced the Power of his Prayers, in answer to which the Child had been given; and 'tis extremely probable, that she also recollected the Miracle which Elijah had wrought a few Years before, tho' till that Time the like had not been known in Israel, or on Earth; ...
— Submission to Divine Providence in the Death of Children • Phillip Doddridge
... working a great deal harder for his living than most of those who call themselves the laboring classes,—as if none but those whose hands were hardened by the use of farming or mechanical implements had any work to do. He had that sagacity without which learning is a mere incumbrance, and he had also a fair share of that learning without which sagacity is like a traveller with a good horse, but who cannot read the directions on the guideboards. He was not a man to be taken in by names. He well knew that oftentimes very innocent-sounding ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... man. Though wounded to the heart, he may speak. Then what may be chance to say? What looks of reproach may he cast upon me? The musket may miss fire. If I wound him, the wound may be less mortal than I contemplated. Then what may I not have to fear? His dead body will be an incumbrance to me. It must be moved from the place where it lies. It must be buried. How is all this to be done by me? By one precipitate act, I have involved myself in a long train of loathsome and ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... have you, that's why. Arethusa isn't your incumbrance, in any way. She's my daughter, and I'm not such a pauper that I can't manage to support her, for I most certainly did not marry you to have you caring for my various relatives. You write your letter, and ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... be thinking. Then he added, looking up keenly under his brows: "How about the—the incumbrance on the property? Of course, when I go I'll have to ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... time had thrown it away before the end of our first day's pilgrimage, it being as much as we could do to drag ourselves along without being hampered with an empty cask that might after all be a useless incumbrance. ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... declared his resolution of not going away. He would be as little incumbrance as possible to Captain and Mrs Harville; but as to leaving his sister in such a state, he neither ought, nor would. So far it was decided; and Henrietta at first declared the same. She, however, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Sir George Templemore and the Captain brought up the rear. Grace wondered the young baronet did not offer her his arm, for she had been accustomed to receive this attention from the other sex, in a hundred situations in which it was rather an incumbrance than a service; while on the other hand, Sir George himself would have hesitated about offering such assistance, as an act of ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... young vagabond; and instead of one old woman knocking me about and starving me, everybody of all ages knocked me about and starved me. They were right; they had no business to do anything else. I was a nuisance, an incumbrance, and a pest. I know ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... made no claim on Mr. Fairfax, who, for his part, acknowledged none. Bessie's near kinsfolk on her mother's side were all departed this life; there was nobody who wanted the child, or who would have regarded her in any light but an incumbrance. The rector's widow therefore kept her unquestioned; and being a woman of much sense and little pride, she moved no farther from the rectory than to a cottage-lodging in the town, where she found some teaching amongst the ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... now been out of office for some time, but he was soon to have employment again. Tangier, which was acquired at the marriage of the King to Katharine of Braganza, had long been an incumbrance, and it was resolved at last to destroy the place. Colonel Legge (now Lord Dartmouth) was in August, 1683, constituted Captain-General of his Majesty's forces in Africa, and Governor of Tangier, and sent with a fleet of about ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... restrain the Indians, who were an incumbrance to his army, and whose conduct alienated great numbers of Loyalists from the ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... fragrant region of unspoilt romance; and, still more than this, he remains an example of one who made a great and triumphant resignation of all that he held most dear, for the sake of doing what he thought to be right. He was not an ascetic, giving up what is half an incumbrance and half a terror; nor was he naturally a melancholy and detached person; but he gave up work which he loved passionately, and a life which he lived in a full-blooded, generous way, that he might try to share his blessings with others, out of a supreme pity for those ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... prey of fungi.[L] That known at Guadaloupe under the name of La Guepe Vegetale, or vegetable wasp, has been often cited as evidence that, in some instances at least, the fungus attacks the insect whilst still living. Dr. Madianna states that he has noticed the wasp still living with its incumbrance attached to it, though apparently in the last stage of existence, and seeming about to perish from the influence of its destructive parasite.[M] This fungus is called by Tulasne Torrubia sphecocephala.[N] About twenty-five species of this genus ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... A Stone Shirt, killed Sikor', the Crane, and stole his wife, and seeing that she had a child and thinking it would be an incumbrance to them on their travels, he ordered her to kill it. But the mother, loving the babe, hid it under her dress and carried it away to its grandmother. And Stone Shirt carried his captured ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... ill for some days, and has left me and still keeps me so weak and dispirited, that, if I shall not soon be able to get some repose, my poor head or body will not be able to resist. For the empty title, I trust you do not suppose it is any thing but an incumbrance, by larding my busy mornings with idle visits of interruption, and which, when I am able to go out, I shall be forced to return. Surely no man of seventy-four, unless superannuated, can have the smallest pleasure in sitting at home in his own room, as I almost always do, and being ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... the Object, or distrust the Perfection of his Sight; he saw his dear Lady, who had so captivated him the preceeding Day, he saw her in all the heightning Circumstances of her Charms, he saw her in all her native Beauties, free from the Incumbrance of Dress, her Hair as black as Ebony, hung flowing in careless Curls over her Shoulders, it hung link'd in amorous Twinings, as if in Love with its own Beauties; her Eyes not yet freed from the Dullness of the late Sleep, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... socket, which prevents the necessity of the cross-bar feet at bottom, and possesses this advantage, that it may be taken out when done with, and hung up by the side of the wall, so as to allow the area of the room to be quite clear of any incumbrance, and to be used for any other purpose. No. 2, is the socket which should be let into the floor and screwed fast to the side of a joist, so as to keep it perfectly steady; the socket is to be open at bottom ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... considerable discussion over this, and Long finally gave in, although he expressed himself as certain that the boys would prove a great incumbrance. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... a little above the middle height, well limbed and muscular; with little incumbrance of flesh beyond that which gives shape and manliness to the outline of the figure; with a firm tread, an erect carriage, a countenance strongly patrician, both in feature, profile, and expression, ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... a common practice with the Pawnees, and probably with other roving tribes, when departing on a distant expedition, which will not admit of incumbrance or delay, to leave their aged and infirm with a supply of provisions sufficient for a temporary subsistence. When this is exhausted, they must perish; though sometimes their sufferings are abridged by hostile prowlers who may visit ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... the note he had not thought of danger to Clodomiro, regarding him only as a fearless messenger, but if the boy should prove an incumbrance to Cavayso after they were free of Soledad, that might prove another matter, and as old Isidro had stated, no one trusted a Perez man when a woman was ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... the discouragement of land speculation on a large scale a further provision is made by the enactment of a further tax upon all lands held by individuals or corporations of a value exceeding $25,000 clear of incumbrance. This is called the graduated land tax, and provides for a farther taxation on all such lands, beginning at one-eighth in addition to the original tax, and rising by advances of an additional eighth ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... these privations, as well as suffered for want of many comforts which his situation demanded. Strangely enough, in the midst of this accumulated misery, the woman's heart went out with an unconquerable sympathy for the foundling so unexpectedly left at her door. So far from proving an additional incumbrance, it seemed to be a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... him against his will to the bishopric of Geneva, and he thought it his obligation to keep it till his death; that the small revenue he had sufficed for his maintenance, and more would only be an incumbrance. The king was astonished at his disinterestedness, when he understood that the bishopric of Geneva, since the revolt of that city, did not yield the incumbent above four or five thousand livres, that is, not two hundred and fifty-nine ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... not free himself, but by redeeming his libertie, with De la Pooles captiuity. This accomplished, he made choyce to take ship again at Falmouth, that so by the shortest cut, hee might leaue least power in fortune, to thwart him any second incumbrance. ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... the advantage of a cash-credit accommodation, and can immediately report to his superiors any circumstances which may render it advisable that the credit should be contracted or withdrawn. So far are we from holding that the multiplication of branch banks is any evil or incumbrance, that we look upon it as an increased security not only to the banker but the dealer. The latter, in fact, is the principal gainer; because a competition among the banks has always the effect of heightening the rate of interest given upon deposits, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... which had been invested. He hadn't a piece of real estate that was not covered with mortgages, even to the wild tract which Philip was experimenting on, and which had, no marketable value above the incumbrance on it. ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 6. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... problem necessarily presented itself to Bentham in a form in which selfishness is the predominating force, and any recognition of independent benevolence rather an incumbrance than a help. If we take the 'self-preference principle' absolutely, the question becomes how a multitude of individuals, each separately pursuing his own happiness, can so arrange matters that their joint action may secure the happiness of all. Clearly a man, however ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... creature to whom these words were addressed, the appeal would not have been in vain. But his original stock of this attribute had been limited, and he had long since disposed of the little he once possessed. Such an attribute as honor or pity was viewed by him as a useless incumbrance, for he was a miserable, heartless wretch, seeking the gratification of his own depraved appetite, and careless of who ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... received a crisp little parcel,—bank-notes, apparently. He knew the hand, and held it long enough to press it to his lips, the only form which had ever occurred to him of expressing his gratitude to her without the incumbrance of clumsy words, a vehicle at the best of times but rudely suited to such delicate merchandise. The hand was hastily withdrawn, as if the treatment had been unexpected. Then seemingly moved by second thoughts she bent forward and said, 'Is the night ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... impression that its owner must be well-to-do in the world. As we have heretofore hinted, however, Ward Glazier failed to prosper there. Why this was the case it is hard to tell. A late writer has suggested that "not only the higher intellectual gifts but even the finer moral emotions are an incumbrance to the fortune-hunter." That "a gentle disposition and extreme frankness and generosity have been the ruin in a worldly sense of many a noble spirit;" and he adds that "there is a degree of cautiousness and ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... was brought to agree to a compromise. "The purchaser that I have ready," says he, "will be much displeased, to be sure, at the incumbrance on the land, but I must see and manage him; here's a deed ready drawn up; we have nothing to do but to put in the consideration money and our names to it." "And how much am I going to sell?—the lands of O'Shaughlin's Town, and the lands of Gruneaghoolaghan, and the lands of Crookagnawaturgh," ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... matter of surprise to some persons that Mr. and Mrs. Squeers should have taken so much trouble to repossess themselves of an incumbrance of which it was their wont to complain so loudly; but the services of the drudge, if performed by any one else, would have cost some ten or twelve shillings per week in the shape of wages; and furthermore, all runaways were, as a matter of policy, made severe ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... family the hairs are tubular, the tubes being intersected by partitions, resembling in some degree the cellular tissue of plants. Their hollowness prevents incumbrance from weight, while their power of resistance is increased by having their traverse sections rounded ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... large and judicious plantation by a proprietor, as a provision for his younger children. The premium in this case will not need to run longer than twenty-five years, and he has not only beautified his estate and made it more valuable, but also transmitted it to his heir without incumbrance. ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... accident than any other species. Where one of that sort go down, twenty Right Whales do. This difference in the species is no doubt imputable in no small degree to the greater quantity of bone in the Right Whale; his Venetian blinds alone sometimes weighing more than a ton; from this incumbrance the Sperm Whale is wholly free. But there are instances where, .. after the lapse of many hours or several days, the sunken whale again rises, more buoyant than in life. But the reason of this ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... earnest. That gentleman's financial condition was such as to render the three or four hundred dollars of ready money which Nimbus could pay by no means undesirable, while the property itself seemed of so little value as to be regarded almost as an incumbrance to the plantation of which it was a part. Such was its well-established reputation for poverty of soil that Desmit had no idea that the purchaser would ever be able to meet one of his notes for the balance of the purchase money, ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... house being to be paid by the ladies, every one that entered should have only this incumbrance—that she should pay for the whole year, though her mind should change as to ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... generally popular for the night. Mr. Lupton came in, a gentleman well known in all fashionable circles, parliamentary, social, and racing, who was rather older than his company on this occasion, but still not so much so as to be found to be an incumbrance. Lord Glasslough too, and others joined them, and a good deal was said about the horse. "I never keep these things dark," said Tifto. "Of course he's an ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... Downs now set himself to steadily forgetting all the genius he had learned, feeling that it would be nothing but an incumbrance in his new career; and he succeeded so well that in the course of a few years he had become ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... story, all crying out to me, "Finish, finish, make an entire end, make us strong, shapely, viable creatures!" It's enough to put a man crazy. Moreover, I have my thesis given out now, which is a fifth (is it fifth? I can't count) incumbrance. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... The night was bright moonlight. I could see the lion distinctly. He was a huge, black-maned brute, and he held Luki by the shoulder. The poor lad kept screaming frightfully. The man-eater must have dragged me forty yards before he became aware of a double incumbrance to his progress. Then he halted and turned. By Jove! he made a devilish fierce object with his shaggy, massive head, his green-fire eyes, and his huge jaws holding Luki. I let go of Luki's foot and bethought myself of the gun. But as I lay there ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... require between five and six instalments, which will carry us to the end of 1833, or thirteen years from this time. My individual opinion is, that we had better not open the institution until the buildings, library, and all, are finished, and our funds cleared of incumbrance. These buildings once erected, will secure the full object infallibly at the end of thirteen years, and as much earlier as the legislature shall choose. And if we were to begin sooner, with half funds only, it would satisfy the common mind, prevent ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... Setting the interior tribe, of whom they held the land, at defiance, these Fishmen put an interdict upon their trading with foreigners, except through their own agency. Eight or ten years ago, however, the inland natives sold the land to the Colonization Society, subject to the incumbrance of the Fishmen's occupancy, during good behavior; a condition which the colonists likewise pledged themselves to the Fishmen to observe, unless the conduct of the latter should ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... to say that the Reverend Matthew and Mrs. Cotton were the incumbents of the parish church of Cluhir (and had been profanely described as "the incumbrance of Cluhir"); even to speak of them as, respectively, its curate and its rector, might, though more accurate, be, perhaps, considered flippant. It would also be open to the reproach of lack of originality. Yet, unoriginal though the dominant clergywoman of fiction may ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... secretary Hedges to tell the house of commons that she had remitted the arrears of the tenths to the poor clergy; that she would grant her whole revenue arising out of the first fruits and tenths, as far as it should become free from incumbrance, as an augmentation of their maintenance; that if the house of commons could find any method by which her intentions to the poor clergy might be made more effectual, it would be an advantage to the public, and acceptable to her majesty. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... when the firing commenced at the camp, they were fastened at top to his belt, but hanging loose below. Although an active runner, yet he found that the pursuers were gaining and must ultimately overtake him if he did not rid himself of this incumbrance. For this purpose he halted somewhat and stepping on the lower part of his leggins, broke the strings which tied them to his belt; but before he accomplished this, one of the savages approached and hurled a tomahawk at him. It ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... brother and sister were both dead. They had been carried off by the small-pox; and she rightly enough conjectured that the rector would not be the less prone to pardon her for being clear of further incumbrance. She enjoined me to intercede in her behalf, and I very sincerely promised to speak as soon as ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... vows, at the end of your meditation. You are to employ yourself in this manner interiorly through all the variety of your outward business; giving an hour in every day to the consideration of the most holy life of our Lord Jesus, in whatsoever affair, or in whatsoever incumbrance, you are engaged. You may practise this with most convenience, by allowing half-an-hour in the morning, and another half in the afternoon, according to ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... group, lies the Aletsch reservoir of snow or neve. As this spot presented a natural pause between the laborious ascent already accomplished and the immense declivities which lay before them yet to be climbed, they named it Le Repos, and halted there for a short rest. Here they left also every needless incumbrance, taking only a little bread and wine, in case of exhaustion, some meteorological instruments, and the inevitable ladder, axe, and ropes of the Alpine climber. On their left, to the west of the amphitheatre, a vast ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... was hardly successful. He had thought that he could explain the reasons to the Minister, but found himself incapable of explaining them to himself. In regard to means of subsistence he was no better off now than when he began the world. He was, indeed, without incumbrance, but was also without any means of procuring an income. For the last twelve months he had been living on his little capital, and two years more of such life would bring him to the end of all that he had. There was, no doubt, one ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... upon wants that England can supply if she keeps shop in the proper way, if, that is, she makes it to their interest to buy in her market. Indeed, colonies of all kinds seem to him quite useless. They ever are, he says, and ever were, "a drain to and an incumbrance on the Mother-country, requiring perpetual and expensive nursing in their infancy, and becoming headstrong and ungovernable in proportion as they grow up." All wise relations depend upon self-interest, and that needs no compulsion. If Gibraltar and Port Mahon ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... also found sympathy, and at the end of nine years, in which they sought no relief from the usual claims of social and religious obligations, every debt was discharged and their real estate freed from all incumbrance. The example was most commendable, illustrating the sterling virtue and high determination of the men in circumstances where weak minds would have faltered, and unconscientious persons ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... lying at length upon that very couch, the scene of Mr. H....'s polite joys, in an undress, which was with all the art of negligence flowing loose, and in a most tempting disorder: no stays, no hoop..., no incumbrance whatever. On the other hand, he stood at a little distance, that gave me a full view of a fine featured, shapely, healthy country lad, breathing the sweets of fresh blooming youth; his hair, which was of a perfect shining black, played to his face ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... population,—the mass shifting and the individuals shifting, in place, circumstances, requirements. The movement is inevitable, and, whether desirable or not, we must conform to it. So we naturally build cheaply and slightly, that the house be not an incumbrance rather than a furtherance to our life. It is agreeable to the feelings to be well rooted and established, and the results in outward appearance are agreeable. But it is not desirable to be so niched into the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... the guests came in shoals: Mr. and Mrs. Quiverful and their three grown daughters. Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick and their three daughters. The burly chancellor and his wife and clerical son from Oxford. The meagre little doctor without incumbrance. Mr. Harding with Eleanor and Miss Bold. The dean leaning on a gaunt spinster, his only child now living with him, a lady very learned in stones, ferns, plants, and vermin, and who had written a book about petals. A wonderful woman in her way was Miss Trefoil. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... ninety-ninth demand of mine) that he thought he could get me some money; and inclosing a letter from a respectable firm in the city of London, connected with the mining interest, which offered to redeem the incumbrance in taking a long lease of certain property of ours, which was still pretty free, upon the Countess's signature; and provided they could be assured of her free will in giving it. They said they heard she lived in terror of her life from me, and meditated a separation, in which case she might ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... earnest invitation to come again. Best of all, she had cleverly played upon the feminine instinct for fine raiment, slyly mentioned a trunk that she had brought with her from the East, packed to the top with substantial finery which was not in the least needed by her—an incumbrance, rather—and which, she hinted, might become the property of another, if ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... he can live comfortably for three hundred pounds a-year; but, as he has a son to educate, we will allow him five hundred; then there will be an accumulating fund of seven hundred a-year, principal and interest, to pay off the incumbrance; and, I think, we may modestly add three hundred, on the presumption of new-leasing and improving the vacant farms: so that, in a couple of years, I suppose there will be above a thousand a-year appropriated to liquidate a debt of ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... for you and for my poor nag, on whose back you shall be in three minutes," rejoined the landlord. "I have spoken to you as I would to my own son, if I had such an incumbrance.—Here, you ragamuffin; saddle the gray, and lead him round ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... in the one as in the other. We are not calling for any change in the character of our institutions or one which they afford no means of effecting, but the removal by a method which they themselves provide of an incumbrance which impairs their nature and impedes their working. No partial measure will suffice—none that will depend for its efficacy on the disposition of those whose duty it will be to enforce it—none that will be exposed to the attacks ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... forest several shots were fired at them from the covert. No damage was done beyond one man wounded slightly, and Dick, under orders, led a short pursuit. He was glad that they found no one, as prisoners would have been an incumbrance, and it was not the custom in the United States to shoot men not in uniform who were defending the soil on which they lived. He had no doubt that those who had fired the shots were farmers, but it had been easy for them to make good their escape ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... constant fidget the wearers are in, under the incumbrance of a dress so foolishly long as to require the use of both hands to keep it at a cleanly elevation. I presume the ladies wear these ridiculous trains because they think they look more graceful in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... With choicest viands heaps the liberal board, To crown our triumphs, and reward our toils. Here must the instructive Muse (but with respect) Censure that numerous pack, that crowd of state, With which the vain profusion of the great Covers the lawn, and shakes the trembling copse. 180 Pompous incumbrance! A magnificence Useless, vexatious! For the wily fox, Safe in the increasing number of his foes, Kens well the great advantage: slinks behind And slily creeps through the same beaten track, And hunts them step by step; then views escaped With inward ecstasy, the panting throng In their ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... under whose roof we now were. Dr. Johnson was much pleased with the Laird of Macleod, who is indeed a most promising youth, and with a noble spirit struggles with difficulties, and endeavours to preserve his people. He has been left with an incumbrance of forty thousand pounds debt, and annuities to the amount of thirteen hundred pounds a year. Dr. Johnson said, 'If he gets the better of all this, he'll be a hero; and I hope he will[519]. I have not met with a young man who had more desire ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... answer much of the effect of what you have been saying will depend. In effecting these various improvements, and in the building of that house, have you been obliged to embarrass yourself, or are they free from incumbrance?"—"Your question," he said, "is a reasonable one, and I will answer it with the frankness you are kind enough to ascribe to me. I have ever made it a rule not to exceed my income. Mrs. ****** bore our first trials with so much cheerfulness, and contributed so much to my happiness and my ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... arrears due to them in merchandize, and the remainder in cash. The arrangement was rejected, at the secret instance of Don John. While the Governor affected an ingenuous desire to aid the estates in their efforts to free themselves from the remaining portion of this incumbrance, he was secretly tampering with the leading German officers, in order to prevent their acceptance of any offered terms. He persuaded these military chiefs that a conspiracy existed, by which they were not only to be deprived of their wages but of their lives. He warned ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... "what will you do here? You have no longer a home when your father marries; unless you can consent to be subject to the woman who was once his housekeeper. You will have no place in the world; you will only be an incumbrance; your step-mother will wish you out of the way, and your father will learn to wish as his new wife does. Oh, Kate, come with me! Come to Glen Keith, and reign there; we will travel over the world; you shall have every luxury that wealth can procure; your every wish shall be gratified; you shall ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... doubt they have," replied Fancy. "I got off by saying I would ride on to Pendle Hill, and, stationing myself on its summit, give them a signal when they should advance upon their prey. And now, good mistress, I pray you dismiss me. I want to cast off this shape, which I find an incumbrance, and resume my own. I will return when it is time for you ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Germans have no notion of pampering themselves with good beef. Their system is, not to fatten the beast, and then kill him; but to work him as long as he is fit for work, and then to kill him lest he should become an incumbrance. Neither can their sheep boast much of the symmetry of their proportions, or of the high flavour of their flesh when it comes to table. The wool, as everybody knows, is, indeed, excellent; but the mutton is but sorry food, at least to an Englishman. As I stated ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... influence on the progress and preservation of things technical and communicable. Respect for the ancients is the salvation of art, though it sometimes blinds us to its ends. It increases the power of the painter, though it diminishes his liberty; and if it be sometimes an incumbrance to the essays of invention, it is oftener a protection from the consequences of audacity. The whole system and discipline of art, the collected results of the experience of ages, might, but for the fixed authority of antiquity, ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... his liabilities? Than to do this, would it not be safer, for fear of overissues by unscrupulous creditors, to say that all debt obligations are obliterated in the United States, and now we commence anew, each possessing all he has at the time free from incumbrance? These propositions are too absurd to be entertained for a moment by thinking or honest people. Yet every delay in preparation for final resumption partakes of this dishonesty, and is only less in degree as the hope is held out that a convenient season will at last arrive for the good work of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant • Ulysses S. Grant
... was read to the sepoys they bewailed their folly, he adds that if they were all sent away disgraced, no one would be to blame but themselves. He brought them to Hassane's, but they were useless, though they begged to be kept on: I may give them another trial, but at present they are a sad incumbrance. South-west of this the Manganja begin; but if one went by them, there is a space beyond in the ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... easier means; let them observe the hind of the forest, and the linnet of the grove; let them consider the life of animals, whose motions are regulated by instinct; they obey their guide, and are happy. Let us, therefore, at length, cease to dispute, and learn to live; throw away the incumbrance of precepts, which they, who utter them, with so much pride and pomp, do not understand, and carry with us this simple and intelligible maxim: That deviation from nature is ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... sir! I know you! I've had my eye upon you! You'll play false if you can, and are trying to smother up your d—d rebel meanings with genteel airs! Get away, sir!" he bellowed, stamping his foot. "Get away aft! You're a lumping useless incumbrance! But by thunder! I'll give you two for every one you try to give me! ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... raised his eyes as he heard the tone, and then he took off his spectacles as though he felt them an incumbrance. Phillis had a very good view of a pair of handsome eyes, with a lurking gleam of humor in them, which speedily died ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... help thinking how droll it was that a person whom we all considered a sort of incumbrance and superfluity at first should really turn out an object of prime importance to us all. ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... young man, firmly; "I have an alternative, and I solemnly believe the only one which will win this noble girl to become my wife. Instead of embezzling my father's property, which does not belong to me, if I marry her, I can renounce that which brings so cruel an incumbrance." ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... rest. Though thus weighed down at once by the shield belonging to a heavy-armed foot-soldier, and by the heavy cuirass[55] of a horseman (who carried no shield), he nevertheless put forth all his strength to advance under such double incumbrance, and to continue his incitement to the rest. But the soldiers around him were so indignant at the proceeding of Soteridas, that they reproached and even struck him, until they compelled him to resume his shield as well as his place in the ranks. ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... Hereward defrayed all the expenses of the burial, and settled upon the widow an income sufficient to enable her to live in comfort and respectability. With the full consent of the unloving mother, who was but too willing to be relieved of her incumbrance, the young Duchess of Hereward adopted little Marie Perdue; "perdue" no longer, but the cherished pet ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... through experience. Both reach beyond the sensible into the supersensible or ideal realm; Telemachus hears the story of Proteus, which teaches the essence in all appearance; Ulysses descends to Hades and there communes with pure mind without its terrestrial incumbrance, in the case of Tiresias and others. Such is the internal preparation; now they are to do the deed. The idea they possess, the next is to ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... fellow," said Lord Marney, "you don't know what it is to have to keep up an estate like this; and very lucky for you. It is not the easy life you dream of. There's buildings—I am ruined in buildings—our poor dear father thought he left me Marney without an incumbrance; why, there was not a barn on the whole estate that was weather-proof; not a farm-house that was not half in ruins. What I have spent in buildings! And draining! Though I make my own tiles, draining, my dear fellow, is a something of which you ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... cases, if the pain and terror are so modified as not to be actually noxious; if the pain is not carried to violence, and the terror is not conversant about the present destruction of the person, as these emotions clear the parts, whether fine or gross, of a dangerous and troublesome incumbrance, they are capable of producing delight; not pleasure, but a sort of delightful horror, a sort of tranquillity tinged with terror; which, as it belongs to self-preservation, is one of the strongest of all the passions. Its object is the sublime.[33] ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... vessel on the shore, able to carry me on the sea, which he had given orders to fit up with my own assistance and direction; and he hoped in a few weeks both empires would be freed from so insupportable an incumbrance. ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... him to use often long Latin-English instead of short Saxon-English words, that is, words that in most cases lend themselves less readily to poetic expression. Mr. Dayman, not translating line for line, is free from this prosaic incumbrance; but as he makes it a rule to himself that every English canto shall contain the same number of lines as its original, he is obliged, much more often than Mr. Longfellow, to throw in epithets or words ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... such a charge? Further, is the regular incapable of being a proper parish priest, or is he not? If he is, why, if the secular cura is perpetual—so that, if he does not become unworthy, neither the ordinary nor the vice-patron can remove him—will not the regular also remain a cura, supposing the incumbrance of collation and canonical institution? Why does that institution give all favorable things to the secular and deprive the regular of all relief? It imposes upon the regular the duty of feeding the sheep. It binds him to the territory, so that the provincial cannot remove him without ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... which was at first a corruption, is at last grown necessary, and what every good subject must now fall in with, though he may be allowed to wish it might soon have an end; because it is with a kingdom, as with a private fortune, where every new incumbrance adds a double weight. By this means the wealth of the nation, that used to be reckoned by the value of land, is now computed by the rise and fall of stocks: and although the foundation of credit be still the same, and upon a bottom that can ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... of a great nation. The staff and hope of Protestant Europe was saved from a subtle—a Jesuitical attempt—to introduce Popery and arbitrary government. The time of his death, as a release from the incumbrance of a material body, was fixed by infinite wisdom and love at that juncture, and it ought not to be a cause of regret. His interest in the welfare of the church ceased not with his mortal life. How swiftly would ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... barricade &c (defense) 717; wall, dead wall, sea wall, levee breakwater, groyne^; bulkhead, block, buffer; stopper &c 263; boom, dam, weir, burrock^. drawback, objection; stumbling-block, stumbling-stone; lion in the path, snag; snags and sawyers. encumbrance, incumbrance^; clog, skid, shoe, spoke; drag, drag chain, drag weight; stay, stop; preventive, prophylactic; load, burden, fardel^, onus, millstone round one's neck, impedimenta; dead weight; lumber, pack; nightmare, Ephialtes^, incubus, old man of the sea; remora. difficulty &c 704; insuperable ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... how thankfully would I trust my child in such keeping, but would your means support the incumbrance of a wife." ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... said, with emphasis. I forgot my tears; for some way my heart had got so strangely light and glad, tears seemed an unnecessary incumbrance; and even the thought that had been awaked by the disturbing harmonies of Beethoven's majestic conceptions were folded peacefully away in their still ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... school; with this additional feature, that it is to be available for both sexes. This, of course, presupposes two separate distinct schools. As these schools are to be built on land belonging to the Dramatic College, there will be from the first no charge, no debt, no incumbrance of any kind under that important head. It is, in short, proposed simply to establish a new self-supporting public school, in a rapidly increasing neighbourhood, where there is a large and fast accumulating middle-class population, and where property in land is fast rising in value. But, inasmuch ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... and his box of cigars were at their service, and his dress was that of a gentleman. His natural drollery took on a very amusing form during his sickness, and the men found him a source of pleasure rather than an incumbrance. ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... and self-respect revolted at this idea. He did not intend to be an incumbrance on any one, and became offended in his turn at the mute reproach which he imagined he could read in his cousin's troubled countenance. This misconception, confirmed by the obstinate silence of both parties, and aggravated by its own continuance, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... tow heads, blue eyes, and all complexions from black to pale white. Many of these homeless half-breeds are farmed out with relatives, by their mothers, when single, thus leaving them free to go and come without incumbrance. Barrenness, disease and early death are the fruits of such promiscuous intercourse, to such an extent that their utter extinction from these causes is inevitable, unless they are speedily removed. Their only ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden
... brother. He therefore resolved not to wait until their means were totally exhausted: the next day he disposed of all his clothes except one suit, and found himself richer than he had imagined. Having paid his landlord the trifle due for rent, without any other incumbrance than the packet of articles picked up in the trunk at sea, three pounds sterling in his pocket, and the ring of Madame de Fontanges on his little finger, Newton, with his father, set off on foot ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... know whether she was in Italy or in America. She had glimmerings on the subject of her privilege to carry her own nationality into her own drawing-room. And then she was called upon to deal between an Italian Count with an elder brother, and an English Honourable, who had no such incumbrance. Which of the two was possessed of the higher rank? "I've found it all out, Aunt Mary," said Livy. "You must take the Count." For Livy wanted to give her sister every chance. "How have you found it out?" said ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... plan, he informed her that all opposition on her part was unavailing, as he had already selected another partner; and that, if she could not see his new wife as a friend, she must receive her as a necessary incumbrance, for he was resolved that she should be an inmate in his house. The poor Dark-Day heard these words in silent consternation. Watching her opportunity, she stole away from the cabin with her infants, and fled to her father, who lived at a considerable distance from the place of her husband's residence. ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... let it, and a tenant has come in already. He is a poor half-pay major in the army, named Milroy, a meek sort of man, by all accounts, with a turn for occupying himself in mechanical pursuits, and with a domestic incumbrance in the shape of a bedridden wife, who has not been seen by anybody. Well, and what of all this? you will ask, with that sparkling impatience which becomes you so well. My dear Lydia, don't sparkle! The man's family affairs seriously concern us both, for, as ill luck will have it, ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... Spinners would be very young, and of little strength, and consequently to imploy one foot all the time they Spin, will be very tiresome; nay, the strongest body cannot do it, without easing the same, neither can they imply both hands so freely, as when they are discharged of that burthen, or incumbrance. ...
— Proposals For Building, In Every County, A Working-Alms-House or Hospital • Richard Haines
... compulsory service, and appropriating a certain amount to the payment, first, of the mortgage debts due in England, and, second, of the owner, who, even if he found his land delivered to him free of incumbrance, was in most cases left without a shilling to enable him to carry on the work of his plantation. The slaves were set free, but there existed no capital to find them employment, and from the moment of emancipation it became almost impossible to borrow money on mortgage ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... family, and was ridiculous. As often as I caught the younger brother's eyes, their expression reminded me that he disliked me deeply, for knowing what I knew from the boy. He was smoother and more polite to me than the elder; but I saw this. I also saw that I was an incumbrance in the ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... Empire. To its resources and exigencies we now seem for the first time to awaken.[see Note 46] Hitherto we have been content to consider it as a magnificent incumbrance, that testified to our greatness but had nothing to do with our interests or the welfare of our ...
— A Letter from Major Robert Carmichael-Smyth to His Friend, the Author of 'The Clockmaker' • Robert Carmichael-Smyth
... sufficient to establish this general conclusion, that in all cases in which a vowel serves neither to exhibit the vocal sound, nor to modify the articulations of the syllable to which it belongs, it may be reckoned nothing better than an useless incumbrance. There seems, therefore, much room for simplifying the present system of Gaelic Orthography, by the rejection of a considerable number of ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart
... his place in the field with the others, and proved himself a good worker, but still kept on his kihei, which it would be natural to suppose that he would lay aside as an incumbrance when engaged in hard labor. At last some of the more venturesome of the younger folks managed to tear his kapa off, as if accidentally, when the shark-mouth on his back was seen by all the ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... damned! Tell, if yer can!" he cried. "I've been treated worser'n a dorg by your blooming back-lickers. They 'as set me on, only to turn aginst me. I am the only man 'ere. They clouted me, kicked me—an' yer laffed—yer black, rotten incumbrance, you! You will pay fur it. They giv' yer their grub, their water—yer will pay fur it to me, by Gawd! Who axed me ter 'ave a drink of water? They put their bloomin' rags on yer that night, an' what did they giv' ter me—a clout on the bloomin' mouth—blast their... S'elp me!... ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... no sooner said than done. The Rough Soldiers burst into the House, and, to prevent any misunderstanding about me, a Cloth (for which I was quite unprepared) was thrown over my head from Behind; and while I was yet struggling to free myself from this blinding Incumbrance, the Gyves were passed over my Wrists and Ankles. And then they removed the Cloth, and, laden with heavy Chains, I had to behold in Despair their Invading the Sanctity of my Harem, and tearing therefrom my Lilias. In vain did I Shout, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... a bony hand, and gave them a greeting. Though his speech and limbs had failed him, his intelligence was evidently still intact, and there was a tenderly-cared-for look about him, rendering his condition far less pitiable than that of Richard Birkenholt, who was so palpably treated as an incumbrance. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his gaff toward the pan ice, to be rid of the incumbrance of it, and lifted himself on his palms and toes. By this the distribution of his weight was not greatly disturbed. It was not concentrated upon one point. It was divided by four and laid upon four points. And there were no fearsome ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... coaxingly put on an appearance of wishing me to stay to supper; I did not, however, comply, but told them I proposed remaining longer with them on my return; leaving as a deposit my little packet, that had come by water, and would have been an incumbrance, had I taken it with me. I continued my journey the next morning, well satisfied that I had seen my father, and had taken ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... crept up the narrow stairs, glad enough to get away and be alone. I had never loved Chevet, but he had taught me to fear him, for more than once had I experienced his brutality and physical power. To him I was but a chattel, an incumbrance. He had assumed charge of me because the law so ordained, but I had found nothing in his nature on which I could rely for sympathy. I was his sister's child, yet no more to him than some Indian waif. More, he was honest about ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... sincere desire to bear worthily an honored name? Who shall say that the eccentricities of a certain celebrity of acknowledged talent, whose name would be quickly recognized, were not the result of the same cause, the length, and weight of the name given him at his birth proving too great an incumbrance for him to overcome. ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... popular approval of his efforts came in an increased subscription list, and this, of course, made the paper more profitable. At the end of twelve months, the two partners had paid off the money borrowed from Professor Henderson, and owned the paper without incumbrance. ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... little this incumbrance among my friends, I caused a number of similar tubes to be blown at our glass-house, with which they furnish'd themselves, so that we had at length several performers. Among these, the principal was Mr. Kinnersley, an ingenious neighbour, who, being out of business, I encouraged ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... advantage it would have, as the permanent system of a country, over a currency convertible into coin; while it is not at all difficult to see what would be its disadvantages, since land is far more variable in value than gold and silver; and besides, land, to most persons, being rather an incumbrance than a desirable possession, except to be converted into money, people would submit to a much greater depreciation before demanding land, than they will ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... neighbouring magistrate, Lord Milton, or Lord Fitzwilliam, for instance, if they were within reach, and I would tell him that I had left my wife and family chargeable to the parish, as I was unable to support them by my labour; but as I knew the leaving of my family as an incumbrance upon the parish was an offence against the laws, for which I was liable to be committed to prison, and as I did not wish to give the parish officers more trouble than was absolutely necessary, I had come to request his lordship to make out my mittimus, that I might ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... buying and selling, of letting and hiring, of alliances between men for purposes of business, of delegation of business from one man to another; and this is no doubt the consideration which led the Romans, as it has led most societies, to relieve these transactions from technical incumbrance, to abstain as much as possible from clogging the most efficient springs of social movement. Such motives were not of course confined to Rome, and the commerce of the Romans with their neighbours must have given them abundant opportunities for ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... rough and hairy; and Pan has struck his hoof against it!—A camel is a picturesque ornament in a landscape or history-piece. This is not merely from its romantic and oriental character; for an elephant has not the same effect, and if introduced as a necessary appendage, is also an unwieldy incumbrance. A negro's head in a group is picturesque from contrast; so are the spots on a panther's hide. This was the principle that Paul Veronese went upon, who said the rule for composition was black upon white, and while upon black. He was a pretty good judge. His celebrated ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... down fairs and markets, when I happen to be in them reading a page or two of mankind, and "catching the manners living as they rise," whilst the men of business jostle me on every side as an idle incumbrance in their way. But, I daresay, I have by this time tired your patience; so I shall conclude with begging you to give Mrs. Murdoch—not my compliments, for that is a mere commonplace story; but my warmest, kindest wishes for her welfare; and accept the same for yourself, ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... fierce dogs trained to hunting the deer, and these, the knight hoped, would do good service in tracking the outlaws. He and the knights and the men-at-arms with him were all dismounted, for he felt that horses would in the forest be an incumbrance, and he was determined himself to lead the ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... of wood upholstered in velvet. But a throne is a seat of power too. The form of government is the shape of a tool—an instrument. But twenty thousand bladders inflated by the noblest sentiments and jostling against each other in the air are a miserable incumbrance of space, holding no power, possessing no will, ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... extraordinary and characteristic manner; and obeying, as I ever did, the first impulse of my heart, I prepared to grapple once more with the difficulties that yet remained to be surmounted. In order to do this, it was necessary that my feet and hands should be utterly without incumbrance; for it was only by dint of climbing that I could expect to reach that part of the projecting rock to which my attention had been directed. Securing my gun between some twisted roots that grew out of and adhered to the main body of the rock, I commenced the ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... play. Mr. Warrington is no other than the Fortunate Youth about whom so many stories have been told in the Public Advertiser and other prints. He has an estate in Virginia as big as Yorkshire, with the incumbrance of a mother, the reigning Sovereign; but, as the country is unwholesome, and fevers plentiful, let us hope that Mrs. Esmond will die soon, and leave this virtuous lad in undisturbed possession. She is aunt of that polisson of a Castlewood, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and the rifle which were slung at his back, together with the well filled, and carefully guarded pouch and horn, he had carelessly cast a keen and bright wood-axe across his shoulder, sustaining the weight of the whole with as much apparent ease, as if he moved, unfettered in limb, and free from incumbrance. ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... his return has effected everything English, and looks quite like the dude of the period. He, too, seems interested in your return; and I don't know but you might be mistress of Tracy Park, if you could fancy the incumbrance. Dick St. Claire is going to Vassar to see you and Nina graduate; and Harold, too, if he possibly can. He is very busy just now with something he must finish, and perhaps he cannot be there. Tom is going, and Fred Raymond, and Billy Peterkin—quite ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... no way out for her. She could get work, I knew, for there was always work for a woman in our pioneer houses. The hired girl who went from place to place could find employment most of the time; but the baby would be an incumbrance. It would be a thing that the eye of censure could not ignore, like the scarlet "A" on the breast of the girl in Nathaniel Hawthorne's story. I could not foresee how the thing would work out, and lay awake pondering on it until after midnight, and I had hardly fallen asleep, it seemed ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... than the steam in a low-pressure engine, by the amount of the pressure of the uncondensed steam on the other side of the piston. An engine working on this principle has therefore been called a high-pressure engine. Such an engine is relieved from the incumbrance of all the condensing apparatus and of the large supply of cold water necessary for the reduction of steam to the liquid form; for instead of being so reduced, the steam is in this case simply allowed to escape into the atmosphere. The operation, therefore, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 575 - 10 Nov 1832 • Various
... furniture; whatever she likes that way. To draw money from my business is impossible. My business fluctuates like quicksilver, and it is enormously extended. If they should have two thousand a year, it would be a princely income; I should feel so now, if they had it clear of incumbrance." ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... The stolen fortune, on which they had counted, had slipped through their fingers. The berths in the steamer for New York had been taken and paid for. James had married a woman with nothing besides herself to bestow on him, except an incumbrance in the ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... valuable service rendered to me on one occasion, and as a mark of my regard and interest, I give and bequeath the sum of five thousand dollars; and to his mother, as a token of gratitude for her faithful nursing when I was dangerously sick with the smallpox, I give and bequeath, free of all incumbrance, the cottage in which she at ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... wing is in no haste to charge. Happily Ziethen, blocked by that incumbrance of the Bridge mending, "finds a ford higher up," the assiduous Ziethen; splashes across, other regiments following; forms in line well leftward; and instead of waiting for the Austrian charge, charges home ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... overland,—live wholly on vegetable food. They are large, very robust, and strong; and bear prodigious burdens on their backs, travelling over mountains too steep for loaded mules to ascend, and with a speed which few of the generality of men can equal without incumbrance.' ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon
... every rag of sail, and did their best with their oars to gain the nearest port. But in order that the rowers might exert themselves to the utmost, it was necessary that the soldiers, who were a useless incumbrance on deck, should go below. Thus only could the ship be properly handled. The captain, anxious to save his ship and his life, consented. Most of the soldiers were sent beneath the hatches: a few were ordered to sit on the benches among the slaves. Now there had been a secret understanding for ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... It was not, however, unnecessary: many casual visitors and masters of merchantmen obtained grants, which they sold instantly and cleared a considerable sum. Land speculators were greatly disconcerted by the incumbrance: many were anxious to throw up land orders, and attempted to recover money for the goods given in exchange. A trial (1825), in which Mr. Underwood, of Sydney, was the plaintiff, is a curious example of this traffic. The defendant had given in payment ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... when the bubble burst like the gas of the Pall-Mall lamp-lighter: Reason's dragon-teeth had been buried long enough, and a race of men succeeded. The worshipful John Bull acted the part of the cow, in Tom Thumb. Ridicule, that infallible emetic of sick minds, had eased your stomach of its baby incumbrance; Miss Mudie returned to her mamma, and Master Betty also retired to break Priscian's head, and hide his own in ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... the manner of the South Sea islanders. As about twenty of them were counted, and seemed to be coming on with much resolution, our people prepared for whatever might be the event. The sloop was put under easy sail, her decks cleared of every incumbrance, and each man was provided with a competent number of musket balls, pistol balls, and buck shot, which were to be used as the distance might require; for it was intended that not a man should escape if they commenced ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... however, that it discriminates men and things more clearly than does the horse. In going over difficult ground it studies its surface, and picks its way so as to secure a footing in an almost infallible manner. Even when loaded with a pack, it will consider the incumbrance and not so often try to pass where the burden will become entangled with ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... have kind friends, too. But Flora, I am too proud to be indebted to friends for the common necessaries of life; and without doing something to improve our scanty means, it might come to that. The narrow income which has barely supplied our wants this year, without the incumbrance of a family, will not do so next. There remains no alternative ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... her second child-bed. The powers of the parish clapped their hands; political economy was glad; prudence chuckled; and a coarse-featured farmer (he meant no ill), who occasionally had given Roger work, heartlessly bade him be thankful that his cares were the fewer and his incumbrance was removed; "Ay, and Heaven take the babies also to itself," the Herodian added. But Acton's heart was broken! scarcely could he lift up his head; and his work, though sturdy as before, was more mechanical, less high-motived: ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... was only an incumbrance, he was left behind, and, taking the trail of the warriors, the three put their horses to their best, confident the chase would be a long one. On such occasions, the red men are accustomed to travel a long distance before making a halt. With so much booty in their hands, they were liable to be set ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... other to guide the horse. Cavalry is never really efficient unless trained to rush into close contact with the enemy. To see the whites of their eyes is not sufficient; they must ride over the foe. In the rapid charge the carbine is not only useless, but a positive incumbrance. The saber is comparatively harmless; it serves to frighten the timid, but rarely ever deals a death-wound. Let two men encounter each other in the charge, one relying upon his pistol, the other upon his saber, and the former, though an ordinary marksman, will ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... necessary to the safety of the army. Among these, the most vehement were Almagro and his followers. They had not witnessed the seizure of Atahuallpa. They had no sympathy with him in his fallen state. They regarded him only as an incumbrance, and their desire now was to push their fortunes in the country, since they had got so little of the gold of Caxamalca. They were supported by Riquelme, the treasurer, and by the rest of the royal officers. These men had ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... class. A friend of mine, on leaving an hotel at Niagara, offered a douceur in the shape of half a dollar to one of these, but she drew herself up, and proudly replied, "American ladies do not receive money from gentlemen." Having left my keys at the Bend, I found my valise a useless incumbrance, rather annoying after ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... may not be: From lechery fast you flee. For incumbrance it will bring thee, And all that to ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... pendant diamonds let thy Fanny take, Their trembling lustre shows how much you shake; Or bid her wear thy necklace row'd with pearl, You'll find your Fanny an obedient girl. 50 So, for the rest, with less incumbrance hung, You walk through life, unmingled with the young; And view the shade and substance as you pass With joint endeavour trifling at the glass, Or Folly dress'd, and rambling all her days, To meet her counterpart, and grow by praise: Yet still sedate yourself, and gravely ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... clothing were kept on deck until nearly the hour when we were to be ordered below for the night. During this interval * * * the decks washed and cleared of all incumbrance, except the poor wretches who lay in the bunks, it was quite refreshing after the suffocating heat and foul vapors of the night to walk between decks. There was then some circulation of air through the ship, and, ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... which the continued annual appropriation of $8,000,000 would, besides paying the interest on the Louisiana debt, reimburse within a period of less than seven years, or before the end of the year 1815. After that year no other incumbrance would remain on the revenue than the interest and reimbursement of the Louisiana stock, the last payment of which in the year 1821 would complete the final extinguishment of the public debt. The conversion act was ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... ponies; drive straight to Mapleton, and don't mention me. You will be admitted to mother. Father is there, and Frank; give them the least chance, and they will tell you about Sybil, and then you can manage the rest. Tell them to bring her back, even with that beastly incumbrance. They will listen to you; they won't to me. If you fail ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... room for slaves, dependent and incapable. One of the first large companies included some scores of bondmen; they landed to face a fierce and hungry winter, and straightway the bondmen were set free,—as slaves they would be an incumbrance; as freemen they could get their own living. The thrifty colonists of a later generation did a driving business in African slaves for their southern neighbors, but they had small ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... to the De Beers Mine, and impudently endeavoured to shell it. They seized a second position at Kamfers Dam, and placed a second gun there. We had good people in Kimberley who asserted that the gentle Boer knew not how to use a gun; that he considered it so much lumber, an incumbrance. These were apart from the school given to postulate that the farmers had no guns to use. No need to say that both theories were dispelled, by sight as well as by hearing. Much attention was devoted to Otto's Kopje—our most exposed position—and many missiles dropped dangerously ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... their fall Confusion to your elements ensued. The others kept their station: and this task, Whereon thou lookst, began with such delight, That they surcease not ever, day nor night, Their circling. Of that fatal lapse the cause Was the curst pride of him, whom thou hast seen Pent with the world's incumbrance. Those, whom here Thou seest, were lowly to confess themselves Of his free bounty, who had made them apt For ministries so high: therefore their views Were by enlight'ning grace and their own merit Exalted; so ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... earthly joy, In fondly imaging their blest employ! How oft, dear Cowper! at the close of day, When contemplation sheds her mental ray, I seem, through optics of the mind to see Thy sainted spirit, from incumbrance free! Marking how quick, in various hearts, arise Those seeds of virtue, that thy verse supplies! What joy, not speakable by mortal tongue, What praises, to the harp of seraph sung, May glad thee, now repaid for all thy woes, While boundless vision ...
— Poems on Serious and Sacred Subjects - Printed only as Private Tokens of Regard, for the Particular - Friends of the Author • William Hayley
... trocha[obs3]; barricade &c. (defense) 717; wall, dead wall, sea wall, levee breakwater, groyne[obs3]; bulkhead, block, buffer; stopper &c. 263; boom, dam, weir, burrock[obs3]. drawback, objection; stumbling-block, stumbling-stone; lion in the path, snag; snags and sawyers. encumbrance, incumbrance[obs3]; clog, skid, shoe, spoke; drag, drag chain, drag weight; stay, stop; preventive, prophylactic; load, burden, fardel[obs3], onus, millstone round one's neck, impedimenta; dead weight; lumber, pack; nightmare, Ephialtes[obs3], incubus, old man of the sea; remora. difficulty ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... that they would be of real value in a warfare of trench lines and barbed wire, but for a long time later they were kept moving backward and forward between the edge of the battlefields and the back areas, to the great incumbrance of the roads, until they were "guyed" by the infantry, and irritable, so their officers told me, to the verge of mutiny. Their irritability was cured by dismounting them for a turn in the trenches, and I came across the Household Cavalry digging by the Coniston Steps, this side of Thiepval, ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... the queen ordered secretary Hedges to tell the house of commons that she had remitted the arrears of the tenths to the poor clergy; that she would grant her whole revenue arising out of the first fruits and tenths, as far as it should become free from incumbrance, as an augmentation of their maintenance; that if the house of commons could find any method by which her intentions to the poor clergy might be made more effectual, it would be an advantage to the public, and acceptable to her majesty. The commons ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... obstacle to the ready sale of location orders. It was not, however, unnecessary: many casual visitors and masters of merchantmen obtained grants, which they sold instantly and cleared a considerable sum. Land speculators were greatly disconcerted by the incumbrance: many were anxious to throw up land orders, and attempted to recover money for the goods given in exchange. A trial (1825), in which Mr. Underwood, of Sydney, was the plaintiff, is a curious example of this traffic. The defendant had given in payment for ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... employed in transporting goods overland,—live wholly on vegetable food. They are large, very robust, and strong; and bear prodigious burdens on their backs, travelling over mountains too steep for loaded mules to ascend, and with a speed which few of the generality of men can equal without incumbrance.' ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon
... immediately report to his superiors any circumstances which may render it advisable that the credit should be contracted or withdrawn. So far are we from holding that the multiplication of branch banks is any evil or incumbrance, that we look upon it as an increased security not only to the banker but the dealer. The latter, in fact, is the principal gainer; because a competition among the banks has always the effect of heightening ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... and instead of one old woman knocking me about and starving me, everybody of all ages knocked me about and starved me. They were right; they had no business to do anything else. I was a nuisance, an incumbrance, and a pest. ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... but evidently one quite of Stuart's mind, for Georgiana now found her arms unburdened of their heavy incumbrance without further parley, and herself put where she belonged by ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... they gave up the idea of taking the raft in tow, as for full security they ought to do. They doubted whether they could get home, if they had more weight to draw than their own boat. It was well that they left this incumbrance behind, for there was quite peril and difficulty enough without it, and Erica's strength and spirits failed the more the further the enemy ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... this, but for the revolution which followed, he might possibly have obtained. As it was, the only result was his parading about with him everywhere, from town to town, for months after his return, the lictors with laurelled fasces, which betokened that a triumph was claimed—a pompous incumbrance, which became, as he confessed, a grand subject for evil-disposed jesters, and a considerable ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... profundity of her mind. She has just concluded that I am the most distinguished of ecclesiastics, and that you are the most superficial of metaphysicians. Thus you see I am not altogether blind; but to one of my profession, the eyes you speak of would be merely an incumbrance, liable at any time to be put out by a toasting-iron, or a pitchfork. To you, I allow, these optical affairs are indispensable. Endeavor, Bon-Bon, to use them well;—my vision ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the lion distinctly. He was a huge, black-maned brute, and he held Luki by the shoulder. The poor lad kept screaming frightfully. The man-eater must have dragged me forty yards before he became aware of a double incumbrance to his progress. Then he halted and turned. By Jove! he made a devilish fierce object with his shaggy, massive head, his green-fire eyes, and his huge jaws holding Luki. I let go of Luki's foot and bethought myself of the gun. But as I lay there on my side, ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... stand to be drained of their milk. The next day the farmer saw the yearling rubbing the nails against a rock in order, as he thought, to dull them so they would not prick the cows! How much easier to believe that the beast was simply trying to get rid of the awkward incumbrance upon its nose. What can a calf or a cow know about sharpened nails, and the use of a rock to dull them? This is a kind of outside knowledge—outside of their needs and experiences—that they ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... I was no longer of any use in the house after you had been removed, and I did not choose to be an incumbrance to your aunt. I preferred gaining my livelihood by my own exertions, as I am now doing, and to which resolution on my part, I am indebted for the pleasure of ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... that hypocritical tone!" said the man. "I did not leave you so destitute; and I took the child off your hands that no incumbrance ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... to establish this general conclusion, that in all cases in which a vowel serves neither to exhibit the vocal sound, nor to modify the articulations of the syllable to which it belongs, it may be reckoned nothing better than an useless incumbrance. There seems, therefore, much room for simplifying the present system of Gaelic Orthography, by the rejection of a considerable number ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart
... sell her real estate without the husband's signature and without regard to his curtesy. He can do the same with his separate property but subject to her dower. Both must join in an incumbrance or ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... above the middle height, well limbed and muscular; with little incumbrance of flesh beyond that which gives shape and manliness to the outline of the figure; with a firm tread, an erect carriage, a countenance strongly patrician, both in feature, profile, and expression, and an appearance remarkable and distinguished. ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... Then what may be chance to say? What looks of reproach may he cast upon me? The musket may miss fire. If I wound him, the wound may be less mortal than I contemplated. Then what may I not have to fear? His dead body will be an incumbrance to me. It must be moved from the place where it lies. It must be buried. How is all this to be done by me? By one precipitate act, I have involved myself in a long train ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... lands cannot be subdivided, and if a seigneurie is sold it cannot be sold in parts, nor can any compromise with the habitants for rent, or any other claim or incumbrance, be made. ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... aware of that, Mr Rainscourt," replied the lady; "but as I may not have the means of following, my daughter and I will, if you please, become a part of your travelling incumbrance, as well as the jewels and other ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... exceptional vigor assaulted Julius Caesar upon the flank, and his tail not whisking as well as usual, because of the incumbrance, he missed the enemy at the first swish and moved uneasily forward for several feet. As it chanced, this movement left the other string of firecrackers fairly in the lap of Cocoanut. The boys were still discussing ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... step for me to take," continued Mr. Nelson, "for I feel the incumbrance to be a heavy one already. In fact, it is with difficulty that I pay the interest. But the time has come when Tom should start in life, and in this village there seems ...
— The Young Adventurer - or Tom's Trip Across the Plains • Horatio Alger
... from my business is impossible. My business fluctuates like quicksilver, and it is enormously extended. If they should have two thousand a year, it would be a princely income; I should feel so now, if they had it clear of incumbrance." ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... necessary to move farther into the wilderness. The poor woman, in her deplorable condition, did nothing but weep, and the Indians, deeming her an incumbrance, resolved to get rid of her. They placed her upon the ground with her child, divested her entirely of clothing, and for an hour sang and danced around their victim with wildest exultation. One then approached and buried his hatchet ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... was dragged into the lake and was drowned in the struggle. The frightened horses reared and plunged and created great confusion. The golden treasure with which many had loaded themselves proved a frightful incumbrance. Those who could do so, flung it away; those too bitterly occupied in fighting for their lives could do little but drive, thrust, hew, hack and struggle in the dark ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... fruitful, and death a harvest of worthy deeds. Fifteen minutes a day devoted to self-improvement, will be felt at the end of the year. Good thoughts and carefully gathered experience take up no room, and may be carried about as our companions everywhere, without cost or incumbrance. An economical use of time is the true mode of securing leisure: it enables us to get through business and carry it forward, instead of being driven by it. On the other hand, the miscalculation of time involves us in perpetual hurry, confusion, and difficulties; ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... would have witnessed the glorious Revolution—the escape of a great nation. The staff and hope of Protestant Europe was saved from a subtle—a Jesuitical attempt—to introduce Popery and arbitrary government. The time of his death, as a release from the incumbrance of a material body, was fixed by infinite wisdom and love at that juncture, and it ought not to be a cause of regret. His interest in the welfare of the church ceased not with his mortal life. How swiftly would his glorified spirit fly to see the landing ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... road and the shouts of his escort, Napoleon had great difficulty to obtain a passage through this immense throng. No doubt the obstruction of a defile, a few forced marches and a handful of Cossacks, would have been sufficient to rid us of all this incumbrance: but fortune or the enemy had alone a right to lighten us in this manner. As for the Emperor, he was fully sensible that he could neither deprive his soldiers of this fruit of so many toils, nor reproach them for securing it. Besides, the provisions concealed the booty, and could ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... I said, "you say what you mean. When you write in verse you say what you must." I was thinking more especially of rhymed verse. Rhythm alone is a tether, and not a very long one. But rhymes are iron fetters; it is dragging a chain and ball to march under their incumbrance; it is a clog-dance you are figuring in, when you execute your metrical pas seul. Consider under what a disadvantage your thinking powers are laboring when you are handicapped by the inexorable demands of our scanty ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... admitted to mother. Father is there, and Frank; give them the least chance, and they will tell you about Sybil, and then you can manage the rest. Tell them to bring her back, even with that beastly incumbrance. They will listen to you; they won't to me. If you ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... position is that of a perpetually shifting population,—the mass shifting and the individuals shifting, in place, circumstances, requirements. The movement is inevitable, and, whether desirable or not, we must conform to it. So we naturally build cheaply and slightly, that the house be not an incumbrance rather than a furtherance to our life. It is agreeable to the feelings to be well rooted and established, and the results in outward appearance are agreeable. But it is not desirable to be so niched into the rock, that a change of fortune, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... laugh rather grew gayer than slackened. The strings of the stays had long ago been cut, and the tresses, which were in the way of the cigars, were thrown back in dishevelled elegance. The landlord found his stuffing somewhat warm, and had laid aside half his fleshy incumbrance. Every one was at his ease, and a most uproarious chorus had just been sung by the whole strength of the company, when we heard the ominous sound of a quiet double rap at ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... for she had no mother, So that, her father being at sea, she was Free as a married woman, or such other Female, as where she likes may freely pass, Without even the incumbrance of a brother, The freest she that ever gazed on glass; I speak of Christian lands in this comparison, Where wives, at least, are ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... releasing the slave from compulsory service, and appropriating a certain amount to the payment, first, of the mortgage debts due in England, and, second, of the owner, who, even if he found his land delivered to him free of incumbrance, was in most cases left without a shilling to enable him to carry on the work of his plantation. The slaves were set free, but there existed no capital to find them employment, and from the moment of emancipation it became almost impossible to borrow money on mortgage security. ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... his infinite satisfaction. In addition to the consequences which our sanguine hopes led us to expect from this dawning of cordiality, it affords proof, that the beard is considered by this people more as an incumbrance than a ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay • Watkin Tench
... mortals approximate the understanding of Christian Science, they take hold of harmony, and material incumbrance disappears. Having one God, one Mind, one consciousness,—which includes only His own nature,—and loving your neighbor as yourself, constitute Christian Science, which must demonstrate the nothingness of any other state ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy
... fortunate for me that I overtook him at Kiora; though he was about to prove a sore incumbrance to me, for he was not able to walk, and the donkey-carriage, after the rough experience of the Makata valley, was failing. I could not possibly leave him at Kiora, death would soon overtake him there; but how long I could convey a man in such a state, through a country devoid ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... Nothing was to be seen connected with it but many brown oval husky shells, which by no means looked like insects, but rather resembled bits of the dry bark of the vine. The tree had a plentiful crop of grapes set, when this pest appeared upon it; but the fruit was manifestly injured by this foul incumbrance. It remained all the summer, still increasing, and loaded the woody and bearing branches to a vast degree. I often pulled off great quantities by handfuls; but it was so slimy and tenacious that it could by no ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... terror are so modified as not to be actually noxious; if the pain is not carried to violence, and the terror is not conversant about the present destruction of the person, as these emotions clear the parts, whether fine or gross, of a dangerous and troublesome incumbrance, they are capable of producing delight; not pleasure, but a sort of delightful horror, a sort of tranquillity tinged with terror; which, as it belongs to self-preservation, is one of the strongest of all the passions. Its object is the sublime.[33] Its highest degree I call astonishment; ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... with bonfires, which, exclusive of the joy we felt at the return of his Majesty's birth-day, and the celebrating it in this distant part of the globe, we with pleasure saw some large piles of wood burnt that had been along time collecting, and which were a great incumbrance to us. ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... of the talents and character of Johnson is to be found in Boswell's Life of him. The man was superior to the author. When he threw aside his pen, which he regarded as an incumbrance, he became not only learned and thoughtful, but acute, witty, humorous, natural, honest; hearty and determined, "the king of good fellows and wale of old men." There are as many smart repartees, profound remarks, and keen invectives to be found in ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... joint action between Colonel Meriwether and my father's estate. The right of redemption still remained, and there offered a definite alternative of selling a part of the lands and retaining the remainder clear of incumbrance. We wrote Colonel Meriwether all these facts from Huntington, requesting his immediate attention. After this, I set out for home, not ill-pleased with the outlook of ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... America. She had glimmerings on the subject of her privilege to carry her own nationality into her own drawing-room. And then she was called upon to deal between an Italian Count with an elder brother, and an English Honourable, who had no such incumbrance. Which of the two was possessed of the higher rank? "I've found it all out, Aunt Mary," said Livy. "You must take the Count." For Livy wanted to give her sister every chance. "How have you found it out?" said the aunt. "You may be sure ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... that your dignity is tied to it. I know not how it happens, but this dignity of yours is a terrible incumbrance to you; for it has of late been ever at war with your interest, your equity, and every idea of your policy. Show the thing you contend for to be reason; show it to be common-sense; show it to be the means of attaining some ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... oblige him to use often long Latin-English instead of short Saxon-English words, that is, words that in most cases lend themselves less readily to poetic expression. Mr. Dayman, not translating line for line, is free from this prosaic incumbrance; but as he makes it a rule to himself that every English canto shall contain the same number of lines as its original, he is obliged, much more often than Mr. Longfellow, to throw in epithets or words not in the Italian. And Dr. Parsons, ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... 'cheerfulness of pride' still lingering in him. A free air of graceful stoicism, of easy silent dignity sits well on him; in his heart, could we reach it, lie elements of generosity, self-sacrificing justice, true human valour. Why should he, with such appliances, stand an incumbrance in the Present; perish disastrously out of the Future! From no section of the Future would we lose these noble courtesies, impalpable yet all-controlling; these dignified reticences, these kingly simplicities;—lose aught of what ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... that firearms are of little use to the mounted soldier, and often an incumbrance to man and horse. Cavalry want only one arm—the sabre. Let the men be well mounted and at home in the saddle. It requires great knowledge in a Commander-in-chief to know when and how to use his cavalry. It has been my misfortune to witness oft-repeated ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... percent.; that is for the whole kingdom at at least from two and one-half to three millions a year. On this Ricardo founded his proposal to base the bank notes on gold bars. In its time, the essay: Guineas an unnecessary and expensive Incumbrance on Commerce, or the Impolity of repealing the Bank-Restriction Bill considered (London, 1802), ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... some ninety-ninth demand of mine) that he thought he could get me some money; and inclosing a letter from a respectable firm in the city of London, connected with the mining interest, which offered to redeem the incumbrance in taking a long lease of certain property of ours, which was still pretty free, upon the Countess's signature; and provided they could be assured of her free will in giving it. They said they heard she lived in terror of her life from me, and meditated a separation, ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Meantime, Mrs. Clair, it is your home, and the little maiden's, and Eddie's. If he cares to continue his artistic profession, he can have a master here to conduct his studies. If he is worthy, he shall have Riversdale on his twenty-first birthday free from all incumbrance; till then, Mrs. Clair, the home is yours, and I know how happy Eddie will be with you. As for Bertie, he belongs to me for the present; he is not to return to Mr. Gregory, and will try how he likes Murray and Co. ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... the steam in a low-pressure engine, by the amount of the pressure of the uncondensed steam on the other side of the piston. An engine working on this principle has therefore been called a high-pressure engine. Such an engine is relieved from the incumbrance of all the condensing apparatus and of the large supply of cold water necessary for the reduction of steam to the liquid form; for instead of being so reduced, the steam is in this case simply allowed to escape into the atmosphere. The operation, therefore, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 575 - 10 Nov 1832 • Various
... had belonged to a family of some note, whose heirs had outstripped their fortunes. It had been long deserted and uninhabited; and when Aram settled in those parts, the proprietor was too glad to get rid of the incumbrance of an empty house, at a nominal rent. The solitude of the place had been the main attraction to Aram; and as he possessed what would be considered a very extensive assortment of books, even for a ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... friend Davenant; but I know that I, and my wife and John, have so made up our minds, and we are of a race not given to change. The land would but be an incumbrance and a trouble to us. John would far rather make his path in life, as he chooses it, than live upon the rents of ill-gotten lands. You will receive your own again, and all parties ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... was a man without the incumbrance of a wife, an expert in the arts of intrigue and seduction. Nihi-aumoe is a word of very suggestive meaning, to walk softly at midnight. In Judge Andrews's dictionary are found the following pertinent Hawaiian verses apropos of the ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... about it, cousin," she returned, "but a good character is of no value in Whitehall. It is an incumbrance. As to my conscience, you need have no fear. When I first came to court, I supposed I should encounter dangers. I was mistaken. I am as safe here as I should be in my father's house. All the pitfalls and snares are to be seen by any one who wishes to see them. It is the sleeping ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... and the Boy is to marry as soon as he is at Age, to redeem it, and find Portions for his Sisters. This, forsooth, is no great Inconvenience to him; for he may wench, keep a publick Table or feed Dogs, like a worthy English Gentleman, till he has out-run half his Estate, and leave the same Incumbrance upon his First-born, and so on, till one Man of more Vigour than ordinary goes quite through the Estate, or some Man of Sense comes into it, and scorns to have an Estate in Partnership, that is to say, liable to the Demand ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... activity and right purpose in the one as in the other. We are not calling for any change in the character of our institutions or one which they afford no means of effecting, but the removal by a method which they themselves provide of an incumbrance which impairs their nature and impedes their working. No partial measure will suffice—none that will depend for its efficacy on the disposition of those whose duty it will be to enforce it—none that will be exposed to the attacks of those whose ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... good-hearted baronet put his hand in his pocket, and gave the beggar half-a-guinea, by which a young, strong man, who had only just commenced the trade, was confirmed in his imposition for the rest of his life; and instead of the useful support, became the pernicious incumbrance of society. Sir Christopher had now recovered his spirits. 'What's like a good action?' said he to Clarence, with a swelling breast. The park was crowded to excess; our loungers were joined by Lord St. George. His lordship was a staunch Tory. He could not endure Wilkes, liberty, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 345, December 6, 1828 • Various
... laws you accept, the fewer penalties you will have to endure, and the fewer punishments to enforce. For wise laws and just restraints are to a noble nation not chains, but chain mail—strength and defence, though something also of an incumbrance. And this necessity of restraint, remember, is just as honourable to man as the necessity of labour. You hear every day greater numbers of foolish people speaking about liberty, as if it were such an honourable thing: so far from being that, it is, on the whole, and in the ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... might be worth investing in as a possible successor to his unrivalled namesake. There is surely money in it. Chang's present earnings are rather less than 7s. a month, without board and lodging; he is unmarried, and has no incumbrance; and he is slightly taller and much more massively built than a well-known American giant whom I once had permission to measure, who has been shown half over the world as the "tallest man on earth," his height being attested as "7ft. 11in. in his stockings' soles," ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... so he excited his horse to an increased speed, hoping thus to ride over me; but I stood my ground, and as I made a cut with my sabre, the horse bounded from the road with so sudden a start that the frightened woman lost her hold and fell off. The horseman, free of his incumbrance, would now have used his gun; but, seeing mine already aimed at him, he thought it most prudent to continue his road, and I saw nothing more ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... with fiery red hair, tow heads, blue eyes, and all complexions from black to pale white. Many of these homeless half-breeds are farmed out with relatives, by their mothers, when single, thus leaving them free to go and come without incumbrance. Barrenness, disease and early death are the fruits of such promiscuous intercourse, to such an extent that their utter extinction from these causes is inevitable, unless they are speedily removed. ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden
... office and take both of you boys in with me, allowing you one half of the profits until you become of age; then we will organize a partnership, and each own a third of the business. By that time your profits, if you do not spend too much money, will enable you to own your interests clear of all incumbrance. Your present brokerage business can be done from our office, and that I shall want Bob to attend to at first, while you, Herbert, I shall expect to bear the brunt of the burden in our regular business. ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey
... twinkling General, "if I accept, will you look upon me in the light of an incumbrance or ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... however, the problem necessarily presented itself to Bentham in a form in which selfishness is the predominating force, and any recognition of independent benevolence rather an incumbrance than a help. If we take the 'self-preference principle' absolutely, the question becomes how a multitude of individuals, each separately pursuing his own happiness, can so arrange matters that their joint action may secure the happiness of all. Clearly a man, however selfish, has an interest ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... Colonial Empire. To its resources and exigencies we now seem for the first time to awaken.[see Note 46] Hitherto we have been content to consider it as a magnificent incumbrance, that testified to our greatness but had nothing to do with our interests or the welfare of our population."—The Times, 20th ...
— A Letter from Major Robert Carmichael-Smyth to His Friend, the Author of 'The Clockmaker' • Robert Carmichael-Smyth
... her bent upon withholding her consent to his plan, he informed her that all opposition on her part was unavailing, as he had already selected another partner; and that, if she could not see his new wife as a friend, she must receive her as a necessary incumbrance, for he was resolved that she should be an inmate in his house. The poor Dark-Day heard these words in silent consternation. Watching her opportunity, she stole away from the cabin with her infants, and fled to her father, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... for the habits were incurable and the distresses increasing; and nothing but a circumstance which Mordaunt did not then understand prevented the final sale of an estate already little better than a pompons incumbrance. ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... it can be accomplished, to settle Plantations on some of my other Lands. But where? without going to the Western Country, I am unable, as yet to decide; as the best, if not all the Land I have on the East side of the Aleghanies are under Leases, or some kind of incumbrance or another. But as you can give me the correct information relative to this matter, I now ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... Success, Wit should have to carry its rider into strange and uncouth places, over rough and broken country, while the other two horses have only plain sailing before them, there is only all the more reason for throwing aside all useless weight and extra incumbrance; and, with these few digressive remarks, we will proceed ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... Thorpe Ambrose. For some reason unknown, young Armadale has chosen to let it, and a tenant has come in already. He is a poor half-pay major in the army, named Milroy, a meek sort of man, by all accounts, with a turn for occupying himself in mechanical pursuits, and with a domestic incumbrance in the shape of a bedridden wife, who has not been seen by anybody. Well, and what of all this? you will ask, with that sparkling impatience which becomes you so well. My dear Lydia, don't sparkle! The man's family affairs seriously concern us both, ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... might turn up a fortune, all languished, and each needed just a little more, money to save that which had been invested. He hadn't a piece of real estate that was not covered with mortgages, even to the wild tract which Philip was experimenting on, and which had, no marketable value above the incumbrance on it. ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 6. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... toward the pan ice, to be rid of the incumbrance of it, and lifted himself on his palms and toes. By this the distribution of his weight was not greatly disturbed. It was not concentrated upon one point. It was divided by four and laid upon four points. And there were no fearsome consequences. It ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... found the Prophet Elisha grateful for all the Favours he had received at her House; where she had from time to time accommodated him in his Journies, and thought it an Honour rather than an Incumbrance. She had experienced the Power of his Prayers, in answer to which the Child had been given; and 'tis extremely probable, that she also recollected the Miracle which Elijah had wrought a few Years before, tho' till that Time the like ...
— Submission to Divine Providence in the Death of Children • Phillip Doddridge
... Harvey, threats of a fire of infantry wouldn't have stopped him. He followed his slighter companion, who led the way, despite the incumbrance of ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... evident, however, that it discriminates men and things more clearly than does the horse. In going over difficult ground it studies its surface, and picks its way so as to secure a footing in an almost infallible manner. Even when loaded with a pack, it will consider the incumbrance and not so often try to pass where the burden will become entangled with ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... their backs turned towards them. And directly Gaud was struck with one of them, tall as a giant, with huge shoulders almost too broad; but she had simply said, perhaps with a touch of mockery: "There is one who is tall, to say the least!" And the sentence implied beneath this was: "What an incumbrance he'll be to the woman he marries, a ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... never seen any member of her husband's family, and she made no claim on Mr. Fairfax, who, for his part, acknowledged none. Bessie's near kinsfolk on her mother's side were all departed this life; there was nobody who wanted the child, or who would have regarded her in any light but an incumbrance. The rector's widow therefore kept her unquestioned; and being a woman of much sense and little pride, she moved no farther from the rectory than to a cottage-lodging in the town, where she found some teaching amongst the children of the small gentry, who then, ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... work in their lives, and whom, with or without slavery, this Republic will have to support. Take some Pacific Island for a great Alms-House, and inaugurate an exodus of the genuine Southern pauper; he is only an incumbrance to the industrious and humble-minded blacks, from whose toil the country may draw the staples of free sugar and free cotton, raised upon the soil which is theirs by the holy prescription of blood and sorrow. "If it were not for your presence ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... a great deal harder for his living than most of those who call themselves the laboring classes,—as if none but those whose hands were hardened by the use of farming or mechanical implements had any work to do. He had that sagacity without which learning is a mere incumbrance, and he had also a fair share of that learning without which sagacity is like a traveller with a good horse, but who cannot read the directions on the guideboards. He was not a man to be taken in by names. He well knew that ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... want to live, too, for personal and private reasons. If I could regard myself merely as a helpless incumbrance, a useless jellyfish, absorbing for my maintenance human effort that should be beneficially exerted elsewhere, I think I should be the first to bid them take me out and bury me. But it is my wonderful privilege to look around and see great and beautiful human souls coming to ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... betokened, We hasted to open the door, and received him with welcome, Saying to the servant, "Hie! Hie! Bring whatever is ready!" But the stranger said, "By Him who brought me to your abode, I will not taste of your hospitality, unless you pledge to me That you will not permit me to be an incumbrance to you, Nor impose on yourselves necessity of eating ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Dolliver for what had happened; and, if the plain truth must be told, everybody who saw the wretch was too well content to be rid of him, to trouble themselves more than was quite necessary about the way in which the incumbrance had been removed. ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... thinking how droll it was that a person whom we all considered a sort of incumbrance and superfluity at first should really turn out an object of prime importance to us all. ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... to carry every thing that could be crowded on our spars. We dashed away before the freshening wind, like a deer with the unleashed hounds pursuing. The slaves were shifted from side to side—forward or aft—to aid our sailing. Head-stays were slackened, wedges knocked off the masts, and every incumbrance cast from the decks into the sea. Now and then, a fruitless shot from his bow-chasers, reminded the fugitive that the foe was still on his scent. At last, the cruiser got the range of his guns so perfectly, ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... time possessed, represented the necessity and expediency of restoring her, not only out of regard to his own character and that of his nation, but also with a view to his ease, which would in a little time be very much invaded by such an incumbrance, that in all probability would involve him in a thousand difficulties and disgusts. Besides, he assured him that he was already, by order of the lieutenant de police, surrounded with spies, who would watch all his motions, and immediately discover the retreat in which ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... He had thought that he could explain the reasons to the Minister, but found himself incapable of explaining them to himself. In regard to means of subsistence he was no better off now than when he began the world. He was, indeed, without incumbrance, but was also without any means of procuring an income. For the last twelve months he had been living on his little capital, and two years more of such life would bring him to the end of all that he had. There was, no doubt, one view of his prospects which ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... the preservation of amicable relations with us. The interests of the United States would also be greatly promoted by freeing the relations between the General and State Governments from what has proved a most embarrassing incumbrance by a satisfactory adjustment of conflicting titles to lands caused by the occupation of the Indians, and by causing the resources of the whole country to be developed by the power of the State and General Governments and improved by the enterprise ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren • Martin van Buren
... from him. They do not appear to have been made angry by any part of his conduct, or to have disliked him personally. But they had, we suspect, taken the measure of his mind, and satisfied themselves that he was not a man for that troubled time, and that he would be a mere incumbrance to them. Living themselves for ambition, they despised his love of ease. Accustomed to deep stakes in the game of political hazard, they despised his piddling play. They looked on his cautious measures with the sort of scorn with which the gamblers at the ordinary, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... fortune, like the hero of a cheap story? But when the county clerk, whose office it is to register deeds in that county, took the little piece of paper, and after scanning it, took down some great deed-books and mortgage-books, and turned the pages awhile, and then wrote "Francis Gray, owner, no incumbrance," on the same slip with the description, Jack had the ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston
... was crushed by the dreadful and repeated blows that had fallen upon him, blows that had robbed him of everything that made life worth living, and given him in return nothing but an infant who could not inherit, and who was therefore only an incumbrance. ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... upon which this mode of teaching is founded, it must appear strange, that a child should be able to read before he knows the names of his letters; but it has been ascertained, that the names of the letters are an incumbrance in teaching a child ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... considering, the latter may be said to have gained something in point of probability, by diminishing the distance which the Niger has to flow in order to reach the Atlantic. But the length of its course, even when thus reduced, is still a considerable difficulty, and a great incumbrance on the hypothesis. The objection arising from the Niger's being conceived to penetrate the Kong Mountains, seems to be nearly of equal weight in both cases, on the supposition that this vast chain of mountains is of the extent generally ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... in the crown and wide in the brim. On his shoulder, and crossing his breast like a scarf, one of them carried a shirt, the colour of chamois leather; the body of this garment was rolled up and thrust into one of its sleeves: the other, though travelling without incumbrance, bore on his chest what seemed a large pack, but which proved, on closer inspection, to be the remains of a starched ruff, now stiffened with grease instead of starch, and so worn and frayed that it looked ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... compelled to abandon his basket of food, which became a perilous incumbrance on the glacier, and had now no means of refreshing himself but by breaking off and eating some of the pieces of ice. This, however, relieved his thirst; an hour's repose recruited his hardy frame, and with the ...
— The King of the Golden River - A Short Fairy Tale • John Ruskin.
... when a few months perhaps will free my Grace from her incumbrance. Mother, you are giving me bad advice ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... but are they not magnificent? The expenses, always recollect, are enormous. On the other hand we never have occasion to print a bill of any sort (bill-printing and posting are great charges at home); and have just now sold off L90 worth of bill-paper, provided beforehand, as a wholly useless incumbrance." ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... mad flight toward the settlement. His hat was gone, his fine shot-gun had been thrown aside as a useless incumbrance, and his tomahawk and knife had dropped out of his belt; but he was too frightened to stop to pick them up. No pause he knew until he reached Mr. Harris's rancho, where he reined up his panting horse, and electrified the family by shouting through ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... for the discouragement of land speculation on a large scale a further provision is made by the enactment of a further tax upon all lands held by individuals or corporations of a value exceeding $25,000 clear of incumbrance. This is called the graduated land tax, and provides for a farther taxation on all such lands, beginning at one-eighth in addition to the original tax, and rising by advances of an additional eighth for each sum of $25,000 at which the land is valued, until a maximum ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... hands at the same instant, after the manner of the South Sea islanders. As about twenty of them were counted, and seemed to be coming on with much resolution, our people prepared for whatever might be the event. The sloop was put under easy sail, her decks cleared of every incumbrance, and each man was provided with a competent number of musket balls, pistol balls, and buck shot, which were to be used as the distance might require; for it was intended that not a man should escape ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... of Government loans in aid of improvements by drainage in Great Britain. One of these acts provides for a charge on the land for such improvements, to be paid in full in fifty years. That is to say, the expense of the drainage is an incumbrance like a mortgage on the land, at a certain rate of interest, and the tenant or occupant of the land, each year pays the interest and enough more to discharge the debt in just fifty years. Thus, it is assumed by the ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... and the hardiest American or English woman will scarcely venture out a second time without the severe escort of husband or brother. These relatives are, accordingly, in great demand. In the thrifty North, man is considered an incumbrance from breakfast to dinner,—and the sooner he is fed and got out of the way in the morning, the better the work of the household goes on. If the master of the house return at an unseasonable hour, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... is a seat of power too. The form of government is the shape of a tool—an instrument. But twenty thousand bladders inflated by the noblest sentiments and jostling against each other in the air are a miserable incumbrance of space, holding no power, possessing no ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... few men who would have done that. I shall never forget his kindness. And now let us talk of something else. You will have to establish a little mess on your own account, Mr. Wilson, as both the Captains are married men, and the Major has also an incumbrance." ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... his resolution of not going away. He would be as little incumbrance as possible to Captain and Mrs Harville; but as to leaving his sister in such a state, he neither ought, nor would. So far it was decided; and Henrietta at first declared the same. She, however, was soon persuaded to think differently. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... held as executor of Roswell M. Field. It was accordingly offered for sale at auction, and enough to realize $20,000 was sold. Under the will, Eugene's share of this was $8,000, and he immediately placed himself in the way of investing it where it would be the least incumbrance to him. While at Columbia he had met Edgar V. Comstock, the brother of his future wife, through whom it was that he made her acquaintance. Upon the first touch of the cash payment on his share of the executor's sale, Eugene at once proposed ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... quest of some practicable point of egress, for the fence was higher in this part of the park than elsewhere, owing to the inequality of the ground. He had cast away his gun as useless. But even without that incumbrance, he dared not hazard the delay of climbing the palings. At this juncture a deep breathing was heard close behind him. He threw a glance over his shoulder. Within a few yards was a ferocious bloodhound, with whose savage nature Luke was well acquainted; the breed, some of which he ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... insignificant devil, unnoticed and unknown, stalking up and down fairs and markets, when I happen to be in them reading a page or two of mankind, and "catching the manners living as they rise," whilst the men of business jostle me on every side as an idle incumbrance in their way. But, I daresay, I have by this time tired your patience; so I shall conclude with begging you to give Mrs. Murdoch—not my compliments, for that is a mere commonplace story; but my warmest, kindest wishes for ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... constrictors,) instantly wrapped in a half dozen folds around it! Pete snorted aloud, and, springing forward, ran a hundred paces with all the fleetness of which he was capable. But being unable to shake off the terrible incumbrance, with his tongue hanging out in agony, he turned back and ran directly for the horse. When he came up to the steed, he pushed his head under his neck, manifesting the greatest distress, and stamping and ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... soldier thinks he must have this article of luxury and the other, until he finds that they are positive burdens to himself and horse, and gradually he throws off this weight and that incumbrance, until his entire outfit is reduced to nearly "the little end of nothing, whittled to a point!" Possessed of a coffee-bag and cup and a hard-tack or biscuit, the most essential things, he seldom now borrows much trouble about the rest of ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... equal to a large and judicious plantation by a proprietor, as a provision for his younger children. The premium in this case will not need to run longer than twenty-five years, and he has not only beautified his estate and made it more valuable, but also transmitted it to his heir without incumbrance. ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... be anywhere with you, papa; anywhere—even though you may feel me an incumbrance. I could endure the humiliation of feeling that, so long as I was allowed ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... in a fit of sullenness, and no more was thought about him. In the mean while I continued to work there as before, and as I had the charge of every thing I had no doubt that, some day or another, I should find means of quietly disposing of my incumbrance. ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... set for profit, these trees received little care. Orchards were cropped in the regular rotation, or with hay, or pastured. Farmers then knew little of modern methods of orchard management. The orchard was regarded as an incumbrance to the land, which had to be farmed to as good advantage as possible under the circumstances, and if the apple trees by any chance yielded a crop, the owner regarded himself ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... passing through a forest several shots were fired at them from the covert. No damage was done beyond one man wounded slightly, and Dick, under orders, led a short pursuit. He was glad that they found no one, as prisoners would have been an incumbrance, and it was not the custom in the United States to shoot men not in uniform who were defending the soil on which they lived. He had no doubt that those who had fired the shots were farmers, but it had been easy for them to make good ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... have to keep up an estate like this; and very lucky for you. It is not the easy life you dream of. There's buildings—I am ruined in buildings—our poor dear father thought he left me Marney without an incumbrance; why, there was not a barn on the whole estate that was weather-proof; not a farm-house that was not half in ruins. What I have spent in buildings! And draining! Though I make my own tiles, draining, my dear fellow, is ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... and manifesting itself only in phenomena in accordance with natural law—that is, this law is regarded as the expression of the divine will. Science is thus given liberty to investigate phenomena to the fullest extent, and religion is freed from the incumbrance of physical, psychological, and metaphysical theories; the spheres of the two are sharply defined and kept separate. Such a conception is held to differ from "naturalism" or "materialism" in that it recognizes a Power distinct from matter—to differ from what has been ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... England. Do not imagine I have abandoned a design on which the more I reflect the more I am intent. The great end of life is to benefit community. My mind in its present situation is too deeply affected freely and without incumbrance to exert itself—This is weakness!—But not the less true, Oliver. We are at present so imbued in prejudice, have drunken so deeply of the cup of error, that, after having received taints so numerous and ingrained, to wish for perfect consistency in virtue I doubt were vain. Here ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... not entity to be killed by a shot from a professional gun, but a condition, an effort of outraged nature to free itself from an incumbrance, and should be aided rather than hindered by the administration of any nerve irritant. There never will come a time when the laws of health can be evaded. Nor is there any vicarious atonement. The full penalty of disobedience will invariably be exacted. The hunt for a panacea is as sure to be ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... instalments, which will carry us to the end of 1833, or thirteen years from this time. My individual opinion is, that we had better not open the institution until the buildings, library, and all, are finished, and our funds cleared of incumbrance. These buildings once erected, will secure the full object infallibly at the end of thirteen years, and as much earlier as the legislature shall choose. And if we were to begin sooner, with half funds only, it would satisfy the common mind, prevent ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... views for the Catholic faith which opened a more alluring field to ambition. Sacrificing the passions of youth he married a widow, infirm and of advanced age, but of great wealth. The death of his wrinkled bride soon left him the vast property without incumbrance. He then entered into a matrimonial alliance which favored his political prospects, marrying Isabella, the daughter of Count Harruch, who was one of the emperor's ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... from the incumbrance of your mother, my dear, you would easily find her. Even as things are, you might surely write to her. Don't mistake my motives, George. If I had any hope of your forgetting her—if I saw you only ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... hands of his black prisoners. But that ceremony did not make soldiers of them, as his favorite maxim taught. They held them in their hands with listless indifference, remaining themselves, as before, an incumbrance instead of a reenforcement. He gave his white prisoners notice that he would hold them as hostages, and informed one or two that, after daylight, he would exchange them for slaves. Before the general ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... made several very pretty jests without departing from his profession. He said, "If Joseph and the lady were alone, he would be more capable of making a conveyance to her, as his affairs were not fettered with any incumbrance; he'd warrant he soon suffered a recovery by a writ of entry, which was the proper way to create heirs in tail; that, for his own part, he would engage to make so firm a settlement in a coach, that there should be no danger of an ejectment," ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... a writer in the Southern Review we say, "the situation of the people of these States was not of their choosing. When they came to the inheritance, it was subject to this mighty incumbrance, and it would be criminal in them to rain or waste the estate, to get rid of the burden at once." With this writer we add also, in the language of Captain Hall, that the "slaveholders ought not (immediately) to disentangle themselves from the obligations ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... metropolis of the Bugis traders in the far East. As I wanted to make some purchases, I stayed here two days, and sent two of my boxes of specimens by a Macassar prau to be forwarded to Ternate, thus relieving myself of a considerable incumbrance. I bought knives, basins, and handkerchiefs for barter, which with the choppers, cloth, and beads I had brought with me, made a pretty good assortment. I also bought two tower muskets to satisfy my crew, who insisted on the necessity of being armed against attacks ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... in the rank when the Romans were driven back, and that now he was defending himself and striving to hold his own against the attack of three of the Gauls. Tearing off his helmet, as if it were an incumbrance, and making his short sword flash through the air, Marcus rushed to his old companion's help, but too late to save him being hurled heavily to the ground, while, ready as he was to contend against ordinary weapons, this ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... travellers must content themselves with less. Thus Captain Speke, who started on his great journey amply equipped with log-books and calculation-books, such as I have described, found them too great an incumbrance, and was compelled to abandon them. The result was, that though he brought back a very large number of laborious observations, there was a want of method in them, which made a considerable part of his work ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... kept on deck until nearly the hour when we were to be ordered below for the night. During this interval * * * the decks washed and cleared of all incumbrance, except the poor wretches who lay in the bunks, it was quite refreshing after the suffocating heat and foul vapors of the night to walk between decks. There was then some circulation of air through the ship, ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... two engineers, an ice pilot, eight sailors, and two others, eighteen men in all, comprising Dr. Clawbonny, of this town, who will introduce himself to you when necessary. The Forward's crew must be composed of Englishmen without incumbrance; they should be all bachelors and sober—for no spirits, nor even beer, will be allowed on board—ready to undertake anything, and to bear with anything. You will give the preference to men of a sanguine constitution, ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... political economy was glad; prudence chuckled; and a coarse-featured farmer (he meant no ill), who occasionally had given Roger work, heartlessly bade him be thankful that his cares were the fewer and his incumbrance was removed; "Ay, and Heaven take the babies also to itself," the Herodian added. But Acton's heart was broken! scarcely could he lift up his head; and his work, though sturdy as before, was more mechanical, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... night, I could see no way out for her. She could get work, I knew, for there was always work for a woman in our pioneer houses. The hired girl who went from place to place could find employment most of the time; but the baby would be an incumbrance. It would be a thing that the eye of censure could not ignore, like the scarlet "A" on the breast of the girl in Nathaniel Hawthorne's story. I could not foresee how the thing would work out, and lay awake pondering on it until after midnight, and I had hardly fallen asleep, it seemed ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... your meditation. You are to employ yourself in this manner interiorly through all the variety of your outward business; giving an hour in every day to the consideration of the most holy life of our Lord Jesus, in whatsoever affair, or in whatsoever incumbrance, you are engaged. You may practise this with most convenience, by allowing half-an-hour in the morning, and another half in the afternoon, according to ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... purchased from Mr. Sheridan was not at the rate which he bought from Lacy, though at an advance on the price paid to Garrick. Mr. S. has since purchased Dr. Ford's quarter for the sum of 17,000l., subject to the increased incumbrance of ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... is, he whose feebleness is such as to make other men's thoughts an incumbrance to him can have no very great strength of mind or genius of his own to be destroyed, so that not much harm ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... been a great poet, but he was an exquisite critic of life; he shared his contemporaries' lack of enthusiasm, but he possessed a fine discrimination, and those less practical, more irresponsible qualities would have been merely an incumbrance to the apostle of good sense and moderation. For when men are young they are much occupied with the framing of ideals and the search after absolute truth; as they grow older they generally become more practical; they accept, more or less, the ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... pouch and horn, he had carelessly cast a keen and bright wood-axe across his shoulder, sustaining the weight of the whole with as much apparent ease, as if he moved, unfettered in limb, and free from incumbrance. ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... stipulation, that he is still to ride behind her in public, and answer all demands in propria persona. She is constantly to be seen at all masquerades, and may be easily known by her utter contempt for the incumbrance of decent costume." "How d'ye do? How d'ye do?" said a most elegant creature, stretching forth her delicate white kid-covered arm over the fenetre of Lord Hxxxxxxx*h's vis a vis. "Ah! bon jour, ma chere amie," said old ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... imputations and occasional rebuffs, but they also found sympathy, and at the end of nine years, in which they sought no relief from the usual claims of social and religious obligations, every debt was discharged and their real estate freed from all incumbrance. The example was most commendable, illustrating the sterling virtue and high determination of the men in circumstances where weak minds would have faltered, and unconscientious persons would ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... wrong, my dear husband; but sickness and suffering have made me, I fear, not only nervous and frightened, but selfish: I must and will shake it off. Hitherto I have only been a clog and an incumbrance to you; but I trust I shall soon behave better, and make myself useful. If you think, then, that it would be better that you should go instead of William, I am quite content. Go, then, with Ready, and ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... respired through the opening. It then pushed forward, breaking the ice as it advanced, in spite of the lances constantly directed against it. At last it reached a kind of basin in the field, where it floated on the surface without any incumbrance from ice. Its back being fairly exposed, the harpoon struck from the boat on the outside, was observed to be so slightly entangled, that it was ready to drop out. Some of the officers lamented this circumstance, and wished that the harpoon might be better fast; at the ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... whose annual income little more than suffices to meet the annual expenses of a very moderate establishment, an unsought honour may be an incumbrance. It appears, at any rate, opposed to the spirit of such an honour, that it should be loaded with Court Expenses in its ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... William Harris resided most of his time, to endeavor to purchase the deanery, whenever a good opportunity offered: in my discomfiture," he added, smiling, "I forgot to countermand the order, and he purchased it immediately on its being advertised. For a short time it was an incumbrance to me, but it is now applied to its original purpose. It is the sole property of the Countess of Pendennyss, and I doubt not you will see ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... cessation of the troubles: it is the same that is alluded to in the inscription, which also informs us that a monument was raised over it in 1642, but was removed in 1742, it being then considered as an incumbrance in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... over this, and Long finally gave in, although he expressed himself as certain that the boys would prove a great incumbrance. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... his pack slipping, Casey surmised, and had proceeded to divest himself of the incumbrance in the manner best known to mules. Having kicked himself out of it, he had undoubtedly discovered a leaking can—supposing the cans had escaped thus far—and had battered them with his heels until they were all leaking copiously. William ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... water-bottle, and haversack, which with glasses slung over all and separately, complete all one requires as a gunner. Swords were not carried during this war by officers, as in cases where the rifle was substituted, they only proved an incumbrance. A stick for the marching officer, like "Chinese Gordon" had, ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne
... for three hundred pounds a-year; but, as he has a son to educate, we will allow him five hundred; then there will be an accumulating fund of seven hundred a-year, principal and interest, to pay off the incumbrance; and, I think, we may modestly add three hundred, on the presumption of new-leasing and improving the vacant farms: so that, in a couple of years, I suppose there will be above a thousand a-year appropriated to liquidate a ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... due from an affection that justly increased towards him, through the intimacy of several years. I cannot, save with the utmost tenderness, reflect on the kind concern with which Mr. ADDISON left Me as a sort of incumbrance upon this valuable legacy. Nor must I deny myself the honour to acknowlege that the goodness of that Great Man to me, like many other of his amiable qualities, seemed not so much to be renewed, as continued in his successor; who made me an example, that nothing could ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... pain where his fingers had crushed the flesh, and crept up the narrow stairs, glad enough to get away and be alone. I had never loved Chevet, but he had taught me to fear him, for more than once had I experienced his brutality and physical power. To him I was but a chattel, an incumbrance. He had assumed charge of me because the law so ordained, but I had found nothing in his nature on which I could rely for sympathy. I was his sister's child, yet no more to him than some Indian waif. More, he was honest about it. To his mind he did well by me in thus finding me a husband. I sank ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... a little this incumbrance among my friends, I caused a number of similar tubes to be blown at our glass-house, with which they furnish'd themselves, so that we had at length several performers. Among these, the principal was Mr. Kinnersley, ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... sensible into the supersensible or ideal realm; Telemachus hears the story of Proteus, which teaches the essence in all appearance; Ulysses descends to Hades and there communes with pure mind without its terrestrial incumbrance, in the case of Tiresias and others. Such is the internal preparation; now they are to do the deed. The idea they possess, the next is to ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... brown hair, mostly the latter. To my surprise, I saw several women among them. Eric, in answer to my question, explained that they always take their women with them so far as they can, and that instead of finding them an incumbrance as our Roman dames would be, they look upon them as helpmates and advisers. Of course, I remembered afterwards that our excellent and accurate Tacitus has remarked upon this characteristic of the Germans. All laws in the tribes are decided by votes, and a vote has not yet been given ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... very well, Japhet; but I had rather trust to our own prudence. Now hear what I have to say. You will be as much assisted by a trusty valet as by any other means. I shall, as a gentleman, be only an expense and an incumbrance; but as a valet I shall be able to play into your hands, at the same time more than one half the expense will be avoided. With your leave, therefore, I will take my proper situation, put on your livery, and thereby make myself of the ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... which was apparently the great aim of Moodajee's political manoeuvres, while the Governor-General's wish to defeat it was avowedly more intent on the removal of a nominal disgrace than on the anxiety or resolution to be freed from an expensive, if an unavoidable incumbrance." ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... reflection, 'That, to induce people to take them off their hands, the family-stock must be impaired into the bargain,' used to put my sister out of all patience: and, although she now seems to think a younger sister only can be an incumbrance, she was then often proposing to me to make a party in our own favour against my brother's rapacious views, as she used to call them: while I was for considering the liberties he took of this sort, as the effect of a temporary pleasantry, which, in ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... ago, when our mails were all carried in coaches drawn by horses, there were some routes on which the weight of the newspaper mails was a serious incumbrance. But at present, so great has been the extension of steam power, that I question if there is a single route to which the number of newspapers sent would be a burden, unless, perhaps, it may be the route by the National Road, from ...
— Cheap Postage • Joshua Leavitt
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