"Encumbrance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... me to say that it is my duty to be by your side, my husband." And she colored at this word, being the first time she had ever used it. Raynal was silent. She murmured on, "I would not be an encumbrance to you, sir: I should not be useless. Gentlemen, I could add more to his comfort than he ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... therefore were we the more devout a great deal. And yet we were cast down, and beaten down many times to the hard earth by winds and thunders and tempests. But evermore God of his grace holp us. And so we passed that perilous vale without peril and without encumbrance, thanked ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... her feet from her long, heavy skirt, with its manifold flounces switching about them, while she is laboring to lift them with a movement of her hips and pinioned arms, and yet feels herself liable every instant to be thrown from her balance by all this encumbrance—let her undertake this, and she will learn that there is something besides study that is endangering the health of our school girls. Again, let her take her stand at the top of one of these long flights of stairs—the last ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... to cover a multitude of sins. The only drawback to her perfect content in these early days was the presence of her uncle Charles, whom she could not bear, and who, for his part, looked upon her as a mere encumbrance, and her being with them at all as a piece of fatuity on the part of his brother-in-law. There were constant skirmishes between them while they were together; but even these ceased after a time, for Moore, who, ever since his sister's marriage, had clung fitfully to M. Linders, as ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... rider. The Margrave's long beard and flowing hair were red; scarlet, one may say, but perhaps that was the fiery reflection from the torches. Servants, scullions, stablemen carried the lights; the men-at-arms had no encumbrance but their weapons, and the business-like way in which they lined up along the shore was a study in discipline, and a terror to any one unused to war. Above all the din and clash of arms rang the hearty, stentorian laughter of the Red Margrave actually echoing back in gusts of ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... the horses would be an encumbrance to them in the forest, they were sold to the last party of Northmen they encountered before entering it, and they pursued their way on foot. The greatest caution was observed; every sound was marked, and at the call of a human voice, the low of cattle, or the bleating of sheep, they turned ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... "I shall seek a shoemaker who has no such encumbrance. Is the woman feeble-minded ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... savage into a very common European. But, whatever Lali was, it was abundantly evident that she must be reckoned with at all points, and that she was more likely to become a very startling figure in the Armour household than a mere encumbrance to be blushed for, whose eternal absence were preferable ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... in his hand, that he may run with greater ease, illustrates a custom, still common in Egypt, among the Arabs and peasants of the country, who find the power of the foot greater when freed from the encumbrance ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... would soon be made easy; for I had found a prodigious vessel on the shore, able to carry me on the sea, which he had given orders to fit up, with my own assistance and direction; and he hoped, in a few weeks, both empires would be freed from so insupportable an encumbrance." ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chapter 12.—Translator's Note.) They are hunters of Spiders and diggers of burrows. The game, the food of the coming larva, is first caught and paralysed; the home is excavated afterwards. As the heavy prey would be a grave encumbrance to the Wasp in search of a convenient site, the Spider is placed high up, on a tuft of grass or brushwood, out of the reach of marauders, especially Ants, who might damage the precious morsel in the lawful owner's absence. After fixing her booty on the verdant pinnacle, the Pompilus casts ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... he said as he entered. "Rinaldo, do you see that the men come out one by one. As each comes out a weapon will be placed in his hands, and he will be then led to the starboard side of the hold, which is free from encumbrance, and will there stand until he receives orders to move further. Remember that not the slightest noise must be made, for if any stumbled and fell, and the noise were heard above, it might be thought that some of the stores ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... gave the signal of departure, the camp was almost instantly broke up, and the troops fell into their ranks without delay or confusion. Besides their arms, which the legendaries scarcely considered as an encumbrance, they were laden with their kitchen furniture, the instruments of fortification, and the provision of many days. [62] Under this weight, which would oppress the delicacy of a modern soldier, they were trained by a regular step to advance, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... all there; what had given way was the paint; and gleaming up at her from the bottom of the bath tub, like a full moon through the clouds, was a bright and shining circle of the tin, free from all encumbrance in the shape of paint ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy
... when I unhesitatingly pay the extravagant interest they are pleased to demand? They know that they are all knaves. They are aware that I am rich, for I have inherited a great fortune, which is certainly without encumbrance; for though I could raise a million to-morrow upon my estates in Poitiers, I have up to this time not ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... by the knitting of his brow, that the movement did not satisfy his military sagacity. "What a quantity of baggage!" he murmured: "how will it be possible to carry such a train through the country, or how to fight, with such an encumbrance embarrassing every step? Unless the Spanish generals are the greatest fools on earth, or unless Dupont has a miracle worked for him, he must either abandon three-fourths of his waggons, or ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... grateful to you, Mr. Grainger," said Sheila. "I fear I am going to prove a great encumbrance to you." ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke
... you would experience small trouble eluding the Spaniards, or even cutting your way through them, were I not with you. Yet this is not beyond remedy. I had sincerely hoped to prove of service when I usurped the slave's place in the boat; instead, I am an encumbrance, a weakling whom you must protect at the risk of your own lives. Fortunately it is not yet too late to leave you free; it cannot be many miles back to New Orleans, and the current would bear me swiftly downward. I have loyal friends in the town to hide the daughter of Lafreniere, should ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... left a fellow-creature to perish. It was certainly considered incumbent on his son to support him, and he was fortunate in that son's being a very good man; but a few more such journeys to a man of seventy would not impose this encumbrance upon him much longer. Illumea, the mother of several grown-up children, lived also in the same hut with her other relations. She did not, however, interfere, as in Greenland, with the management of her ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... the fraction of an inch the old-fashioned "hand-colored" daguerreotype of his father in Confederate uniform. "Please don't wear that black dress again. It is no cause for mourning that we are rid of an encumbrance." ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... 'it is because I hate a petticoat encumbrance as much as I love warm feet. Look there,' (offering the stocking to my inspection:) 'is it not ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... conducted himself with singular generosity and good faith. He had opened a free passage to the Spaniards through every part of his empire; and had furnished every facility for the execution of their plans. When these were accomplished, and he remained an encumbrance on their hands, notwithstanding their engagement, expressed or implied, to release him,—and Pizarro, as we have seen, by a formal act, acquitted his captive of any further obligation on the score of the ransom,—he was arraigned before ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... said Cecilia. "But the men who want jobs don't generally advertise themselves as 'complete with sister.' I'm what's technically known as an encumbrance, Bob." ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... an encumbrance; and now that poor fellow has gone, we have one apiece. Bring his ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... which induces pressure upon the nerves as they emerge through the apertures between the spinal bones. A careful examination of the back will show the site, and often the nature, of the thickening or encumbrance which ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... vicar of St. Ewold's, in East Barsetshire, and had not yet got himself settled there when he married the Widow Bold, a widow with belongings in land and funded money, and with but one small baby as an encumbrance. Nor had he even yet married her, had only engaged himself so to do, when they made him Dean of Barchester—all which may be read in the diocesan and county chronicles. And now that he was wealthy, the new dean did contrive to pay the debts of his poor friend, some ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... we'll guard against. And now, Charley, with prudence and caution, we'll clear off every encumbrance, and O'Malley Castle shall yet be what it was in days of yore. Ay, boy, with the descendant of the old house for its master, and not that general—how do you call him?—that came down here to contest ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... their own accord, have already entered upon with such decision. Even if loyal duty don't prompt it, interest will. For slavery, after having been crippled as it has been by the war, even if it could live, would only be an encumbrance. But it can't live. It is already half dead. Let the loyal men of the South finish it and bury it in their ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... on these things, it has always seemed a worthier honour to be the instrument of making you bestir yourselves in this high matter, than to enjoy all that office can bestow—office, of which the patronage would be an irksome encumbrance, the emoluments superfluous to one content with the rest of his industrious fellow-citizens that his own hands minister to his wants; and as for the power supposed to follow it—I have lived near half a century, and I have learned that power ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... did well to advance as far in a day as we now do in an hour. To make a country tour, required then the same precautions, as to supplies, as it now does to make the grand tour of Europe. To have carried coin would have been a great encumbrance, as well as risk from robbers. How accurately Bunyan knew the mode used in such cases to secure supplies, and with what beautiful simplicity ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... advantage, that if gas had to be let off, so as to descend, that which was in the outer balloon would go first; and, were it completely emptied, the smaller one would still remain intact. The outer envelope might then be cast off as a useless encumbrance; and the second balloon, left free to itself, would not offer the same hold to the currents of air as a ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... without a dot? Thank you, mademoiselle. I am an expense to myself. My wife must not be an additional encumbrance." ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... uncomfortable encumbrance, it is unsafe for any valuable dog to be seen, even on his own doorsteps, for the "dog-catcher" is ever on the ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... is of no account," said Mr. St. Laurent; "she would sell better without it. If I buy her, I shall give away the little encumbrance." ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... parts of Asia by a line extending from the sea that is opposite Cyprus to the Euxine. And this tract is the neck of the whole peninsula, the distance of the journey being such that five days are spent on the way by a man without encumbrance. 86 ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... I exclaimed, as a spear came whizzing in over the parapet, passing clean through the fleshy part of my right thigh. In the excitement of the moment it did not take me a second to relieve myself of my unpleasant encumbrance by drawing the spear shaft right through the wound; and the next moment I found myself engaged with the rest in resisting the hottest and most determined assault to which we had hitherto been subjected. Luckily for us the battery ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... remonstrances, to make preparations for flight by providing themselves with every conceivable comfort for their exile. In vain did their friends assure them that they could purchase any thing they desired in any part of Europe; that such quantities of luggage would be only an encumbrance; that it was dangerous, under the eyes of their vigilant enemies, to be making such extensive preparations. Neither the king nor queen would heed such monitions. The queen persisted in her resolution ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... overtook her just above Grand Gulf, and attacked her after dark on the 24th of February. The Indianola was superior to all the others in armament, and probably would have destroyed them or driven them away, but for her encumbrance. As it was she fought them for an hour and a half, but, in the dark, was struck seven or eight times by the ram and other vessels, and was finally disabled and reduced to a sinking condition. The armament was thrown ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... was still in danger; the increasing volumes of smoke warned him that in a few minutes the uppermost storey might be in flames. He took off his overcoat to allow himself more freedom of action; the manuscript, now an encumbrance, must precede him over the chimney-stack, and there was only one way of effecting that. With care he stowed the papers into the pockets of the coat; then he rolled the garment together, tied it up in its own sleeves, took a deliberate aim—and the bundle ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... a trust was placed on the property, and in the title is recorded "no encumbrance except a small wooden house in which Mrs. Margaret Beall now lives, in which she ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... never be any sense of gap or blank, neither any sense of there being a single member, or fragment of a member, which could be spared. Whatever has nothing to do, whatever could go without being missed, is not ornament; it is deformity and encumbrance. Away with it. And, on the other hand, care must be taken either to diffuse the ornament which we permit, in due relation over the whole building, or so to concentrate it, as never to leave a sense ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... child was dead; she had no friends, no relatives here save a brother poorer than herself, and the mother instinct had not awakened. She bartered her child away as she would have parted with any other encumbrance likely to interfere with her career. But—here her voice rose and I heard distinctly: "A fortune was suddenly left me. An old admirer dying abroad bequeathed me two million dollars, and I found myself ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... "there is much good service to be got out of twenty-three well-drilled and well-chosen marines: look at those fellows, Mr. Griffith, and then tell me if you think them an encumbrance ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... taste in jewelry and dress, who desires to be petted and fondled, to be caressed and flattered, but who is incapable of doing anything to contribute to his happiness at home or to his influence abroad, and he comes to feel that she is an encumbrance. If he clings to the old love, and cherishes the old conviction, he learns to treat his wife as a plaything, and to forget her as a helpmeet. He thinks of her as of a toy, which may be used or cast aside at pleasure. She knows and feels the ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... investigation. Cases of the kind have been recorded upon undoubted authority. Hence some philosophers, like Sir Thomas Browne and Addison, have been induced to suppose that the soul in this state is partially disengaged from the encumbrance of the body, and therefore more intelligent, which is a mere fancy—a poetical fiction. Surely it is absurd to suppose that the soul, which we invest with such high and perfect attributes, should commit such frivolous ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... he was desired, and Jack struck out with such force that he cut through the water like a boat; while I, being free from all encumbrance, succeeded in keeping up with him. As we had by this time drawn pretty near to the shore, a few minutes more sufficed to carry us into shallow water; and finally, we landed in safety, though very much exhausted, and not a little frightened, by ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... in marriage. If any one rebelled or neglected his duties, he was either crushed by the imperial forces, or put to the ban of the empire', and his territories were assigned to any one who would undertake to conquer them.[8] Their attendance at our viceroyal court would be a sad encumbrance;[9] and our Governor- General could not well conciliate them by matrimonial alliances, unless we were to alter a good deal in their favour our law against polygamy; nor would it be desirable to 'let slip the dogs of war' once ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... the scissors, may appear strange to the inexpert. These must bear in mind the great density of the water of the sea, and the surprising results of transplantation to that medium. To understand a little what these are, and how a man's weight, so far from being an encumbrance, is the very ground of his agility, was the chief lesson of my submarine experience. The knowledge came upon me by degrees. As I began to go forward with the hand of my estranged companion, a world of tumbled ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Clemens once said to me, "is to create humour independent of local conditions. In studying humanity as exhibited in the people and localities I best knew and understood, I have sought to winnow out the encumbrance of the local." And he significantly added—musingly—" Humour, like ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... mental indifference, into the rapid current of ambition. When a man does that, her intuition prompted her to know that it is more than likely that he brings a woman with him. It is always possible for a woman to recognize—apart from her own identity—that her sex is an encumbrance to most men which they cannot easily shake off. Witness the generous criticism of a woman upon any husband but her own. Combine with this intuitive knowledge the fact—hitherto unrecorded, even by Traill to Sally—that when he handed over ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... along better without the experience and even the few pounds, than with him as an encumbrance; though I could not bring myself to the cruelty of telling him so. For there is in me a fatal softness which no man can have and overbear others in this world. It constrains me to make the other man's cause my own, though he be at ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... her there. It was amusing that one who was learning to "help" should be such an encumbrance. And there were many amusing things about Mr. Beason. He was afraid of her because she was a woman, for like reason disapproving of her presence in the laboratory, and yet there was an unconscious deference, the same kind of veneration he would ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... its life. The English are great constitution-mongers—for other nations. They fancy that a constitution fashioned after their own will fit any nation that can be persuaded, wheedled, or bullied into trying it on; but, unhappily, all that have tried it on have found it only an embarrassment or encumbrance. The doctor might as well attempt to give an individual a new constitution, or the constitution of another man, as the statesman to give a nation any other constitution than that which it has, and with which ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... Prince and the estates could succeed in ridding themselves of this encumbrance. He created several riots in different parts of the province, and boasted, that he had many fine ships of war and three thousand men devoted to him, by whose assistance he could make the estates "dance after his pipe." At the beginning ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... for her father was by no means an absorbing affection. The Captain had never cared to conceal his indifference for his only child, or pretended to think her anything but a nuisance and an encumbrance—a superfluous piece of luggage more difficult to dispose of than any other luggage, and altogether a stumbling-block in the stony path of a man who has to live by his wits. So perhaps it is scarcely strange that Diana did not think of her absent father with any passionate ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... parallel road, heard the firing, and detached the grenadier company of the Antrim militia to the aid of Walpole. These, to the amount of seventy men, were cut off almost to a man; and when the general, who could not cross over to the other road, through the enclosures, from the encumbrance of his artillery, had at length reached the scene of action by a long circuit, he found himself in the following truly ludicrous position: The rebels had pursued Colonel Walpole's division to Gorey, and ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... spiritual. Monsieur de Cadillan paid me some compliments the other night, and even asked George Barnes what my dot was, He is a widower, and has a wig and two daughters. Which do you think would be the greatest encumbrance, grandmamma,—a humpback, or a wig and two daughters? I like Madame de Florac; for the sake of the borough, I must try and like poor Madame de Moncontour, and I will go and see them ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... all fairly good except the ending,—as to which till I got to it I made no provision. As I fully intended to bring my hero again into the world, I was wrong to marry him to a simple pretty Irish girl, who could only be felt as an encumbrance on such return. When he did return I had no alternative but to kill the simple pretty Irish girl, which was an ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... in this neighbourhood has anything that is both an eyesore and an encumbrance they bestow it on Edward for his muck-room, where he stores it against an impossible contingency. I trotted upstairs to my bedroom and routed about among my Lares et Penates. I have many articles which, though of no intrinsic value, are bound to me ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various
... rock. He was, accordingly, about to address the artificers on the perilous nature of their situation, and to propose that all should unstrip their upper clothing, when the higher parts of the rock were laid under water,—that the seamen should remove every unnecessary weight and encumbrance from the boats, and a specified number of men should go into each boat, and that the remainder should hang by the gunwales, while the boats were to be rowed gently towards the 'Smeaton,' as the course of the ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton
... in Rupert eagerly, thrusting himself abreast of Nealie and leaning on his stick while he talked. "A large family, as we are, would be a valuable asset in a new country, while here we are only an encumbrance and a nuisance. Besides, we should like to be with ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... one should not forget the question of rain. It is evident, then, that where there is frost there can be no rain; and accordingly, for nearly six months in the year, you can dispense altogether with that most unpleasant encumbrance, the umbrella. For it must be remembered that in Russia the snow does not fall in the soft feathery flakes to which we are accustomed in the more temperate latitudes. It comes down in showers of microscopic darts, which, instead of intercepting the ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... had to form its own Government, might not unwisely choose a governor for life, and solely trusted with selecting Ministers, something like the Abbe Sieyes's grand elector. But the introduction of such an officer into such a colony would in fact be the voluntary erection of an artificial encumbrance to it. He would inevitably be a party man. The most dignified post in the State must be an object of contest to the great sections into which every active political community is divided. These parties mix in everything and meddle in everything; and they neither would ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... It merely remains for me to substantiate these accusations; and then, with my ill-starred family, to disappear from the landscape on which we appear to be an encumbrance. That is soon done. It may be reasonably inferred that our baby will first expire of inanition, as being the frailest member of our circle; and that our twins will follow next in order. So be it! For myself, my Canterbury Pilgrimage has done much; imprisonment ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... now tell you what induced me to secure you for myself. It was not natural affection; I did not love you then, and I knew that you would be a serious encumbrance to me. But, having brought you into the world, and then broken through my engagements with your mother, I felt bound to see that you should not suffer for my mistake. Gladly would I have persuaded myself ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... numerous ill-fitting seams, but not fast enough to swamp us in midstream, although the amount gained steadily on me in spite of every effort, and we occasionally had to make shore to free us of the encumbrance. ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... such weight as nearly to beat the breath out of my body and sink me to the deck; it was the frenzy excited in me by the tremendous obligation of despatch and my retardment by the washing seas, the violent motions of the brig, the encumbrance of gear and deck furniture adrift and sweeping here and there, and the sense that the vessel might be grinding her bows against the iceberg before I should be able to reach the bowsprit. All this it was that ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... great fury as before. The pellets scattering from a shotgun at a range of a hundred yards or less would do him more damage and be far more certain to stop him. In an actual charge our present rifle is more than useless—it is an encumbrance, and when at grips with the enemy in his own trenches it is often a fatal handicap. With a bayonet at the end it is far too long, and in a trench two to four feet wide it cannot be used with much effect. I have known our men repeatedly to unship ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... an army on its march: then consider that they carry more than a fortnight's provision, and whatever else they may want; that they carry the burden of the stakes,[34] for as to shield, sword, or helmet, they look on them as no more encumbrance than their own limbs, for they say that arms are the limbs of a soldier, and those, indeed, they carry so commodiously that, when there is occasion, they throw down their burdens, and use their arms as readily as their limbs. ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... another at the lower edges of the cases, tarring everything as I proceeded, including myself; but as the weather was hot a pair of old pants cut off at the knee, and a ragged shirt, were my only encumbrance in the way of clothing. Now I proceeded to cut down the partitions between the various sections for a depth of six inches. I then carefully caulked the tiny crack between each of these bulkheads, and turning the surplus tin over, nailed it to the ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... exactly what it was when granted to our ancestors by Henry the Eighth, at the period of the Reformation. This house must be pulled down, and the monastery left standing. Then we shall have our own again, and the property without encumbrance.' ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... is easy and graceful, sweeping with facility over the loftiest trees of their native forests, their strangely developed bills being no encumbrance to them, replete as they are with a tissue of air-filled cells rendering them very light ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [January, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... played them by the Banyai. The Makololo had shot a hippopotamus, when a number of the natives came across, pretending to assist them in rolling it ashore, and advised them to cast off the rope, saying that it was an encumbrance. All were shouting and talking, when suddenly the carcass disappeared in a deep hole. The Makololo jumped in after it, one catching the tail, another a foot, but down it went, and they got but a ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... tried and had broken down somewhat in the same fashion. Each had treated the girl as an encumbrance he was to undertake,—at a very great price. But as affairs prospered with the Melmottes, as princes and duchesses were obtained by other means,—costly no doubt, but not so ruinously costly,—the ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... inherited with encumbrances, or else bought with hired money—and we may regard one third of that toil as the cost of their houses—but commonly they have not paid for them yet. It is true, the encumbrances sometimes outweigh the value of the farm, so that the farm itself becomes one great encumbrance, and still a man is found to inherit it, being well acquainted with it, as he says. On applying to the assessors, I am surprised to learn that they cannot at once name a dozen in the town who own their farms free and clear. If you ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... fir-trees threw this part into a shadow, and so it happened that as I felt my way wearily on, I fell over a stone. The fall lost me the last of my senses: I but heard some of the Stewarts curse me for an encumbrance as they stumbled over me and passed on, heedless of my fate, and saw, as in a dwam, one of them who had abraded his knees by his stumble over my body, turn round with a drawn knife that glinted in ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... a Concomitant of a pompous Felicity, but a Mediocrity is safe; this was always my Study, not to make any Advantage to myself from the Disadvantages of other People. I embraced as much as I could, that which the Greeks call Freedom from the Encumbrance of Business. I intermeddled with no one's Affairs; but especially I kept myself clear from those that could not be meddled with without gaining the ill Will of a great many. If a Friend wants my Assistance, I so ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... is intense," said Frowenfeld. "It seems we are not to be granted suffrage yet; but the Creoles have a way of casting votes in their mind. For example, they have voted Honore Grandissime a traitor; they have voted me an encumbrance; I hear one of them casting ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... formed for the advance. He said that, after marching for an hour and a half, they would reach a strong fetish stronghold, where a fierce resistance might be looked for; but the final battle would be fought at the stockades, two hundred yards from the fort. He intended to attack these without encumbrance. A halt would therefore be called, at a spot some distance from the stockades; which would be hastily fortified, with a zereba and a portion of the troops. Here all the carriers and stores would be placed. Then the fighting force would take the stockades, return for the transport, and ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... life as with the bare white feet of that original preferred fairness and wildness. This is rank embroidery, but the old surface itself insists on spreading—it waits at least with an air of its own. The rest is silence; I can—extraordinary encumbrance even for the most doating of parents on a morning call—but have returned with my father to "our hotel"; since I feel that I must not only to this but to a still further extent face the historic truth that we were for considerable periods, during our earliest time, nothing less ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... man. (Hear, hear.) I have for years felt that the law of England in that respect, which we brought with us, required amendment. In looking also to the laws of other countries with respect to the transfer, mortgage, or encumbrance of real property, I have come to the conclusion that the law of England is inferior to most of them with regard to cost and security of title. The old Conservative feeling of England adheres with a ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... and Major Webb, as said "the Chief," had united, and here were two men who could be counted on to push the pursuit "for all they were worth." Hitherto, acting in the open country and free from encumbrance, the Indians had been hard to reach. Now they were being driven into their fastnesses among the mountains toward the distant shelter whither their few wounded had been conveyed, and where the old men, the women and children were ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... that any further interposition on their parts would have ill become them to make, or her to bear: that even while she was a private person, and exposed to much danger from the malice of her enemies, she had always declined that engagement, as an encumbrance; much more at present must she persevere in that sentiment, when the charge of a great kingdom was committed to her, and her life ought to be devoted to its interests: that as England was her husband, wedded ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... some foundation for this idea. Captain Paget had felt himself more kindly disposed towards his only child from the moment in which she ceased to be an encumbrance upon him. Her sudden departure from Foretdechene had been taken in very ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... being low, it has all the appearance of an extensive lake. In spring, after the disruption of the ice, its waters are loaded with large floes and fields of ice; and later in the season, after it has become quite free from this wintry encumbrance, numerous detached masses come up with every flood-tide. It was the approach of one of these floes that called forth ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... heart thumped with impatience against the iron rails I leant upon. The carriage stopped, as I had expected, at the hotel door; my flame (that is the very word for an opera inamorata) alighted: though muffed in a cloak—an unnecessary encumbrance, by-the-bye, on so warm a June evening—I knew her instantly by her little foot, seen peeping from the skirt of her dress, as she skipped from the carriage-step. Bending over the balcony, I was about to murmur 'Mon ange'—in a tone, of course, which ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... Meta, "but"—and her voice became tremulous—"if Dr. May deliberately said it would be wrong, and that I should be an encumbrance and perplexity, I am making up my mind to ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... often in a wretched plight owing to the wind and drift-snow. Many were added to the bleaching carcases which fill the crevices or lie in heaps on ancient rookeries among the rocky ridges. None were free from the encumbrance of hard cakes of snow which often covered their eyes or dangled in pendent icicles from their bodies. The result was ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... of no further use to the divisions, but rather an encumbrance upon them, was massed, under Grierson, behind the centre, and assigned to the duty of guarding the rear, the depots, and the communications against the incursions of the Confederate cavalry, under Logan, known to be hovering between ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... there's very pretty picking in 3000 pounds per annum! one would not think much of a little encumbrance upon ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... kinds of things into her pockets, string, bread, matches, a small bottle of wine, some rags, a comb, and some needles. Serge took a rug, but by the time they had passed the lime-trees and reached the ruins of the chateau, he found it such an encumbrance that he hid it beneath a piece ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... money would be paid, of course, with all adjuncts of accruing interest, and Mr. Neefit should go on making breeches for him to the end of the chapter. And for raising this money he had still a remnant of the old property which he could sell, so that he need not begin by laying an ounce of encumbrance on his paternal estates. He was very clear in his mind at this period of his life that there should never be any such encumbrance in his days. That remnant of property should be sold, and Neefit, Horsball, and others, should be paid. ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... fixed upon most delectable rooms, which look out (when you stand a tiptoe) over the Thames and Surrey Hills, at the upper end of King's Bench walks in the Temple. There I shall have all the privacy of a house without the encumbrance, and shall be able to lock my friends out as often as I desire to hold free converse with my immortal mind; for my present lodgings resemble a minister's levee, I have so increased my acquaintance (as they call 'em), since I have resided in town. Like the country mouse, that ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... chevalier of his mortal mother, of her sad cause. The devout, diligent hands clear away carefully the dust, the faded relics of her former worship; a worship renewed once more as the sacred spring, set free from encumbrance, in answer to his willing ministries murmurs again under the dim vault in its marble basin, work of primitive Titanic fingers—flows out through its rocky channel, filling the whole township with chaste ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... precipitate, and frightened the bird away," remarked Mrs. Fraudhurst. "But," continued she, after a moment's pause, "perhaps it is as well she has taken this step. Her presence here is now no longer necessary. You have the property without the encumbrance." ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... was an encumbrance your dad had to pay me to take off his hands," blurted Johnny distractedly. "Our being engaged doesn't make ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... receive the fourth part of the income of the debtor; but any lender who had tacked the interest to the principal was deprived of the whole: thus, in less than four years all the debts were paid, and their property was given back to them free from all encumbrance. Now the common debt originated in the twenty thousand talents which Sulla had laid on Asia as a contribution, and twice this amount was repaid to the lenders, though they had indeed now brought the debt up to the ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... and it was time for Mr. Pickwick to issue forth on his delicate errand. Resisting Sam's tender of his greatcoat, in order that he might have no encumbrance in scaling the wall, he set forth, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... Miss Batch was a superior girl; she would grace any station in life. He had always been rather in awe of her. It was a fine thing to be suddenly loved by her, to be in a position to over-rule her every whim. Plighting his troth, he had feared she would be an encumbrance, only to find she was a lever. But—was he deeply in love with her? How was it that he could not at this moment recall her features, or the tone of her voice, while of deplorable Miss Dobson, every lineament, every accent, so vividly haunted him? Try as he would to beat off these memories, ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... to suffer in any other way. Really, for the sake of protection from the cold, garments were altogether unnecessary; and it is not surprising that the dark-skinned natives should consider them an encumbrance, and generally dispense ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... the happy exertion of which he had often seen. He knew him to be an economist of the most frugal order, consequently concluded his finances were worthy of examination; and, upon the true principles of a sharper, eased him of the encumbrance, taking it for granted, that, in so doing, he only precluded Ferdinand from the power of acting the same tragedy upon him, should ever opportunity concur with his inclination. He had therefore concerted his measures with the dexterity of an experienced conveyancer, and, snatching the occasion, while ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... the mutilation of some of its members and still survive, but there is a limit beyond which death will ensue. So also the spiritual body may survive the encumbrance of a few false members. From the general facts and principles already adduced, however, we may safely assert that a local church is a church of God only so long as it is able to function properly as a body. As long as the Spirit of God is in the ascendency, so that the people of God as a body manifest ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith
... years I had been dragging a heavy chain, with a huge block attached to it, cumbering my every motion. I had felt myself doomed to drag this chain and this block through life. All efforts, before, to separate myself from the hateful encumbrance, had only seemed to rivet me the more firmly to it. Baffled and discouraged at times, I had asked myself the question, May not this, after all, be God's work? May He not, for wise ends, have doomed me to this lot? A contest had been going ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... afterwards admitted, this was a very great blunder, as fully 100,000 regulars and mobiles might have been spared to advantage for service in the provinces. Of course the National Guards themselves could not be sent away from the city, though they were often an encumbrance rather than a help, and could not possibly have carried on the work of defence had they been left ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... fifty tons belonging to a gentleman of Devonshire, one Master Audrey Drake, a relation of Sir Francis Drake. The earl himself was with the party. He did not intend to go on board, for he was a bad sailor; and though ready, as he said, to do his share of fighting upon land, would be only an encumbrance on ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... an effort, first the mind must be cleared of the conceit that, because we live to-day, we are wiser than the ages gone. The mind must acknowledge its ignorance; all the learning and lore of so many eras must be erased from it as an encumbrance. It is not from past or present knowledge, science or faith, that it is to be drawn. Erase these altogether as they are erased under the fierce heat of the focus before me. Begin wholly afresh. Go straight to the sun, the immense forces of the universe, to the Entity unknown; go higher ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... house," answered Mr. Ten Eyck. "Your mother's father left it to you. There is no encumbrance ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... been compelled to abandon his basket of food, which became a perilous encumbrance 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, he ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... life with his unpaid farm of 160 acres. Now he owns 3,000 acres of land paid for and without encumbrance, with the virtual ownership of a fine stream, at some points 500 feet wide, which for five miles runs through his extensive plantations. On this stream he has a brick yard, a saw mill, a grist mill and a cotton gin and compressing mill combined in one and operated by the water of this stream. The ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 2, June, 1898 • Various
... in which I am forced to put my confidence in quarantine." (Meneval, tome i. p. 123). For any one who has had to manage an office it is pleasant to find that even Napoleon was much dependent on a good secretary. In an illness of his secretary he said, showing the encumbrance of his desk, "with Meneval I should soon clear off all that." (Meneval, tome ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... Time was getting very short. I wanted to dodge the shelling, but had missed a quiet interval that occurred at 2.30 a.m. At 3 a.m. I moved, leading the party in a long column over the open ground north of Fayet to reach its eastern side. The inevitable 'wire mats,' an encumbrance without which few raiding parties ever started, hampered the progress. It was a pitch dark night, nor was I certain of the way. To cover the mile and then pass 150 men, ignorant of their whereabouts, silently and in single file through a ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... encumbrance, we set forth, followed by the dogs. I had taken off my crinoline, because Eleanor said we might have to climb some walls, and I had borrowed a pair of her boots, because my own were so uncomfortable from being high-heeled and narrow-soled. They were too thin for stony roads also, ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... was dragging himself on after Quentin, who, aware of the importance of securing the countenance of a person of such influence, slackened his pace to assist him, although cursing in his heart the encumbrance ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... my life as a steward? No, if the work is to be in my hands, I ought to be in possession at once, so as to take my place in the county as I ought, and cut the City business. The place is a mere misfortune and encumbrance to her as she is, and she would be ten ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... am indifferent about it all. Perhaps it would have been better for me if I had never seen her; and possibly it might have been better for her if she had never seen me. She has a heart, and the heart is a troublesome encumbrance when great things have to be done. I wish you knew her: I am sure you would ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... piled one upon another, containing bundles of official documents. Large quantities of similar rubbish lay lumbering the floor. It was sorrowful to think how many days, and weeks, and months, and years of toil had been wasted on these musty papers, which were now only an encumbrance on earth, and were hidden away in this forgotten corner, never more to be glanced at by human eyes. But then, what reams of other manuscripts—filled, not with the dulness of official formalities, but with the thought of inventive brains and the ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the kind of man to grow into such an ideal Consul as I have here suggested. I never in my life desired to be burdened with public influence. I disliked my office from the first, and never came into any good accordance with it. Its dignity, so far as it had any, was an encumbrance; the attentions it drew upon me (such as invitations to Mayor's banquets and public celebrations of all kinds, where, to my horror, I found myself expected to stand up and speak) were—as I may say without incivility or ingratitude, because there is nothing personal in that sort ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... eye-sockets, his blood-stained face—was visible; and then a gust of wind lifted his mantle and flung it about his head so that all was concealed; and an exquisite pity for him was aroused—while he struggled painfully to rid himself of the encumbrance—by the imposition of that petty annoyance upon his mortal agony of body and ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... an answer—sometimes a sermon by way of answer. But he saw every item that we removed from the common packs, and sternly reproved us when we tried to exceed what he considered reasonable. At that he based our probable requirements on what would have been surfeit of encumbrance ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... she said. "A year ago I should have been of use to you, and now I should be an encumbrance; and I like you for telling me so quite honestly." She extended ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... kind, and pure, and gentle, and devoted. It was consoling to be loved to one who was so wretched. It seemed to him that life must ever be a blank without the woman who, a few months ago, he had left an encumbrance. The recollection of past happiness was balm to one who was so forlorn. He shuddered at the thought of losing his only precious possession, and he was never more attached to his mistress than when the soul of friendship rose from ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... small one; and such a situation as this had never come within range of his experience. In utter panic he lashed out with his powerful tail and darted forward, carrying the octopus with him. But the weight upon his head, the crushing encumbrance about his body, were too much for him, and bore him slowly downward. Suddenly two tentacles, which had been trailing for an anchorage, got grip upon the bottom—and the dolphin's frantic flight came to a stop ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... but Roger never cared for them, and little by little I had dropped the attempt to keep one, since he objected to exercising them in town, did not care to bother with them in the country, and absolutely refused to endure the encumbrance of one while travelling. Not that he was ever cruel or careless: when thrown into necessary relations with animals he was far more just and thoughtful of them than many a sentimental animal lover of my acquaintance! Strangely enough, I have ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell |
