"Burdensome" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The situation in America in the 18th Century was almost identical with the situation in Cuba in the 19th Century. Both, in those respective periods, suffered from oppressive and restrictive trade laws and from burdensome taxation, from subordination of their interests to the interests of the people of a mother-country three thousand miles away. Unfortunately for the Cubans, Spain was better able to enforce its exactions than England was. Cuba's area was limited, its available ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... by law upon the President to nominate and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint all public officers whose appointment is not otherwise provided for in the Constitution or by act of Congress has become very burdensome and its wise and efficient discharge full of difficulty. The civil list is so large that a personal knowledge of any large number of the applicants is impossible. The President must rely upon the representations of others, and these are often made inconsiderately and without any just sense ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... dominions in other North Africa parts of the Christian world. After their occupation of Egypt, they began to overrun North Africa, which Justinian, little more than a century earlier, had reconquered from the Vandals. [10] The Romanized provincials, groaning under the burdensome taxes imposed on them by the eastern emperors, made only a slight resistance to the Moslem armies. A few of the great cities held out for a time, but after the capture and destruction of Carthage [11] in 698 A.D., Arab rule was soon established over the whole ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... holidays was left entirely to the care of the servants. After a couple of years at the university of Leipzig, he entered the Saxon army, and soon became notorious for his good looks, his fine horsemanship, his extravagance, and his mischievous pranks. Military discipline in time of peace proved too burdensome for the young lieutenant, who, after quarrelling with his father, getting deeply into debt, and embroiling himself with the authorities, threw up his commission in 1804. Muskau having become much too hot to hold him, he spent the next years in travelling about the Continent, ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... fortress should have been snatched from her by a despised militia was more than France could bear; and in the midst of a burdensome war she made a crowning effort to retrieve her honor and pay the debt with usury. It was computed that nearly half the French navy was gathered at Brest under command of the Duc d'Anville. By one account his force consisted of eleven ships ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... dialect do not differ from them. A bolder look, however, and an air of independence, usually mark the Montenegrian. Between Cattaro and Montenegro there is no quarantine or restriction of intercourse. Without the latter the former would cease to exist—without the former life would be burdensome in Montenegro. Three times a-week a bazar is held outside each of the land gates, to which the Montenegrians descend, themselves loaded with arms and independence, and their women and mules with the richest products of their country. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... matter of fact the Prince of Wales, from the early days of his manhood, was in his personal and private relations a jovial, honest and honourable English gentleman; possessed of a full sense of his responsibility in much burdensome work and ceremonial and with a growing appreciation, as years passed, of his place as a sort of impartial Empire statesman; possessed, also, of a large fund of animal spirits and capacity for enjoying ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... have been to you. I don't care. It is not my business, as I tell you. But I must say, Gerty, that when you make a string of complaints as the only return for all their hospitality—their excessive and almost burdensome hospitality—I think that even I am bound to say a word. You forget how you come here. You, a perfect stranger, come here as engaged to marry the old lady's only son—to dispossess her—very probably to make impossible a match that she had set her heart on. And both ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... termed that of sorrow, although brightened by many happy events in the domestic life of her children—we reach times that are familiar to every reader. These have been years in which the cares of state have often been exceedingly burdensome. The days of anxiety during the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny have more than once had their counterpart. Afghanistan, Zululand with its Isandula, and the Transvaal War with its Majuba Hill, Egypt, and the Soudan, brought hours ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... time, agriculture and industries were promoted and a coasting trade grew up. In 1778 Charles III. threw open all the ports of Spain to the colonies and allowed freedom of trade with France. But in general the administration of the colony was burdensome, oppressive and inefficient. The people had no voice in the government. Ruling with the help of the Royal Audience, the governor was absolute master of the country, and regulated the smallest details of life. Such time as the officials could spare from the main object of enriching themselves by ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... peace. And if they could be prevailed upon or compelled to do it, the increased expense of a frequent rotation of service, and the loss of labor and disconcertion of the industrious pursuits of individuals, would form conclusive objections to the scheme. It would be as burdensome and injurious to the public as ruinous to private citizens. The latter resource of permanent corps in the pay of the government amounts to a standing army in time of peace; a small one, indeed, but not the less real for being small. Here is a simple ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... allotment be fair and equitable at the time of the revision, it may soon become unfair and burdensome by the natural fluctuations of the population. Births and deaths may in the course of a very few years entirely alter the relative working power of the various families. The sons of the widow may grow up to manhood, whilst two or three able-bodied members of the other ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... by a blow from his rapid hand, and bore bruises for weeks that warned her from interference. Not long, however, was there danger of her meddling. When the baby was a year and a half old. Keery, in her out-door labors,—now grown burdensome enough, since Mr. Dimock neither worked himself nor allowed a man on the premises,—Keery took a heavy cold, and, worn out with a life of hard work, sank into rest quickly, her last act of life being to draw Hitty's face down to her own, wrinkled and wan as it was, scarce so ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... dusty July days came to a close, the pulse of Anzac seemed to quicken. Men went about their work with increased energy, the Cove was busier than ever, and life altogether in that sun-scorched, sordid spot seemed less burdensome. Staff officers walked about with unaccustomed briskness, and made unnaturally long visits to observation points, gazing absorbedly at Turkish terrain. Visible signs there were that the dormant days of Anzac were drawing to an end, and that at last the summer lethargy would give ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... the blessing! Who can tell the gulf between life and death? And yet life may be weak, sickly, unhealthy, painful, trying, anxious, worn, burdensome, joyless, ...
— The Way to God and How to Find It • Dwight Moody
... unfair treatment accorded Christians in ignoring their peculiar services and inducing the world to build churches, to erect altars and monasteries, and to manufacture bells, chalices and images by way of Christian service—works that would have been too burdensome for ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... us do not involve the possibility of immediate invasion of our country by a hostile nation, but they carry a burdensome penalty if we fail to take the right action. Happily we are not required to risk our lives or even work harder, but we must recognize the plain facts that we are not sharing in the general economic progress ...
— Industrial Progress and Human Economics • James Hartness
... professors of scholastic philosophy and theology at Paris did not realize that the new art had in it the possibilities of anti-clerical and heretical use. For the first generation the French printers enjoyed a considerable freedom from censorship and burdensome restrictions. They published, like the Venetians, both the Greek and Latin classics and the works of contemporary writers. Both Louis XII. and Francis I. gave their patronage and encouragement to various ...
— Printing and the Renaissance - A paper read before the Fortnightly Club of Rochester, New York • John Rothwell Slater
... a rank of higher perfection and happiness, or to degrade himself to a state of greater imperfection and misery; necessary, indeed, towards carrying on the business of the universe, but very grievous and burdensome to those individuals who, by their own misconduct, are obliged to submit to it. The test of this his behaviour is doing good, that is, cooperating with his creator, as far as his narrow sphere of action ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... prince, that he might not grow too great; and to restrain the people, that they might not become too insolent—and that none might factiously aspire to public employments, which ought neither to be sold nor made burdensome by a great expense, since otherwise those that serve in them would be tempted to reimburse themselves by cheats and violence, and it would become necessary to find out rich men for undergoing those employments, which ought rather to be trusted ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... the physical force to compel their payment and were also the proprietors of the land on which they were exacted. Now the nobility were entirely stripped of power and in many instances of land as well. How empty and bottomless the oppressive institutions and how burdensome the taxes which rested on nothing but a paper grant, musty with age and backed only by royal complaisance! Want too was always looking in at the doors of the many, while the few were enjoying the national ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... of women consist in remaining contentedly in the place which God has assigned them, and in performing well the duties of their divine calling. If the hand wishes to be in the place of the eye, and the eye wishes to be where the hand is, they become burdensome, and disturb the good order and harmony of the body. Now it is the same with the members of the social body. If women are in the place, or engaged in the occupation which God has chosen for them, they enjoy a profound peace; they rest under His protection; ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... but to the end that there might be some capital of the commonwealth: though true it be, that the congregation, consisting of the inhabitants within the walls, was sufficient to all intents and purposes, without those of the country. These also being exceeding numerous, became burdensome to themselves and dangerous to the commonwealth; the more for their ill-education, as is observed by Xenophon and Polybius, who compare them to mariners that in a calm are perpetually disputing and swaggering one with another, ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... that the old Venetian had any secondary intention. He simply painted the portrait of some aristocratic Mesalina, and was tactful enough to let Cupid hold the mirror in which she tests her majestic allure with cold satisfaction. He looks as though his task were becoming burdensome enough. The picture is painted flattery. Later an 'expert' in the Rococo period baptized the lady with the name of Venus. The furs of the despot in which Titian's fair model wrapped herself, probably more for fear of ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... left rolled up in reverse order. Consequently, before being replaced, the volume, if treated properly, had to be rolled back into its original position, a necessity which careless or lazy people found somewhat burdensome. It was discovered, however, that this could be avoided by folding the roll back and forth, creasing it in the spaces between the columns which were written at right angles to the length of the roll, the result being something like a book printed only on one side of ...
— Books Before Typography - Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices #49 • Frederick W. Hamilton
... prohibited the importation of slaves, no slaves were brought from the south to be sold in its markets. On the other hand, as the sale of slaves was forbidden in that state, an owner was no longer able to get rid of his slaves (who thus became a burdensome possession) otherwise than by transporting him to the south. But when a northern state declared that the son of the slave should be born free, the slave lost a large portion of his market value, since his posterity was no longer ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... militarism will continue to grow. The immense expenditure on military aims, and the consequent growth of taxation, are the favourite arguments of agitators, who declare that the institutions of the Middle Ages were less burdensome ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... I must tell you about another rule," said Mrs. Boardman. "I expect it will seem to you as if we had a great many rules here; but you will soon get used to them, and then you will not find them burdensome. It is against the rules to sit upon your bed during the day-time. You see it will make the bed look untidy, and that is the reason for this rule. Now, we will straighten the bed out nicely, and then it ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull
... love e'er cherished in thy home, Suppliant I beg thee, leave me not thus lone, Forlorn in all my misery which thou seest, In all thou hast heard of here surrounding me! Stow me with other freightage. Full of care, I know, and burdensome the charge may prove. Yet venture! Surely to the noble mind All shame is hateful and all kindness blest. And shame would be thy meed, didst thou fail here But, doing this, thou shalt have glorious fame, When I return alive to Oeta's vale. Come, 'tis the ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... snatch an immediate advantage—to get (let us say) a station for his store—he will play upon the native custom and become a son or a brother for the day, promising himself to cast down the ladder by which he shall have ascended, and repudiate the kinship so soon as it shall grow burdensome. And he finds there are two parties to the bargain. Perhaps his Polynesian relative is simple, and conceived the blood-bond literally; perhaps he is shrewd, and himself entered the covenant with a view to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ever made. Here I had trimmed that enormous plant down to fighting weight. There wasn't a useless inch or ounce about the whole enormous billionaire bulk of it. And then to have Haynes come along, with his burdensome notions, and his socialistic slop. They'd cripple any business, no matter how great a start it had. I told him all that. We didn't waste much time on argument, though. We knew we'd never get together. In half an hour we were talking ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... with the fosterer perhaps six years; and cannot, where this is the practice, be considered as burdensome. The fosterer, if he gives four cows, receives likewise four, and has, while the child continues with him, grass for eight without rent, with half the calves, and all the milk, for which he pays only four cows, when he ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... she threw off her wet coverings, like an exquisite flower, that, lifted by the breeze after a storm, scatters the burdensome rain-drops on every side and stands up more beautiful and blooming ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... subject passed in the reign of the second Charles. They enumerated among their grievances the violation of property, by pressing transport ships into the service without settling any fund of payment for the owners; the condition of the militia, which was equally burdensome and useless; the flagrant partiality in favour of allies, who carried on an open commerce with France, and supplied the enemy with necessaries, while the English laboured under the severest prohibitions, and were in effect ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... with a view, then, of fitting himself for command that Jackson broke away from the restraints of regimental life; not because those restraints were burdensome or distasteful in themselves, but because he felt that whilst making the machine they might destroy the man. Those responsible for the efficiency of the United States army had not yet learned that the mind must be trained as well as the body, that drill is not the beginning and the ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... Ansley, and Lady Brabazon all spoke a word or two in the course of the evening to Lord George on the same subject, but he would only shake his head and say nothing. At that time this affair of his wife's was nearer to him and more burdensome to him than even the Popenjoy question. He could not rid himself of this new trouble even for a moment. He was still thinking of it when all the enquiries about Popenjoy were being made. What did it matter to him how that matter should be settled, if ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... the man who has not learned to work! He is a poor creature. He does not know himself. He depends on others, with no capacity of making returns for the support they give; and let him not fancy that he has a monopoly of enjoyment. Ease, rest, owes its deliciousness to toil; and no toil is so burdensome as the rest of him who has nothing to ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... Virginia aid in the defense of the colony, by imposing upon them Castle Duties, in the form of a toll of powder and shot. The masters had more than once complained of this duty, but as it was not very burdensome it was allowed to remain. Had all the ammunition thus received been used as intended by law, the people would have been saved great expense, and the forts made more serviceable. But the contributions, ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... my strength Most weak, and life most burdensome, I lift mine eyes up to the hills From whence my ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... Gadley. Properly speaking, it should have been Wellington James, that being the order in which he had been christened in the year 1815. But in course of time, and particularly during his school career, it had been borne in upon him that Wellington is a burdensome name for a commonplace mortal to bear, and very wisely he had reversed the arrangement. He was a slightly pompous but simpleminded little old gentleman, very proud of his position as head clerk to ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... irksome; and though moments occurred when I longed to say something that might ingratiate me, and endeavoured to effect an advance in that direction, the words always failed me at the necessary juncture, and I found myself lying crushed as before under a burdensome sense of the ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... well. He kept his money in large trunks, and, while having more than he knew what to do with, still continued to collect money from his subjects. The people had to work for the money to pay the taxes which Tarras levied on them, and life was made burdensome ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... only an occasional tax until the reign of Charles VII, who converted it into a regular impost. But although collected at stated intervals its amount varied from reign to reign, becoming intolerably burdensome under the spendthrift kings, while wise rulers, like Henri IV, considerably reduced it. It was not ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... government, for we have no right to do so, and should step aside for those who understand matters far better than we do, and who manage the machine of state with as much foresight as wisdom. I, at least, am determined to hold myself aloof from all such burdensome affairs, to enjoy my youth and freedom, and I thank God that I have not to bear the weight of administering the government, but have only the pleasant task allotted me of ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... are many. Thus one mode of transacting a sale or transfer is in itself as good as another; and it might be plausibly maintained that, if the business be fairly and honorably conducted, it matters not whether the legally prescribed forms—sometimes burdensome and costly—be complied with or omitted. The law, it may be said, here creates an obligation for which there is no ground in nature or the fitness of things. This we deny. It is intrinsically fitting that all transactions which are liable to dispute ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... burdensome and disagreeable," answered Simon. "We are prisoners while holding these honorable and flattering posts. We can no more leave the Temple than Capet can, for, since his father died, and the crazy legitimists began to call him ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... understand, my dear, that he is a kinsman of your own, and, unless he can be persuaded to relinquish his claim, the owner of Carnaby. Still, I have hopes of coming to terms with him. The charges upon the land are very burdensome." ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... Still, though I don't see how to help it, I cannot but think that the requirements of fashion are becoming needlessly extravagant, particularly in regard to the dress of women. It seems to me, it is making the support of families so burdensome that young men are discouraged from marriage. A young man, in a moderately good business, might cheerfully undertake the world with a wife who could make herself pretty and attractive for seventy-five dollars a year, when ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... much with the Romans, and was a favourite amongst them; but, during his present visit to the Immortal City, he did not, how distantly soever, associate with the English. His carelessness of show, and the independence of a single man from burdensome connexions, rendered his income fully competent to his wants; but, like many proud men, he was not willing to make it seem even to himself, as a comparative poverty, beside the lavish expenses of his ostentatious countrymen. Travel, moreover, had ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... been asked to stand for several places, but he had firmly declined; nevertheless he had become almost a public character during the campaign. From all sides men looked to him for counsel. His correspondence became burdensome, and Mary, having urged him long to let her help, at last ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... farms on easy terms. Seigneurs were glad to give them land without any initial payment and frequently promised exemption from the usual seigneurial dues for the first few years. In any case these dues and services, which will be explained more fully later on, were not burdensome. Any settler of reasonable industry and intelligence could satisfy these ordinary demands without difficulty. Translated into an annual money rental they would have amounted to but a few sous per acre. But this happy situation did not long endure. As the settlers ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... the Mosaic Law, under the sedulous care of the sacerdotal orders it ripened into a most burdensome ritualism. The Brahmanical caste became tyrannical, exacting, and oppressive. With the supposed sacredness of his person, and with the laws made in his favor, the Brahman became intolerable to the people, who were ground down by sacrifices, expiatory offerings, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... but to the accomplishment of a good day's work, and a future crowned with the fruits of honest industry. If the girls were prepared for the future by the watchful care and example of the mothers, so the boys followed in the footsteps of their fathers. They did not look upon their lives as burdensome. They did not feel that the occupation of a farmer was less honourable than any other. The merchant's shop did not possess more attraction than the barn. Fine clothes were neither so durable nor so cheap as home-made suits. Fashionable ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... of the then late rains, and the torrents thereby occasioned, to justify the expense of the first year, yet, as they were all considered and included in the estimate for that year, there could be no pretence for allowing and continuing so large and burdensome a payment as 80,000 rupees per annum for ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... disposal, and become the wife of a gentleman whom every one esteemed. But she, in her present frame of mind, cared little for any disgrace she might bring on others by menial service. She was told that she was a burden, and she desired to cease to be burdensome. ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... were not happy under the rule of the English. One by one, laws were made which they looked upon as oppressive and burdensome. These laws were not intended to benefit the American people, but were designed to enrich the merchants and politicians ...
— Four Great Americans: Washington, Franklin, Webster, Lincoln - A Book for Young Americans • James Baldwin
... the cross doctors all stood hearers, For one carrier put down to make six bearers." Ease was his chief disease; and to judge right, He died for heaviness that his cart went light: His leisure told him that his time was come. And lack of load made his life burdensome. That even to his last breath (there be that say't), As he were press'd to death, he cried, "More weight;" But, had his doings lasted as they were, He had been an immortal carrier. Obedient to the moon he spent his date In course reciprocal, and had his fate Link'd to the mutual ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... was very poor, and regarded the western settlements as mere burdensome sources of expense. In the innumerable Indian wars debts were contracted by the little pioneer communities with the faith that the State would pay them; but the payment was made grudgingly or not at ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... was impossible to so bestow them about his garments that they did not cause large and unsightly protuberances and to carry them openly was not to be thought of. Their weight, too, was so great that it was burdensome to carry them in any manner. Coming into his room unexpectedly in the middle of the forenoon of the Thursday following the acquisition of the weapons, he surprised Hilda Svenson, maid of all work, in the act of examining one ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... said he, "I can love no one as I love you; yet I see your labors are too great for your powers of endurance. Your duties are daily becoming more and more numerous and burdensome. This grieves me sorely. But I know of only one remedy by which you can be relieved. These considerations constrain me to take another wife. This wife shall be under your control in every respect and ever second to you in my affections." ...
— Among the Sioux - A Story of the Twin Cities and the Two Dakotas • R. J. Creswell
... servile flattery or bribery or by spells of magic. Superstition is "a brat of darkness" born in a heart of fear and consternation. It produces invariably "a forced and jejune devotion"; it makes "forms of worship which are grievous and burdensome" to the life; it chills or destroys all free and joyous converse with God; it kills out love and inward peace, and instead of inspiring, heightening, and purifying man's soul, it bends all its energies in the vain attempt to alter the capricious attitude of the superior Being who scares ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... prepared, the little harvest to be gathered in; but it was work that one could do with singing. No one hurried over it, for there was ample time for every duty of the day. No one felt these simple duties burdensome, because they were so natural and inevitable, It was a rare day when some member of the household did not find an hour or two for fishing, and a disappointing breakfast that did not show a ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... reflected how altogether burdensome it was to one-half of humanity that the other half was not better calculated to take care of itself, and resolved that my letter to Rebecca should be at once ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... the side of justice and public morality; by dining with me, though all too seldom; by giving me a quiet hour now and then beneath your vines and fig-trees; and so making this uniform less burdensome to carry. No, no, monsieur, I know you are about to say something very gracious: but no, you shall pay your compliments ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of the embarrassing incidents of travel on these Islands that there are no hotels or Inns outside of Honolulu and Hilo. Whether he will or no the traveler must accept the hospitality of the residents, and this is so general and so boundless that it would impose a burdensome obligation, were it not offered in such a kindly and graceful way as to beguile you into the belief that you are conferring as well as receiving a favor. Nor is the foreigner alone generous; for the native ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... treaties of the Cabinet of St. Petersburg with those of Vienna and St. James, we were on the eve of a Continental war, and our gunboats, instead of being useful in carrying an army to the destruction of the tyrants of the seas, were burdensome, as an army was necessary to guard them, and to prevent these tyrants from capturing or destroying them. Such changes, in so short a period of time as three months, might irritate a temper less patient than ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... solid, compact, impenetrable, unimpressible, unyielding, rigid, adamantine, dense, insoluble, flinty, indurate, indurated, infrangible; arduous, laborious, wearisome, onerous, burdensome, toilsome, tiresome, exhausting, difficult, knotty, intricate, puzzling, incomprehensible; irresistible, uncontrollable; severe, rigorous, unendurable, oppressive, unjust, grievous, calamitous, incompliant; stern, unyielding, obdurate, unfeeling, exacting, insensible, hard-hearted, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... dream only of the things of the other life. There I see all the dwellers of heaven covered with splendor, and especially one, who excels all the others in brightness. O, father, would that I might be there, freed from this decaying and burdensome body!" The father showed him a print of the judgment, in which heaven was depicted with splendor and beauty, and then asked him if it looked like what he had seen. He answered, Aba, which is one ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... be made in a way vastly more satisfactory than by actual war. And this can be done with only a trifling expenditure of treasure, and at no cost whatever in blood or sorrow, nor in suspension of peaceful pursuits, nor in burdensome debts, nor in enormous disbursements for pensions. Let the schools of all kinds and all grades teach patriotism, respect for law, obedience to authority, discipline, courage, physical development, and ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... sculptural work and (i) less than five copies of the work have been published, or (ii) the work has been published in a limited edition consisting of numbered copies, the monetary value of which would make the mandatory deposit of two copies of the best edition of the work burdensome, ...
— Copyright Law of the United States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code, Circular 92 • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.
... oppression of being alone—the monotony of their own consciousness—that they would avoid. They will do anything to escape it,—even tolerate bad companions, and put up with the feeling of constraint which all society involves, in this case a very burdensome one. But if aversion to such society conquers the aversion to being alone, they become accustomed to solitude and hardened to its immediate effects. They no longer find solitude to be such a very bad thing, and settle down comfortably ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... He sang of the lark, and it was the lark's voluble self. The physical beauty of humanity lent itself to every object, animate or inanimate, to the very hours and lapses and changes of time itself. An almost burdensome fulness of expression haunted the gestures, the very dress, the personal ornaments, of the people on the highway. Even Jacques Bonhomme at his labour, or idling for an hour, borrowed from his love, homely as it was, a touch of dignity or grace, and some secret of utterance, which made [57] one think ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... courting, the society of strangers. They still insisted with inflexible rigor on those parts of the law which it was in their power to practise. Their peculiar distinctions of days, of meats, and a variety of trivial though burdensome observances, were so many objects of disgust and aversion for the other nations, to whose habits and prejudices they were diametrically opposite. The painful and even dangerous rite of circumcision was alone capable of repelling ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... makers: he seldom launched a blunder from which some fine aphorism or maxim might not be easily extracted. When a debate arose in the Irish house of commons on the vote of a grant which was recommended by Sir John Parnel, chancellor of the exchequer, as one not likely to be felt burdensome for many years to come—it was observed in reply, that the house had no just right to load posterity with a weighty debt for what could in no degree operate to their advantage. Sir Boyle, eager to defend the measures of government, ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... will detain you no longer. There are some parts of this bill which I highly approve; there are others in which I should acquiesce; but those to which I have now stated my objections appear to me so destitute of all justice, so burdensome and so dangerous to that interest which has steadily enriched, gallantly defended, and proudly distinguished us, that nothing can prevail upon me ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... writing as usual, and he used to spend two evenings a week at Whitechapel, where he taught one of the classes in connection with Toynbee Hall, and where he gained that knowledge of East-end life which is conspicuous in his third book—'Dick Carew.' This, with an ever increasing and often very burdensome correspondence, brought to him by his books, and with a fair share of dinners, 'At Homes,' and so forth, made his life a full one. In a quiet sort of way I believe he was happy during this time. But later on, when, my trouble at ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... securities and it was Bradley's opinion, as well as his own, that it should not be disturbed. The bonds were deposited in the vaults of the Harniss bank, and were perfectly safe. On dividend dates he and Miss Berry could cut and check up the coupons together. So far his duties as trustee were not burdensome. Bradley had invested Cordelia's five thousand for her, so the Berry family's finances were stable. In Bayport they were now regarded as "well off." Cordelia was invited to supper at Captain Elkhanah Wingate's, a sure sign that the ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... her self-discipline may be gathered from the fact, that no child could ever be brought to believe she had not a natural fondness for children, or that she found the care of them burdensome. It was easy to see that she had naturally all those particular habits, those minute pertinacities in respect to her daily movements and the arrangement of all her belongings, which would make the meddling, intrusive demands of infancy and childhood peculiarly hard for her to meet. Yet never ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... blessing, conference a blessing, meditation a blessing, and duty very delightful to the soul. Without this water of life, communion is weak, flat, cold, dead, fruitless, lifeless; there is nothing seen, felt, heard, or understood, in a spiritual, heart-quickening way. Now ordinances are burdensome, sins strong, faith weak, hearts hard, and the faces of our souls dry, like the ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... to endure the burden imposed upon the public treasury by the funding of the debt of the Revolution. More promptly than any other financier of that century he saw that ten dollars could be more easily collected by indirect tax than one dollar by direct levy, and that he could thus avoid those burdensome exactions from the people which had proved so onerous in Europe, and which had just aided in precipitating France into ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... that this prelatical government may be convenient for a state or kingdom. When as 1. They have been burdensome in all ages; what opposites in England have they been to our kings, till their interests were changed? 2. All reformed religions in the world have expelled them, as incompatible with reformation. 3. They have set three kingdoms together by the ears, for the least, and worst of causes, ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... DEFORMITIES.—Masquerading is a modern accomplishment. Girls wear tight shoes, burdensome skirts, corsets, etc., all of which prove so fatal to their health. At the age of seventeen or eighteen, our "young ladies" are sorry specimens of feminality; and palpitators, cosmetics and all the modern paraphernalia are required to make them appear fresh ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... outer envelope inclosed another one on which his name and address were written in a handwriting once so familiar to him, and the sight of which made him start and breathe heavily for a moment as if the air had suddenly grown thick and burdensome. ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... make my present pilgrimage more heavy and burdensome, through the sad occasion to reflect that it is without your knowledge, which, God knows, was far contrary to my heart; for Scripture says, that 'the vow of the daughter should not be binding without the consent of the father,' wherein it may be I have ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... common and cheap so that the habitant could afford to have his own. The seigneur's oven thus caused no grievance. Not so however the seigneur's mill. In the early days when the seigneur had the sole right to build a mill this became for him, in truth, a duty sometimes burdensome; for, whether it would pay or not, the government forced him to build a mill or else abandon the right. But in time the mill proved profitable and to it the peasant must bring his wheat. There might be a good mill near his house, while the seigneur's mill might be a dozen miles away and even ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... thin-lipped, with firm chins and straight, level mouths, narrow foreheads, and the steel-blue inexpressive eyes; men of courage and resolution, no doubt, but without subtleties, or nerves, or that burdensome gift of imagination; sturdy men, a little wanting in delicacy, hardly conspicuous for intellect; to put it frankly, men rather stupid—all of them, in a word, first-class fighting men, but not one ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... Venters thought he made out a third rider, carrying a strange-appearing bundle and disappearing in the sage. But in the rapidity of action and vision he could not discern what it was. Two riders with three horses swung out to the right. Afraid of the long rifle—a burdensome weapon seldom carried by rustlers or riders—they had been put ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... her husband, and supply what was deficient. In her affectionate good sense he found a substitute for the worldly sagacity which he did not possess, and could not learn. To her he intrusted the pecuniary cares, always so burdensome to a literary man. Her influence restrained him from such imprudent enterprises as had caused the misfortunes of his earlier years. She smoothed his path of life, and made it pleasant to him, and lengthened it; for, as he once told me (I believe ...
— Biographical Sketches - (From: "Fanshawe and Other Pieces") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... brother of his natural inheritance. Even the annual 500 florins de Vries finally left him, Spinoza would not altogether accept, offering the plea that so much wealth would surely take his mind away from his philosophy. But he would accept 300 florins, a sum he felt would not be burdensome or dangerous to his soul. This annuity he regularly received until his death. His friends the de Witts, pensioned him too; the heirs to the estate contested Spinoza's claim, whereupon Spinoza promptly withdrew it. This high-minded action ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... laugh when I was at the point of bursting into tears; I, on the contrary, yawned over his useful and learned books, and found them more tedious than I could express. The world of imagination in which my thoughts delighted to exercise themselves, he valued not in the least, whilst the burdensome actuality which he always was seeking for in life, had no charm for me. Nevertheless there were many points in which we accorded—these especially were questions of morals—and whenever this was the case, it afforded both of us ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... the care both of her infant and her family. The charming babe was in perfect health, but her mother's constitution was frail and delicate. We simplified the household duties as much as possible, but still these duties were considerably burdensome to one not used to the performance, and luxuriously educated. The addition of a sick man was likely to be productive of much fatigue. My engagements would not allow me to be always at home, and the state of my patient, ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... and they recognized the trail formerly made on the first journey along its banks. The first encampment for the night was probably twenty miles from home, but the next morning, after they had struck into an entirely new section of the island, the journey grew more burdensome, as the land on both sides of the stream became rough, and in many places the small streams crossed offered such steep sides that frequent detours had to be made to enable the team to ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... of eighteen persons consisted of nineteen, and at first all went well. The clown was very humble, and tried not to be burdensome to them. Fed, clothed and supplied with tobacco, he tried not to be too exacting in the other matter, and if needful, he would have hauled like the others, but the woman ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... permitted to form and to maintain considerable establishments both in Italy and in the provinces, to acquire the freedom of Rome, to enjoy municipal honors, and to obtain at the same time an exemption from the burdensome and expensive offices of society. The moderation or the contempt of the Romans gave a legal sanction to the form of ecclesiastical police which was instituted by the vanquished sect. The patriarch, who had fixed his residence at Tiberias, was empowered to appoint his subordinate ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... said to me, 'Tell me, art thou Abu Hassan al-Ziyadi?'; and I replied, 'Yes, what is thy wish?' Quoth he, 'I am a stranger and am minded to make the pilgrimage; but I have with me a great sum of money, which is burdensome to bear: so I wish to deposit these ten thousand dirhams with thee whilst I make my pilgrimage and return. If the caravan march back and thou see me not, then know that I am dead, in which case ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... eate upp one another; yea many thousandths of idle persons are within this realme, which, havinge no way to be sett on worke, be either mutinous and seeke alteration in the state, or at leaste very burdensome to the commonwealthe, and often fall to pilferinge and thevinge and other lewdnes, whereby all the prisons of the lande are daily pestred and stuffed full of them, where either they pitifully pyne awaye, or els at lengthe are miserably hanged, even xx'ti. at a clappe oute of some one ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... reaped, the swine were turned into the stubble and roamed about the underwood; and when they had increased their weight by the feast of roots and mast and acorns, they were slaughtered and salted for the winter fare, only so many being kept alive as might not prove burdensome to the scanty resources of the people. Salting down the animals for the winter consumption was a very serious expense. All the salt used was produced by evaporation in pans near the seaside, and a couple of bushels of salt often cost as much as a sheep. This must have compelled the people to ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... Trinity is again an attempt to express the union of Divine and human, "the inauguration of the Divine Nature within human life." The dogma, however, involves ideas of a particular generation, and so threatens to become, and has indeed become, burdensome to a later age which no longer holds these ideas. Further, the doctrine of the Trinity has mixed up a fundamental truth of religion with abstruse philosophical speculations, and this has provided a stumbling-block rather than ...
— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones
... That was a burdensome night. The prince turned on his bed repeatedly, and asked himself whether he had not been blind, and if he had not received sight that day for the first time in order to convince himself of his folly and nothingness. How ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... but common thanks for it. —Yet should I chance, my Wicks, to see An over-leaven look in thee, To sour the bread, and turn the beer To an exalted vinegar; Or should'st thou prize me as a dish Of thrice-boil'd worts, or third-day's fish, I'd rather hungry go and come Than to thy house be burdensome; Yet, in my depth of grief, I'd be One that should drop ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... postal scale, baby scale. [Science of gravity] statics. V. be heavy &c. adj.; gravitate, weigh, press, cumber, load. [Measure the weight of] weigh, poise. Adj. weighty; weighing &c. v.; heavy as lead; ponderous, ponderable; lumpish[obs3], lumpy, cumbersome, burdensome; cumbrous, unwieldy, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... understanding sufficient to set up for themselves, and introduce husbandry among their respective tribes; and that there be a moderate tax upon all the granted lands, after the first ten or fifteen years, and also some duty upon mills, etc., which shall not be burdensome to the inhabitants, for the support of the school, or missionaries among the Indians, etc. By this means much expense, and many inconveniences occasioned by our great distance from them, would be prevented, our missionaries ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... some great grief for the exercise of their patience and for increase of their merit. This appeareth not only by St. Paul, in the place before remembered, but also by the holy man Job, who in sundry places of his disputations with his burdensome comforters forbore not to say that the clearness of his own conscience declared and showed to himself that he deserved not that sore tribulation that he then had. Howbeit, as I told you before, I will not advise every man at adventure to be bold upon this manner of comfort. But ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... strength, and gymnastic feats, before and during the march; play no jokes upon your comrades, that will make their day's work more burdensome. Young people are very ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... who feels that her present duties are as burdensome as she can bear, when she realizes what she can accomplish for her country and for mankind by the ballot, will as reverently thank God for the opportunity and will as zealously discharge her new obligations, as will her more radical sister who has long and wearily ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... and tries to be what he is not. But you will ask, what has Thomas Carlyle to do with a visit to the Crystal Palace? My only reply is, "Nothing," and if my remarks upon him have taken up the space that should have been devoted to the Exhibition, and what I have written not prove too burdensome to read, my next will be "a week ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... enterprises in this field would be burdensome to enumerate. Shanghai is to be connected by rail with Tientsin (which means Peking), and with Nanking and Suchow. Lines to penetrate the western provinces are already mapped out; and even in Mongolia it is proposed to supersede the camel by the iron [Page 204] horse on the caravan route to Russia. ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... their teachings, save by way of warning example. Plato is food for adolescents. And a comfort, possibly, in old age, when the judicial faculties of the mind are breaking up and primitive man, the visionary, reasserts his ancient rights. For questioning moods grow burdensome with years; after a strain of virile doubt we are glad to acquiesce once more—to relapse into Platonic animism, the logic of valetudinarians. The dog ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... that my mother loved me; but there were moments when she spurned me, when my presence was burdensome, intolerable to her. At such times she felt, as it were, an involuntary aversion for me—and was terrified afterward, reproaching herself with tears and clasping me to her heart. I attributed these momentary fits of hostility to her shattered ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... The military character of Alphonso may, however, explain this in a great degree, as all his energies were directed towards the extension of dominion in the Moorish kingdom of Fez; and the business of discovery was devolved as a burdensome and unprofitable task on the farmers of the trade to the coast of Africa, which appears to have become extensive and lucrative, after the discovery of Guinea and its islands, and the establishment of the sugar colonies ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... most notable examples of gardening are found in the parks, boulevards, and cemeteries. By these flaring displays thousands of modest cottagers who might easily provide, on their small scale, lovely gardens about their dwellings at virtually no cost and with no burdensome care, get a notion that this, and this only, is artistic gardening and hence that a home garden for oneself would be too expensive and troublesome to be thought of. On the other hand, a few are tempted to mimic them on a petty scale, and so spoil their little grass-plots and amuse, without ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... course, did my professional duties, which had for the first few years been paid for in acts of kindness and voluntary labour by my little flock; now I have the satisfaction of reaping a reward without proving burdensome to my parishioners. My farm is increasing, and besides the salary arising from my curacy I have something additional for the school, which is paid by Government. We may now say it is good for us to be here, seeing that God has ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... but live till burdensome they prove, My life would be immortal as my love. Your wish, ere it ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... Being a maiden lady, with no family but her one own maid, she lived in lodgings of course. People at Littlebath, indeed, are much given to lodgings. They are mostly a come-and-go class of beings, to whom the possession of furniture and the responsibilities of householding would be burdensome. But then Miss Todd's lodgings were in the Paragon, and all the world knows how much it costs to secure eligible rooms in the Paragon: two spacious sitting-rooms, for instance, a bedroom, and a closet for one's own maid. And Miss Todd ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... Indians, though agriculturists, were in the early stages of development as such—a fact also attested by the imperfect and one-sided division of labor between the sexes, the men as a rule taking but small share of the burdensome tasks of clearing ...
— Indian Linguistic Families Of America, North Of Mexico • John Wesley Powell
... the Vatican; and his misery was prolonged by a pension of six thousand ducats from the pope and cardinals. His two sons, Andrew and Manuel, were educated in Italy; but the eldest, contemptible to his enemies and burdensome to his friends, was degraded by the baseness of his life and marriage. A title was his sole inheritance; and that inheritance he successively sold to the kings of France and Arragon. [91] During his transient prosperity, Charles the Eighth was ambitious of joining the empire ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon |
