"Incumbrance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... the philosophy to believe that he was old and helpless,—a child for the second time,—and that by dying he was but performing his duty to society! To be placed again in a position where he would be an incumbrance to those whom he could not call kindred was, in his opinion, a crime he ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... white man, many a Tlascalan locked in the savage embrace of some heroic Aztec, stumbled or 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 ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... 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 merely grazed his ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... came her freedom, 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 seldom ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... a 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 them. But do you know, Miss, that our sex feel the most profound contempt for a woman ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... these days there is need of "little books on great subjects." It was something of that feeling which led me to the idea of supplementing the large and learned works of Muston, Monastier, Gilly, and others, by a pocket volume, so small that the tourist might not feel it an incumbrance, and yet so comprehensive, that those who have not the leisure for larger works, might obtain useful knowledge of ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... the Letter which you have writ me hath given me some incumbrance, and made me more then three times to ruminate upon the question you propounded to me concerning Marriage; for it is a matter of great importance, that ought to be well pondered and considered of, before one ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... succeed to the inheritance, presuming that the next heir would take the best care of an estate, to which he has a prospect of succeeding: and this they boast to be "summa providentia[i]." But in the mean time they forget, how much it is the guardian's interest to remove the incumbrance of his pupil's life from that estate, for which he is supposed to have so great a regard[k]. And this affords Fortescue[l], and sir Edward Coke[m], an ample opportunity for triumph; they affirming, that to commit the custody of an infant to him that is next in succession, ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... 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
... the length of her tail and the 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 ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... 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 Cumberland ...
— Cheap Postage • Joshua Leavitt
... 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
... 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
... 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, having ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... where the means of transport is limited, 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 of little or no use, while the rest required very careful treatment, in order ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... palings, along which he rushed, in the vain 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; ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... cold, unfeeling world, at best! as experience of long years doth confirm. Thy little day hath not yet taught thee, that the world is born of sin, for thou only lookest on the human face as divine. How Natalie was to render assistance to her mother, by relieving her of any incumbrance, of which she, herself, might be the cause, had not yet been matured, until Delwood had spoken of the popular picture-gallery, of the unknown artist; when as we have said, her face was lit up with a new thought. "I ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... 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
... and Paine's divisions as garrisons at Nashville, Bragg's force would have outnumbered Buell's command before he reached Louisville three to two. With the defeat of Buell, Nashville would have been worse than worthless, proving an incumbrance instead of a benefit. On the other hand, with Bragg driven out of Kentucky, and opening the struggle for that State in Tennessee, the possession of Nashville as a second base of supplies for our army was an absolute necessity. Bragg, however, was correct in refusing ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... your charge embraces only the wounded of the garrison. This dead man can only be an incumbrance to you, and it shall be my care that his ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... 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 ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... are frequently gratified upon the spot. This, however, is comparatively nothing. If any of the women happen to be with child, which in this manner of life happens less frequently than if they were to cohabit only with one man, the poor infant is smothered the moment it is born, that it may be no incumbrance to the father, nor interrupt the mother in the pleasures of her diabolical prostitution. It sometimes indeed happens, that the passion which prompts a woman to enter into this society, is surmounted when she becomes a mother, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... a form of poetry recording the more dramatic actions of kings, warriors, and statesmen. Homer and the early ballads are indeed the first historians of their countries, and long after Homer one of the most illustrious of the critics of antiquity described history as merely 'poetry free from the incumbrance of verse.' The portraits that adorned it gave some insight into human character; it breathed noble sentiments, rewarded and stimulated noble actions, and kindled by its strong appeals to the imagination high patriotic ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... 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 ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... 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 ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... accounts of the growth and development of the West, and decided to be unusually economical in the future, so as to be able to pay up the note due to Mr. Crawford, that he might feel that he owned his Western property without incumbrance. ...
— Andy Grant's Pluck • Horatio Alger
... they were 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 their escape ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... 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 ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... the moment in as low a condition and as badly managed as it was possible for estates to be. It was not the fault of Mr. Longstaffe, who had all the business of the county in his hands, and who had tried in vain to save from incumbrance the property which Lord Markland had weighed down almost beyond redemption. Mr. Longstaffe, indeed, when he heard of the fatal accident to his client, had been unable to refrain from a quick burst of self-congratulation over a long minority, before he composed his countenance ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... from executing that maneuver. After being foiled in this manner two or three times his turtleship seemed disposed to abandon this mode of proceeding, and tried to paddle off with his forward flippers, as if to escape from the incumbrance. Church was now in his glory. By PULLING one hind flipper and PUSHING the other he could guide the reptile in whatever direction he pleased, and soon navigated him alongside the schooner, when a rope was hospitably ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... 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 idea of compromise, and make the best of things as ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... so often dog the footsteps of honest effort, while the success that comes from trickery and dishonor is greeted with the world's applause? How is it that the loving father of one family is taken by death, while the worthless incumbrance of another is spared? Why is there so much unnecessary pain, sorrowing and suffering in the world—why, indeed, should ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... is 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
... self-denial, and much pinching. We 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 but ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... enemy crushed under his hunter, and evidently in the pangs of death. He had been flung on a heap of stones, and the weight of the falling horse had broken his spine. I poured some brandy down his throat, relieved him from the incumbrance of the hunter—attempted to give him hope—but he told me that it was useless; that he felt death coming on, and that I was the last man who should wish him to live, "as he had pledged himself to my extinction." For a while, his recollections were wild, and he talked of events in France ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... in him. In unfilial fashion Apollonius had concealed the danger from him in order to be able to take the whole credit for the rescue to himself. Or he looked upon his father as a helpless, blind old man who was not, and could not be anything but an incumbrance. This latter feeling the old gentleman could forgive him less than the former, even in face of his grief over his son's death, which he now deemed a certainty. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he became that things would never have come to such ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... 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 ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... been utterly spoiled. A hundred petty annoyances and griefs, which Mary barely remarked, and which brave Mrs. Buckley, in her strong determination of following her lord to the ends of the earth, and of being as much help and as little incumbrance to him as she could, had laughed at, were to her great misfortunes. Why, the very fact, as she told me, of sitting on the top of a swinging jolting dray was enough to keep her in a continual state of agony and terror, so that when she alit at night, and sat down, she could not help weeping ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... 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
... serious 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 21 cwt. of sugar, ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... whites, but only to liberate slaves. Soon, also, he placed pikes in the hands of his black prisoners. But that ceremony did not make soldiers of them, as his favorite maxim taught. They held them in their hands with listless indifference, remaining themselves, as before, an incumbrance instead of a reenforcement. He gave his white prisoners notice that he would hold them as hostages, and informed one or two that, after daylight, he would exchange them for slaves. Before the general fighting began, he endeavored to effect an armistice or compromise ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... me. He was the only one who seemed to care for me, or to have any sympathy for me. But he, like myself, was poor; and, being compelled to flee from our home, and to live in obscurity, where my husband could not find me out, the child was an incumbrance I had no means of supporting. I parted with her-yes, yes, I parted with her to Mother Bridges, who kept a stand at a corner ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... contracted my design, determining to confide in myself, and no longer to solicit auxiliaries, which produced more incumbrance than assistance; by this I obtained at least one advantage, that I set limits to my work, which would in time be ended, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... 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 ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... great deal too quick, as foreigners are with things which require quiet comprehension. For instance, I was annoyed at having a stupid woman put over me, as if I could not mind myself—a cook, or a nurse, or housekeeper, or something very useful in the Hockin family, but to me a mere incumbrance, and (as I thought in my wrath sometimes) a spy. What was I likely to do, or what was any one likely to do to me, in a thoroughly civilized country, that I could not even stay in private lodgings, where I had a great deal to think of, without this dull ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... on, "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 ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... 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 as dull ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... in both Notre Dame and the Abbey Church of St. Ouen, is found that gorgeous functionary, commonly called "the Suisse," who seeks your gold or a portion thereof, in return for which he will favour you by opening an iron wicket into the choir, an incumbrance unnoticed elsewhere, except at ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... Creole and Spanish women are born and bred to this, 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, he is held to an excuse, and must prove a headache, or other suitable ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... portcullis. beaver dam; trocha^; 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 ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... her in 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, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... unacquainted with the principles 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
... Burgoyne to restrain the Indians, who were an incumbrance to his army, and whose conduct alienated great numbers of Loyalists ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... associative system, here in faultless operation, by which the fragments of a large piece of ground are paid for by degrees and cleared of all incumbrance in eight or nine years by the profit on the contributed moneys. This plan is assisted by the best men in the town, who participate in the associations, receive themselves a reasonable profit, and supply the credit and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... gold brocade, Go pray, in sober Norwich crape array'd. Thy 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 ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... taking it along for a 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
... 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, as they ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... not quite so easily as ye seem to opine. I grant most of your folk left the Highlands expedited as it were, and free from the incumbrance of baggage; but it is unspeakable the quantity of useless sprechery which they have collected on their march. I saw one fellow of yours (craving your pardon once more) with ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 the fruitful Past ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... and 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 ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... 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 ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... to his 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 for ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... circumstances for the reform of abuses that had been the growth of many months long. But Regnier, the second in command, was made of "different stuff;" he was a harsh and stern disciplinarian, who rarely forgave a first, never a second offense, and who deeming the Salle de Police as an incumbrance to an army on service, which, besides, required a guard of picked men, that might be better employed elsewhere, usually gave the preference to the shorter sentence of "four spaces and a fusillade." Nor was he particular in the classification of those crimes he thus expiated: from the most ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... 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 ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... much the worse 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 ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... this decision, but 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 view of ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... What's Conscience?—he is safe from Law— The closest Union can divide, Take Husbands from their Spouses' side, But it turns out to better Use, Wives from their Husbands to seduce; And as their Journey lies up-Hill, Ev'ry Incumbrance were an Ill; And lest their Speed shou'd be withstood, He takes ...
— The Methodist - A Poem • Evan Lloyd
... anywhere; 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
... warranty deed a piece of land over which there is a public or a private way, without conveying subject to such way; for if you do you may be called upon to make up the difference in value in the land with the incumbrance upon it and with it off, which is regarded as a just compensation for the injury ...
— The Road and the Roadside • Burton Willis Potter
... reinterred, after the 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 choir. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... irregular 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. ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... honor in the 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 ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... about walking," said Ormond, with a little laugh; "but I'll come with you if you don't mind an incumbrance." ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... so to the starving wretches who came from the high lands far north beyond the Niger. Scarcely a day broke without one or more of the lean, weak negroes being attacked, and as a sick slave is only an incumbrance, they were left to die while we were marched onward. Whose turn it might next be to be left behind to be devoured alive none knew, and in this agony of fear and suspense we pushed forward from day to day until we at last ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... pair. 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
... can mortgage or 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 ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... 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, of high-pressure ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 575 - 10 Nov 1832 • Various
... 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 ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... 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 ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... 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 library ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... has been hardly earned by your mental labour, and with difficulty obtained by me for you, only by great perseverance. We are therefore most anxious it should be the means of freeing you from all debt or incumbrance, in order that your mind may be once more at ease, and that you may revel with your muse at will, regardless of all hauntings save hers, and when she troubles you can pay her off in her own coin. The sum you stated some time since I think was L35 as sufficient to clear all ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... 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 ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... 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 ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... to 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 take that ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... 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 of lowering the rates ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... what she meant for a severe rebuke. I happened to be walking with her and a gentleman whose wife had lately experienced, on some occasion, a narrow escape of her life; "and so Miss Bassett I had nearly become a gentleman free of incumbrance, and then I should have come ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... 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, ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... up in an unsavoury scandal with a common soldier: annoying to have people going about with long faces, when she had planned a festive week. Really this Claire Gifford was becoming more and more of an incumbrance! Mrs Fanshawe paused with her hand on the coffee-pot, to ask ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... that hypocritical tone!" said the man. "I did not leave you so destitute; and I took the child off your hands that no incumbrance might ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... he was insane. Therefore nobody thought of blaming Dr. 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 ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 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
... the 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 ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... Belief. It was almost inevitable that speculative minds, starting from this point, should diverge into one or other of three courses; either following the line of the "subject" exclusively, and treating the "object" as a superfluous incumbrance, so as to reach, as Schulz and Maimon did, a pure Subjective Idealism, akin to utter Skepticism; or following the line of the "object," and giving it greater prominence than it had in the system of Kant, so as to lay the foundation, as Jacobi and Herbart did, of a system of Objective ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... 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 ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... uppermost, near to the spot to which it is understood the tiger usually retires during noon-tide heat. If by chance the animal should tread on one of these smeared leaves his fate is certain. He commences by shaking his paw, with the view to remove the adhesive incumbrance, but finding no relief from that expedient, he rubs the nuisance against his jaw with the same intention, by which means his eyes, ears, &c. become covered with the same substance. This occasions such uneasiness as causes him to roll perhaps among many more smeared leaves, till at ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... 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 ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... received me with great joy and satisfaction, as one risen from the dead. Finding that the wearing apparel which I had left under his care was not sold nor sent to England, I lost no time in resuming the English dress, and disrobing my chin of its venerable incumbrance. Karfa surveyed me in my British apparel with great delight; but regretted exceedingly that I had taken off my beard; the loss of which, he said, had converted me from a man into a boy. Dr. Laidley readily undertook to discharge all the pecuniary engagements I ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... now deemed it 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 ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... 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
... but 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, was soon persuaded to think differently. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... 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
... 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 ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... 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," with an inundation ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... sombrero, low 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 like a ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... 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 imagined; which there appears ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... in the parents. Under the conventional (unnatural) management of the infant, these hereditary tendencies to weakness and disease and their corresponding signs in the iris become more and more pronounced, proceeding through the various stages of incumbrance from acute, infantile diseases through chronic catarrhal conditions ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... you wrong me when you imagine that I care for any one but you. I did disapprove of your following me here, for you know that I must depend upon my wits for a living, and I think I might do better without the incumbrance of a wife." ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton
... of Walkirk, I fear with some petulance, if he had known of the incumbrance attached to this candidate; and he replied that she had informed him that she was married, but he had no idea she intended to bring her husband with her. He was very sorry that this was necessary, but in his judgment the man ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... pleasant to live in perpetual vacancy, that he soon dismissed his attention as an useless incumbrance, and resigned himself to carelessness and dissipation, without any regard to the future or the past, or any other motive of action than the impulse of a sudden desire, or the attraction of immediate pleasure. The absent were immediately forgotten, and the hopes or fears of others had no ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... 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 ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... of the pony, with the life yet remaining (for they are 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
... an old mulatto woman took care of him and nursed him as well as her scanty means would admit. The fever continued for seven days, when he became convalescent and able to walk out; but feeling that he was an incumbrance to those around him, he packed his clothes into a little bundle and started for Charleston on foot. He reached that city after four days' travelling over a heavy, sandy road, subsisting upon the charity of poor ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... 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
... letter from my confidential man in Gray's Inn, London, saying (in reply to 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 ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... is 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 ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... 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
... be owned, had an incumbrance, which she kept as far as might be in the lower regions of her house, but which was now and again encountered on the stair—a shambling son, one Joe, mostly in shirt —sleeves, distilling familiarity and beer from every pore. He was a ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... cried Mr. Grewgious. 'Thank you, my dear! The honour is almost equal to the pleasure. Miss Twinkleton, madam, I have had a most satisfactory conversation with my ward, and I will now release you from the incumbrance of my presence.' ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... retaining their places—I mind my knitting, events progress, circumstances glide past; I see one which, if pushed ever so little awry, will render untenable the post I wish to have vacated—the deed is done—the stumbling-block removed—and no one saw me: I have not made an enemy, I am rid of an incumbrance." ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... 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
... 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 ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... and since 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
... 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 indomitable spirit of avarice ...
— The King of the Golden River - A Short Fairy Tale • John Ruskin.
... your 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
... Diana had already done, and as the Princess was like at any moment to do, unless they took in 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 ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... forward or deliver this and is on his return to England, can inform you of our different movements, but I am very uncertain as to my own return. He will probably be down in Notts, some time or other; but Fletcher, whom I send back as an incumbrance (English servants are sad travellers), will supply his place in the interim, and describe our travels, which ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... 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, and an appearance remarkable and distinguished. Few could approach him on any duty, or, ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... 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 to remain ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... 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 ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... stone shirt, killed Si-kor', (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 bride ...
— Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians • John Wesley Powell
... in Spilsbury or Godbold. It is not the knowledge, but the use which is made of it, that is productive of real benefit. To say that the Scottish peasant is less likely than the Englishman to become an incumbrance on his parish, is saying, in other words, that this country is less populous,—that there are fewer villages and towns,—that the agricultural classes, from the landed proprietor down to the cottager, are individually more knit and cemented together;—above ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... back, ma'am, sit down; it's a pity—you've no business, ma'am, as I said before, to have incumbrances, when you haven't got any visible means of support. Now, if you only had one, one incumbrance—and that you'd no business to have"—said the old gent, doggedly, tapping an antique tortoise-shell snuff box, and applying "the pungent grains of titillating dust," as Pope observes, to his proboscis, "if you had only one incumbrance—but you've ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... time, to alienate them 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, in Sir ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... I was big enough to run away, of course I ran away. Then I became a 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. ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... This is how I used to draw it in my innocent childhood, but it is incorrect. More than one German on the bayonet at a time is an incumbrance. And it would be swank—a thing we ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... in her estimation; a thing in the abstract, and a most charming thing on the whole. He, on the other hand, looked upon her not as a woman, but as a soul, and a purified soul at that: an angel, indeed, without the incumbrance of wings, was she, and with a rather more comprehensive knowledge of dress than is attributed to most of angels. But two people cannot go on forming an ideal of each other continuously without at some time reaching a ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... 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
... been 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
... Manhood, that may not be: From lechery fast you flee. For incumbrance it will bring thee, And all ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... 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, ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... 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 had saved ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... property, and invites the young females of the village to assist in rendering homage to his medicine; all the inhabitants may join in the solemnity, which is performed in the open plain and by daylight, but the dance is reserved for the virgins or at least the unmarried females, who disdain the incumbrance or the ornament of dress. The feast is opened by devoting the goods of the master of the feast to his medicine, which is represented by a head of the animal itself, or by a medicine bag if the deity be an invisible being. The ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... last, *fragments And in the privy softely it cast. Who studieth* now but faire freshe May? *is thoughtful Adown by olde January she lay, That slepte, till the cough had him awaked: Anon he pray'd her strippe her all naked, He would of her, he said, have some pleasance; And said her clothes did him incumbrance. And she obey'd him, be her *lefe or loth.* *willing or unwilling* But, lest that precious* folk be with me wroth, *over-nice How that he wrought I dare not to you tell, Or whether she thought it paradise or hell; But there I let them worken in their wise Till evensong ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... of the corps were ordered to unsling knapsacks and divest themselves of every incumbrance preparatory to a charge. Colonel Upton commanding the Second brigade of the First division, was directed to take twelve picked regiments from the corps and lead them in a charge against the right center ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... here, and I have far too many engagements not to feel it. To end the matter at once, I intend to borrow L10,000, with which my son's marriage-contract allows me to charge my estate. At Whitsunday and Martinmas I will have enough to pay up the incumbrance of L3000 due to old Moss's daughter, and L5000 to Misses Ferguson, in whole or part. This will enable us to dispense in a great measure with bank assistance, and sleep in spite of thunder. I do not know whether ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... 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] Its highest degree I call astonishment; ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... 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 he had ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett |
