"Burdensome" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the human species is capable. Nature uses them precisely as did the law of Sparta the children of her citizens. She rendered strong and robust those with a good constitution, and destroyed all the others. Our societies differ in this respect, where the state, in rendering the children burdensome to the father, ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... gravity] statics. V. be heavy &c. adj.; gravitate, weigh, press, cumber, load. [Measure the weight of] weigh, poise. Adj. weighty; weighing &c. v.; heavy as lead; ponderous, ponderable; lumpish[obs3], lumpy, cumbersome, burdensome; cumbrous, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... contribute equally to the formation of the new individual). Neither part (the male or the female) of this process is more necessary than the other, both being absolutely necessary. But the female specialization for furnishing the intra-maternal environment makes her share more burdensome. ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... already prevails in Mexico, and may be put by us into immediate operation; and if, as conceded, specific duties should be more burdensome upon the people of Mexico, the more onerous the operation of these duties upon them the sooner it is likely that they will force their military rulers to agree to a peace. It is certain that a mild and forbearing system of warfare, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... from harrying them. Driven forth across the waves by the clamorous importunity of the voice within, they, of very necessity, acquire a certain skill in the management of boats, a skill which sooner or later leads to the burdensome possession of a navy and so to maritime importance. It is interesting to see how this curious law works out in ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... romance, as he well knew, for which reason he often used the phrases of both, and in such a way as to answer his purpose with most of those whom he wished to please. He had one great advantage in the sweepstakes of life: he was not handicapped with any burdensome ideals. He took everything at its marked value. He accepted the standard of the street as a final fact for to-day, like the broker's ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... after his ball, the last dying flash of a prosperity of eighteen years now about to be extinguished, Cesar Birotteau watched the passers-by from the windows of his shop, thinking over the expansion of his affairs, and beginning to find them burdensome. Until then all had been simple in his life; he manufactured and sold, or bought to sell again. To-day the land speculation, his share in the house of A. Popinot and Company, the repayment of the hundred and sixty thousand francs thrown upon the market, which necessitated either a traffic in promissory ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... greatly improved in France,' as if, forsooth, they had suppressed the punters. The gambling still goes on, only the State makes nothing from it now; and for a tax paid with pleasure, it has substituted a burdensome duty. Nor is the number of suicides reduced, for the gambler never dies, though ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... have a weary and burdensome life of it in waiting upon their unhappy brother. It seems grievous, indeed, that those who have not sinned should ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... country and succeed, a native-born with experience plus intelligence ought to do the same thing more rapidly. But it had taught me that what the native-born must do is to simplify his standard of living, take advantage of the same opportunities, toil with the same spirit, and free himself from the burdensome bonds of caste. The advantage is all with the pioneer, the adventurer, the emigrant. These are the real children of the republic—here in the East, at any rate. Every landing dock is Plymouth Rock to them. They are the real forefathers of the ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... nature are within the reach of all, and therefore can form no distinction in favor of the rich. The pleasures which art forces up are seldom sincere, and never satisfying. What is worse, this constant application to pleasure takes away from the enjoyment, or rather turns it into the nature of a very burdensome and laborious business. It has consequences much more fatal. It produces a weak valetudinary state of body, attended by all those horrid disorders, and yet more horrid methods of cure, which are the result of luxury on the one hand, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... such as adultery, cruelty, drunkenness, felony, insanity, vagrancy, neglect to provide for wife and children, desertion, public defamation, violent temper, religious heterodoxy, contagious disease, outrages, indignities, personal abuse, "mental anguish," conduct rendering life burdensome and so forth (all these are examples from some code actually in force at present), is a mistake, because the only effect of compelling people to plead and prove misconduct is that cases are manufactured and ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... and sunny, and Aun' Sheba, rising much refreshed, felt herself equal to her duties in spite of her fears to the contrary. She took Vilet with her to a shop, and there purchased a much smaller basket, the weight of which when filled would not be burdensome to the girl. Thus equipped she appeared before Mara at the usual hour with her grandchild, and began complacently: "Now, honey lam', you'se gwine to hab two strings to you'se bow. I sometimes feel ole an' stiff in my jints an' my heft is kinder agin me in ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... official salaries and pensions, which the British gentry at large can on no account forego. Narrowed to these proportions it is readily conceivable that the British usufruct of India should rest with no extraordinary weight on the Indian people at large, however burdensome it may at times become to those classes who aspire to take over the usufruct in case the British establishment can be dislodged. This case evidently differs very appreciably from the projected German usufruct of ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... vegetables to be dug and cleansed, meals to be prepared, the little harvest to be gathered in; but it was work that one could do with singing. No one hurried over it, for there was ample time for every duty of the day. No one felt these simple duties burdensome, because they were so natural and inevitable, It was a rare day when some member of the household did not find an hour or two for fishing, and a disappointing breakfast that did not show a lordly dish ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... a view, then, of fitting himself for command that Jackson broke away from the restraints of regimental life; not because those restraints were burdensome or distasteful in themselves, but because he felt that whilst making the machine they might destroy the man. Those responsible for the efficiency of the United States army had not yet learned that the mind must be trained as well as the body, that drill ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... France; when government shall no longer be considered as property transmissible from sire to son, but as a trust committed for a limited time, and then to return to the people whence it came; as a burdensome duty to be discharged, and not as a reward to be abused; when a claim, any claim, to political power by inheritance shall, in the estimation of the whole French people, be held as it now is by the whole people of the North American Union—then will be the time for contemplating ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... be advisable to modify taxation and tariff in instances where unjust or burdensome discriminations are made by the present laws, but a general revision of the laws regulating this subject I recommend the postponement of for the present. I also suggest the renewal of the tax on incomes, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant • Ulysses S. Grant
... considerations was, whether the repeal should be total, or whether only partial,—taking out everything burdensome and productive, and reserving only an empty acknowledgment, such as a stamp on cards or dice. The other question was, on what principle the act should be repealed. On this head also two principles were ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... perhaps it would be as well to postpone such burdensome precautions until there should be some actual need of them; but he shook his head dubiously. The captain's sense of military propriety had been severely shocked by what he considered the irregular proceedings of the party; and this was not the first time he had expressed himself ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... weary of the war, and the queen grew weary of her ministers. The war was burdensome, and the ministers were insolent. Harley and his friends began to hope that they might, by driving the whigs from court and from power, gratify, at once, the queen and the people. There was now a call for writers, who might convey intelligence of past abuses, and show the waste of publick ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... tennis, make an appointment for the evening—there were so many places where you could amuse yourself—and why should he spoil this splendid day for himself and, after all, his father too? He thrust every graver thought aside as burdensome. But his soul was not at peace all the same. He tried ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... that by denouncing those who propose active measures now, they are preparing the way in order to prosecute them so soon as you find the war burdensome; whereas they should themselves be prosecuted for letting things go as far as ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... of the Press-gang was actually brought home to an old Roystonian, who, while crossing London Bridge, was seized and made to serve his seven years! Though the regular mode of enlistment had less of this arbitrary character it was, nevertheless, often very burdensome in our rural districts and led to some curious expedients for meeting its demands. The Chief Constable of the hundred served a notice upon the Overseers, and sometimes the number required was not one for each parish, but ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... the level surface, assuming fantastic shapes, but all of the same dull coloring, imperfect and unfinished. Nothing seemed tangible or real, but rather some grotesque picture of delirium, ever merging into another yet more hideous. The very silence of those surrounding wastes seemed burdensome, adding immeasurably to the horror. They were but specks crawling underneath the sky—the only living, moving objects in all that immense circle ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... as a tolerable subject of speculation by some, and I could not be burdensome to any. I was therefore, according to the ordinary rule of Edinburgh hospitality, a welcome guest in several respectable families. But I found no one who could replace the loss I had sustained in my best friend and benefactor. I wanted ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... well have been regarded and excused as a return for services rendered. The general tendency, however, was for the individual power of the lords to extend itself at the cost and to the detriment of the rural communities, and for their claims steadily to increase and to become more burdensome. During the fourteenth century many causes had combined to improve the condition of the industrial classes; and during the end of the fourteenth and the early part of the fifteenth century the condition of the peasantry and artisans of Northern Europe was better ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... true it be, that the congregation, consisting of the inhabitants within the walls, was sufficient to all intents and purposes, without those of the country. These also being exceeding numerous, became burdensome to themselves and dangerous to the commonwealth; the more for their ill-education, as is observed by Xenophon and Polybius, who compare them to mariners that in a calm are perpetually disputing and swaggering ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... trees and the little dwelling-houses merged in one blur of shadow seem plunged in quiet slumber, it alone absurdly and inappropriately towers, an oppressive mass of stone, above the modest landscape, spoils the general harmony, and keeps sleepless vigil as though it could not escape from burdensome memories of past unforgiven sins. Inside it is like a barn and extremely unattractive. It is strange to see how readily these elegant lawyers, members of committees, and marshals of nobility, who in their own homes will make a scene over the slightest fume from the stove, ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... intended by nature. I cheerfully entered upon my new apprenticeship, and learned how to sweep, to scrub, to wash, and to cook. This work answered very well as long as the novelty lasted; but, as soon as this wore off, it became highly burdensome. Many a forenoon, when I was alone, instead of sweeping and dusting, I passed the hours in reading books from my father's library, until it grew so late, that I was afraid that my mother, who had commenced practice, would come home, ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska
... maiden lady, with no family but her one own maid, she lived in lodgings of course. People at Littlebath, indeed, are much given to lodgings. They are mostly a come-and-go class of beings, to whom the possession of furniture and the responsibilities of householding would be burdensome. But then Miss Todd's lodgings were in the Paragon, and all the world knows how much it costs to secure eligible rooms in the Paragon: two spacious sitting-rooms, for instance, a bedroom, and a closet for one's own maid. And Miss ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... other destructive emotions. It was true that Angele had saved her life, but Michel had charmed her eye. He had proved himself a more gallant fighter than any in her kingdom; and had done it, as he had said, in her honour. So, as her admiration for Michel grew, her debt to Angele became burdensome; and, despite her will, there stole into her mind the old petulance and smothered anger against beauty and love and marriage. She could ill bear that one near her person should not be content to flourish in the light and warmth of her own favour, setting aside all other small affections. So it ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... made in a way vastly more satisfactory than by actual war. And this can be done with only a trifling expenditure of treasure, and at no cost whatever in blood or sorrow, nor in suspension of peaceful pursuits, nor in burdensome debts, nor in enormous disbursements for pensions. Let the schools of all kinds and all grades teach patriotism, respect for law, obedience to authority, discipline, courage, physical development, and the rudiments of practical military manoeuvers; let the national ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... what seduces them. For instance, should a legislator, wishing to impose a new tax, choose that which would be theoretically the most just? By no means. In practice the most unjust may be the best for the masses. Should it at the same time be the least obvious, and apparently the least burdensome, it will be the most easily tolerated. It is for this reason that an indirect tax, however exorbitant it be, will always be accepted by the crowd, because, being paid daily in fractions of a farthing on objects of consumption, it will not interfere with the habits of the crowd, and will ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... foresaw was left to South Carolina, but the men of that planter Commonwealth refused to throw discretion to the winds. The price of cotton was falling and the tribute to the manufacturer under the law of 1828 seemed to be more burdensome than ever; yet it might be well to try Congress again. The new Congress, which would assemble in December, 1831, might give relief. This was Calhoun's last recourse; if it failed ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... but, from the unpolite threats and treaties of the Cabinet of St. Petersburg with those of Vienna and St. James, we were on the eve of a Continental war, and our gunboats, instead of being useful in carrying an army to the destruction of the tyrants of the seas, were burdensome, as an army was necessary to guard them, and to prevent these tyrants from capturing or destroying them. Such changes, in so short a period of time as three months, might irritate a temper less patient than that ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... colonies, and succeeded in embarrassing and handicapping them seriously, although evasions of the navigation laws were notorious, and were winked at by the officers of the crown. The restrictions were sufficiently burdensome, however, to make the ship-owners and sailors of 1770 among those most ready and eager for the ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... freedom of morals and action. Meta Beggs blew into fresh flame the embers of dying years. And yet, as he had told her by the stream, an involuntary lassitude, a new stiffness, had fallen upon his desire. Although his marriage was burdensome it was an accomplished fact; Lettice's wishes, her quality of steadfastness, exerted their ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... bones were cleaned, bleached, painted, wrapped in odorous balsams, placed in a wicker basket, and kept suspended from the door of their dwelling (Gumilla Hist. del Orinoco I., pp. 199, 202, 204). When the quantity of these heirlooms became burdensome they were removed to some inaccessible cavern and stowed ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... to fish and hunt; all wooded lands usurped by bishops or noblemen without making payment therefor are to revert to the community, and in case payment had been made, a settlement is to be effected by mutual agreement; burdensome exactions, services, taxes, and fines are to be rescinded; court trials are to be free from partiality and jealousy; meadows and lands which of right belong to the community are to be returned by their ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... benefit of them. There are four or five trees of this description, at which such annual offerings are made; but there is only one Tree of Death where malefactors are executed, the one mentioned in a former page.[17] The Muslim converts of Soudan find the Ramadhan excessively burdensome, as well as many other rites of Islamism, and for this reason the greater part of the population of Soudan, who profess Mohammedanism, are still pagans in heart. It is vain to expect a nation to pass from loose ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... only misery that is unrelieved; his is the only burden that is too great to be borne. To him the foliage of the tree, the murmur of the brook, the mirror of the quiet lake, or the thunder of the heaving ocean, would be equally acceptable. His separation from nature is no less burdensome than his separation from man. The heart sinks, the spirit turns with a consuming fire upon itself, the soul is in despair; the mind is first nerved and desperate, then wandering and savage, then idiotic, and finally goes out in death. Governments ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... burdensome, but you are young and strong. You have life before you, and in time you'll forget the past and ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... that was rapidly advancing to the front rank of nations through the victories of peace,—a people jealous of its liberties and proud of its prosperity, has reelected to the chief magistracy a man under whose administration burdensome taxes have been levied, immense armies marshalled, imperative drafts ordered, and fearful sufferings endured. They have done this because, in spite of possible mistakes and short-comings, they have seen his grasp ever tightening around the throat of Slavery, his weapons ever seeking the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... memories of her as among the pleasantest of my life. I recall her room so bright and cheery, just like herself, and all the incidents of those Saturday afternoons. When she first asked me to paint with her, I thought it very kind, but with her multiplicity of cares, felt it must be burdensome to her, and that possibly she would even forget the invitation, and so I hesitated about going. But when the week came round everything was made ready to give me a cordial welcome. Again and again I found my chair, palette and ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... respect or liking felt by this rejected suitor for that other suitor,—who had also been rejected? And how was it that she was thus able to talk of one of them to the other, as though neither of them had ever come forward with such a suit? Phineas felt his position to be so strange as to be almost burdensome. He had told Violet, when she had refused him, very plainly, that he should come again to her, and ask once more for the great gift which he coveted. But he could not ask again now. In the first place, there was ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... for death, whose delay was no blessing; but the feelings of youth which had misled him in his burning hours of joy equally deceived him in his days of sorrow. He lived; and in the course of time found each day that life was less burdensome. The truth is, that if it be the lot of man to suffer, it is also his fortune to forget. Oblivion and sorrow share our being, as Darkness and Light divide the course of time. It is not in human nature to endure extremities, and sorrows soon destroy either ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... so auspicious to our public affairs. The blessings resulting from the smiles of Heaven on our agriculture, the rise of public credit, with the further advantages promised by it, and the fertility of resources which are found so little burdensome to the community, fully authorize our mutual congratulations on the present occasion. Nor can we learn without an additional gratification that the energy of the laws for providing adequate revenues have been so honorably seconded by ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... purchased; and Henry was faithful to all his promises, even after his authority was so firmly established, that he might have broken his word with safety to all but his own conscience and honor. Although the obligations which he had to discharge were most burdensome, he found means to relieve his people, and make his kingdom prosper. The Duke de Mayenne, in Burgundy, and the Duke de Mercoeur in Brittany, were the last to protract an unavailing resistance; but the former was reduced in 1596, and the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... in consequence of this, entertained a new anxiety, that English might neatly stand in the series of my other studies in languages. Now, I will confess that it became more and more burdensome for me to take my occasions for study now from this grammar or collection of examples, now from that; now from one author, now from another,—and thus to divert my interest in a subject every hour. It occurred to me, therefore, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... but live till burdensome they prove, My life would be immortal as my love. Your wish, ere it receive ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... to the words, yon are right. But the grammar! there's the rub. Men are so foolish as to refuse speaking as they please, but render life even more burdensome by all sorts of grammatical rules. I have never in my whole life paid any attention to them, but have spoken my mind freely and fearlessly. But as people really do consider him a blockhead who does not talk as they do, let us humor them, ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... thing may be hard to do or hard to bear. Arduous is always active. That which is laborious or toilsome simply requires the steady application of labor or toil till accomplished; toilsome is the stronger word. That which is onerous (L. onus, a burden) is mentally burdensome or oppressive. Responsibility may be onerous even when it involves no ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... redress the apparent injustice, and console for the apparent unkindness, of Nature—to serve as rest and refreshment between those exactions of life which, though neither unjust nor unkind, are burdensome, it has no equal among all the kinds of ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... dead weight on the community, and "cumber the ground," be a Drunkard; for that will render you useless, helpless, burdensome, and expensive. ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... condition, and the no less distressed condition of his dominions, he thought it fit to withdraw from him and them a large body of the Company's troops, together with all the English of a civil description, who were found no less burdensome than the military. This was done on the declared inability of the country any longer to support them,—a country not much inferior to England in extent and fertility, and, till lately at least, its ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the care both of her infant and her family. The charming babe was in perfect health, but her mother's constitution was frail and delicate. We simplified the household duties as much as possible, but still these duties were considerably burdensome to one not used to the performance, and luxuriously educated. The addition of a sick man was likely to be productive of much fatigue. My engagements would not allow me to be always at home, and the state of my patient, and the remedies necessary to be prescribed, were attended with many noxious ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... in accents sickly-sweet, with the writhings and grimaces of an excessive affection: "Siegfried, listen, my son! You and the like of you I have always hated from my very heart. Out of love I did not rear you, burdensome nuisance. The trouble I took was for the sake of the treasure in Fafner's keeping. If you do not give it to me willingly, Siegfried, my son, it must be plain even to yourself, you will have to leave me your life!" This formal and direct declaration of hate, proving the justice ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... landlords who shaped legislation at Williamsburg, Philadelphia, or New York. For defending the border in the desolating war that drove the French out of America, it now seemed that they were to be rewarded by land laws made for the rich, an administration of justice burdensome for sparsely settled communities, a money system that penalized them for being debtors, or taxes levied for the support of a church which they never entered. And so, before the Revolution opened, the Western imagination had conjured up the specter of a corrupt and effete "East": land of money-changers ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... bursting into tears; I, on the contrary, yawned over his useful and learned books, and found them more tedious than I could express. The world of imagination in which my thoughts delighted to exercise themselves, he valued not in the least, whilst the burdensome actuality which he always was seeking for in life, had no charm for me. Nevertheless there were many points in which we accorded—these especially were questions of morals—and whenever this was the case, it afforded both of us ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... there were the ghosts. She felt that it would be exceedingly burdensome to him to assume the future of two aged people, besides that of her own. Marrying her would be marrying a family, indeed, for she had wasted on that desert hope much of the small bit of money which the scraping and cleaning of their once great properties had yielded. And there lay the ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... the preparation of a great number of lectures during each year and close class-work besides. He enjoyed this work very much for the first few years, but long before he resigned his position it became exceedingly burdensome to him. The college should have relieved him of the drudgery of his professorship, and allowed him time for the preparation of special lectures upon really scholarly themes; but it had not the wisdom to do so, and exacted the labors of a dray-horse from this ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... me up to the governor and his men; if they hang me at once I shall be grateful to you, for I am weary of this life. I am a mere slave to my mates; they would murder me in an instant if I should become burdensome to them; and, bad as I am, they are so much worse that I can even now ...
— Peter Biddulph - The Story of an Australian Settler • W.H.G. Kingston
... thunderstorms, the close streets and the odour of the Thames were becoming insufferable. Mr. Parsons arranged a series of breathing times for his clerical staff, but could make Robert Fulmort accept none. He was strong and healthy, ravenous of work, impervious to disgusts, and rejected holidays as burdensome and hateful. Where should he go? What could he do? What would become of his wild scholars without him, and who would ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was finished Sally found she had been busied for little more than two hours, and was given to understand that her duties would be made more burdensome only by the addition of a little light bookkeeping when she settled down to the routine ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... de Janeiro, however, ended 26% lower in 1995. President CARDOSO remains committed to further reducing inflation in 1996 while boosting growth, but he faces key challenges. Servicing domestic debt has become dramatically more burdensome for both public and private sector entities because of very high real interest rates which are contributing to growing budget deficits and a surge in bankruptcies. Fiscal reforms, many of which require constitutional amendments, are proceeding ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... with how very few laws and works Christ has weighed down His holy Church, and with how many promises He has lifted it up to faith; although now, alas! all is turned about, and we are driven by many long and burdensome laws and works to become pious; and nothing comes of it. But Christ's burden is light [Matt. 11:30] and soon produces an abundant piety, which consists in faith and trust, and fulfils what Isaiah says: "A little perfection shall bring a flood ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... not differ from them. A bolder look, however, and an air of independence, usually mark the Montenegrian. Between Cattaro and Montenegro there is no quarantine or restriction of intercourse. Without the latter the former would cease to exist—without the former life would be burdensome in Montenegro. Three times a-week a bazar is held outside each of the land gates, to which the Montenegrians descend, themselves loaded with arms and independence, and their women and mules with the richest products of their country. Of these, mutton hams of peculiar ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... nobleman who would wish to marry into his own class, and to improve his fortune at the same time. With such a one that would be fair enough. He would give and take. With George that would not be honest;—nor would such accusation be true. The position, as you call it, he would feel to be burdensome. As to money, he does not know whether Frances has a shilling ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... from time to time sought to make the merchants trading to Virginia aid in the defense of the colony, by imposing upon them Castle Duties, in the form of a toll of powder and shot. The masters had more than once complained of this duty, but as it was not very burdensome it was allowed to remain. Had all the ammunition thus received been used as intended by law, the people would have been saved great expense, and the forts made more serviceable. But the contributions, if we may believe the complaints of the people, were often stolen by the ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... be a relief to you to know at once that there will not be any statistics in this series of talks. We want instead just now to get broad and general, but distinct, impressions. Statistics are burdensome to most people. They are a good deal of a bugbear to the common crowd of us every-day folks. They are absolutely essential. They are of immense, that is, immeasurable, value. You need to have them at hand where you can easily turn for exact information, as you need it, to refresh your ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... gyves, oh bride, I make thee a wife; and by thy burdensome stone, oh groom, I make thee a husband. Live and be happy, both; for the wise and good Oro hath placed us in Mardi to be glad. Doth not all nature rejoice in her green groves and her flowers? and woo and wed not the fowls of the air, trilling their bliss in their bowers? ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... on these Islands that there are no hotels or Inns outside of Honolulu and Hilo. Whether he will or no the traveler must accept the hospitality of the residents, and this is so general and so boundless that it would impose a burdensome obligation, were it not offered in such a kindly and graceful way as to beguile you into the belief that you are conferring as well as receiving a favor. Nor is the foreigner alone generous; for the ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... more than four years, with feelings of regard only strengthened by our separation. My spirits are not bad; and they ought not to be bad. I have health; affluence; consideration; great power to do good; functions which, while they are honourable and useful, are not painfully burdensome; leisure for study; good books; an unclouded and active mind; warm affections; and a very dear sister. There will soon be a change in my domestic arrangements. My sister is to be married next week. Her lover, who is lover enough ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... aristocratic women of the master class, to keep from the burdensome task of caring for their own children, and to assure themselves a life of leisure would delegate to one of the negro slave women the care of ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... of the manor were revolutionized. Much of the tenants' land had reverted to the lord, partly by the deaths in the great pestilence, partly because tenants had left the manor; they had run away and left their burdensome holdings in order to get high wages as free labourers. This of course led to a diminution of labour rents, so the landlord let most of the demesne for a term of years,[123] a process which went on ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... pins. And now our spirits began to revive, though water, water, was continually in our minds. We now feared the pirates might possibly come, find out our plan and put us to death, (although before we had wished to see them, being so much in want of water.) Our labor was extremely burdensome, and the Spaniards considerably peevish—but they would often say to me "never mind captain, by and by, Americana or Spanyola catch them, me go and see 'um hung." We quitted work for the day, cooked some cakes but ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... the revolutionary spirit, wasted by the concealed poison of anarchy, exhausted by her innumerable sacrifices, and almost paralyzed by her own convulsions, she made but impotent efforts for the enjoyment of liberty and justice. Taxes became more burdensome; commerce was annihilated; industry, without aliment; paper-money, without value; and specie, without circulation. However, while the French nation was degraded at home by this series of evils, it was respected abroad through the rare merit ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... been three years under Mr. Fraser, our class was, in the usual routine of the school, turned over to {p.026} Dr. Adam, the Rector. It was from this respectable man that I first learned the value of the knowledge I had hitherto considered only as a burdensome task. It was the fashion to remain two years at his class, where we read Caesar, and Livy, and Sallust, in prose; Virgil, Horace, and Terence, in verse. I had by this time mastered, in some degree, the difficulties of ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... the burdensome weight of my victim, if you will so call her, and thrust it into the interior of the vehicle. Estabrook was already on the chauffeur's seat; as quickly as I tell it, the car had begun to pick up speed over the wet and slippery ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... haunted me day and night, as a thing impenetrable, incomprehensible, not even to be inquired about. The mere sense that I might now begin to ask what it meant seemed to make it immediately less awful and less burdensome ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... resulting from it, v.50. How men are disappointed in their most expensive undertakings, for want of this true Foundation, without which nothing can please long, if at all: and the best Examples and Rules will but be perverted into something burdensome or ridiculous, v.65, etc., to 92. A description of the false Taste of Magnificence; the first grand Error of which is to imagine that Greatness consists in the size and dimension, instead of the Proportion and Harmony of the ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... lots to advantage, and retreated further up the woods. As the village increased, so, of course, did my professional duties, which had for the first few years been paid for in acts of kindness and voluntary labour by my little flock; now I have the satisfaction of reaping a reward without proving burdensome to my parishioners. My farm is increasing, and besides the salary arising from my curacy I have something additional for the school, which is paid by Government. We may now say it is good for us to be here, seeing that God has been pleased to send ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... 9:4, 5] For the burdensome yoke and the crossbar on his shoulder, The rod of his taskmaster, thou breakest as in the day of Midian. For every boot of the warrior with noisy tread, And every war-cloak drenched in the blood of the slain Will be completely burned up as ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... me no more. I tell him dese people bout here be in en out to ax bout me right smart en I think bout I better stay here whe' dere ain' nobody to mind what I do. You see, honey, old people is troublesome en I don' want to be noways burdensome to nobody. Yes, mam, I gwine be right here waitin, if de Lord say so, de next time I see ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... soon brought the whole region, for many leagues around, under his subjection. All the subjugated nations were compelled to pay him tribute, though, with the sagacity which marked his whole course, he made the tax so light as not to be burdensome. The territories of Oleg were now vast, widely scattered, and with but the frailest bond of union between them. Between the two capitals of Novgorod and Kief, which were separated by a distance of seven or eight hundred miles, there were many powerful ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... his hearty sympathy when she ingenuously owned that the effort to throw dust in the eyes of her European acquaintance was simply killing her. He found endless refreshment in the contemplation of her attitude towards her burdensome little world, and in her reasons for enslaving herself to it. He was very good friends with both of the Erwins. When he could spare the time from Lydia, he went about with her uncle in his boat, and respected ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... of Jerusalem, were permitted to form and to maintain considerable establishments both in Italy and in the provinces, to acquire the freedom of Rome, to enjoy municipal honors, and to obtain at the same time an exemption from the burdensome and expensive offices of society. The moderation or the contempt of the Romans gave a legal sanction to the form of ecclesiastical police which was instituted by the vanquished sect. The patriarch, who had fixed his residence at Tiberias, was empowered to appoint his subordinate ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... unnoble a devil, that it ever tyrannizeth most upon a slip or low prostration, at which time gallant minds do most disdain to triumph. The envious is more unhappy than the serpent: for though he hath poison within him, and can cast it upon others, yet to his proper bosom it is not burdensome, as is the rancour that the envious keeps; but this most plainly is the plague, as it infects others, so it fevers him that hath it, till he dies. Nor is it more noxious to the owner than fatal and detrimental to all the world beside. It ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various
... but no man could be more averse from putting his shoulders manfully to the wheel. He disliked business; he signed official documents without proper examination, and trusted to others what he should have undertaken himself. The cares inseparable from his high office were burdensome to him. He saw that something was necessary to be done; but he lacked the energy to do it, and had not virtue enough to sacrifice his ease and his pleasures in the attempt. No wonder that, with this character, he listened favourably to the mighty projects, so easy of execution, of ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... heard. He was always clothed in the undress uniform of a Prussian general; and, as he rose, his bulk made him imposing. His first utterances were disappointing. He seemed wheezy, rambling, incoherent, with a sort of burdensome self-consciousness checking his ideas and clogging his words. His manner was fidgety, his arms being thrown uneasily about, and his fingers fumbling his mustache or his clothing or the papers on his desk. He ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... called Tireye, eminent for its fertility. Though it has but half the extent of Rum, it is so well peopled, that there have appeared, not long ago, nine hundred and fourteen at a funeral. The plenty of this Island enticed beggars to it, who seemed so burdensome to the inhabitants, that a formal compact was drawn up, by which they obliged themselves to grant no more relief to casual wanderers, because they had among them an indigent woman of high birth, whom they considered as entitled to all ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... years it was mainly controlled by Richard's uncles, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester. War with France, then in progress, entailed great expenditures, which were increased by court extravagance, and at length burdensome taxes led to popular uprisings. These became most serious in the great revolt of the peasants led by Wat Tyler, in 1381. Richard appeared among the insurgents and granted ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... of his indefinable magic art. They deal apparently with dull truisms and stale moralities, avowals of simple joys and simple sorrows. They tell us that life is brief and death is sure, that light loves and ancient wines are good, that riches are burdensome, and enough is better than a feast, that country life is delightful, that old age comes on us apace, that our friends leave us sorrowing and our sorrow does not bring them back. Trite sayings no doubt; ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... liberty to distribute and exchange products of industry in any market without burdensome tariffs, without imposts, and without vexatious regulations. There must be these two liberties—liberty to create wealth, as the makers of it think best according to the light and experience which business has given them; and then liberty to distribute what they have created without ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... great pleasure to thus meet and mingle with you, to lay aside for a moment the heavy duties of an official and burdensome station, and confer in familiar converse with my friends in your great state. The good opinion of my fellow citizens of all sections is the sweetest solace in all my anxieties. I look forward with longing to the time when I can lay aside the cares of office—" ["dam sight," shouted a tipsy fellow ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... that the very ease of such a destiny might not have wearied my heart, enervated my mind, and rendered me at once burdensome to myself and useless to the world? Is it not hunger that gives the true zest to the banquet, however exquisite, and labour that gives the true charm to the couch, however embroidered? Is not the noblest enjoyment of the noblest mind to be found it the consciousness that we have done ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... words of the emperor's, she had reason to believe one, at least, of the letters which it conveyed to be in some important degree connected with the interests of her lover. Satisfied, however, that he would not find it possible to abscond with so burdensome an article in any direction that could save him from instant pursuit and arrest, she continued to watch for the moment when she might safely raise the alarm. But great was her consternation when she saw a dark figure steal from a thicket, receive the trunk from the other, and instantly retreat ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... get nothing by peace and a great deal by war, throw obstacles in the way." The armament argument for peace has been given its reductio ad absurdum; but it is by no means clear that the world-wide war will free the nations from the burdensome folly of keeping enormous armies and navies. As Christians we must protest without ceasing that international relations, based on mutual fear and maintained by the use of brute force, can never furnish ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... felon and fugitive from justice. She thought what must be his feelings, his sense of utter desolation, with none around to sympathize—no sweet being by his side to whisper a single word of encouragement and hope; or, should the worst prove true, to share his painful lot, and endeavor to render less burdensome his remorseful thoughts, by smiles of endearment and looks of love. She thought, too, that to-morrow—perhaps today—he would take his departure, peradventure never to behold her again; and this was the saddest of the train. ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... to depend on the Treasury of the United States, I doubt not that she, in conjunction with Upper Canada, will provide the necessary means for keeping this work in repair in the least expensive and most effective manner and without being burdensome ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... least in so far as gathering wild red raspberries from the sand pit near the bridge; and then they had raced to the Multiopolis station to start Mr. Winton on a trip west to try to sell his interest in some large land holdings there, the care of which he was finding burdensome. ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... cities and towns the most notable examples of gardening are found in the parks, boulevards, and cemeteries. By these flaring displays thousands of modest cottagers who might easily provide, on their small scale, lovely gardens about their dwellings at virtually no cost and with no burdensome care, get a notion that this, and this only, is artistic gardening and hence that a home garden for oneself would be too expensive and troublesome to be thought of. On the other hand, a few are tempted to mimic them on a petty scale, and so spoil their little grass-plots and amuse, without entertaining, ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... work they contained to be flung aside now and wasted? Was the whole principle that had shaped them, of living in and for the intellect, to be utterly reversed now? And yet it was a wretched, poor, burdensome thing, life, as it had been lived by me. The past years stared me in the face mockingly. Clean, capable of being scrutinised in the sunlight, estimable from a moral and mental standpoint, but absolutely barren of pleasure, and, so far, barren of result. I looked at them ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... despair. He was naturally of a strong-nerved and gallant temperament, nor unaccustomed to those perils of life and limb which German students delight to brave; but his heart well-nigh failed him at that moment. The silence became distinct and burdensome to him, and a chill moisture gathered to his brow. While he stood irresolute and in suspense, striving to collect his thoughts, his ear, preternaturally sharpened by fear, caught the faint muffled sound of creeping footsteps—he heard the stairs creak. The sound broke ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... idolatry—"Their drink-offerings of blood will I not offer." Idolatry always develops a loathsome ritual. Sometimes it is cruel and sometimes it is horribly unclean, but it always debases the worshiper's mind, confuses his conscience, and hampers his freedom and energy by the burdensome ceremonies it imposes upon them. Standing afar off from them as we do, and knowing that there is no heathen religion but has something good in it, we are apt to think that it does not in the least matter how crude or how material a nation's faith be if only it be faith in something ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various
... best of wills almost inevitably Christmas in many instances has created a burdensome demand. Perhaps by the method of exclusion we shall find out what Christmas should be. It is not a time for extravagance, for ostentation, for vulgar display, it is possible to purchase pleasure for someone else at too high a price to ourselves. To paraphrase Polonius, "Costly thy ...
— A Little Book for Christmas • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... St. Austin's was rendered somewhat hollow and burdensome for Pillingshot by the fact that he fagged for Scott. Not that Scott was the Beetle-Browed Bully in any way. Far from it. He showed a kindly interest in Pillingshot's welfare, and sometimes even did his Latin verses for him. But the noblest natures have flaws, ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... positive contents of an idea that rules the soul,—then that is the piety of Mysticism.... Mysticism is not that which is common to all religion, but a particular species of religion, namely a piety which feels that which is historical in the positive religion to be burdensome, and so ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... Parliament; and soon every tax was withdrawn except a tiny one on tea, so small that the money involved was trifling. But it was not the money, it was the principle involved, which had aroused the Americans; and their resistance continued as vigorous as against the previous really burdensome taxation. The tea which King George commanded should be sent forcibly to the colonists, they refused to receive. In Boston it was ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... prolonging this existence, which to you is burdensome and to me is unsatisfactory. Where is ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... I were an elephant. Being only a boy, I would find it burdensome carrying a trunk with me. The gripsack is all I ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger |
