"Incumbrance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... magistrate, Lord Milton, or Lord Fitzwilliam, for instance, if they were within reach, and I would tell him that I had left my wife and family chargeable to the parish, as I was unable to support them by my labour; but as I knew the leaving of my family as an incumbrance upon the parish was an offence against the laws, for which I was liable to be committed to prison, and as I did not wish to give the parish officers more trouble than was absolutely necessary, I had come to request his lordship to make out my mittimus, that I ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... her privilege to carry her own nationality into her own drawing-room. And then she was called upon to deal between an Italian Count with an elder brother, and an English Honourable, who had no such incumbrance. Which of the two was possessed of the higher rank? "I've found it all out, Aunt Mary," said Livy. "You must take the Count." For Livy wanted to give her sister every chance. "How have you found it out?" said the aunt. "You may be sure it is so," said Livy. And the lady in her doubt yielded ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... proclamation of the President. The confiscation act had but little influence upon the result of the war, except that it gathered at the wake of our armies in the south a multitude of negroes called "contrabands," who willingly performed manual labor, but were often an incumbrance and had to be fed ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... a neat little house, occupied by an old lady and her daughter, who were very desirous of evading such an incumbrance. For, after resisting my entrance, until successive applications of my foot had reduced the door to a condition which would no longer second their efforts, the old lady resolved to try me on another tack; and, opening the door, ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... Then I became a young vagabond; and instead of one old woman knocking me about and starving me, everybody of all ages knocked me about and starved me. They were right; they had no business to do anything else. I was a nuisance, an incumbrance, and a pest. I know that ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... are out with your ponies; drive straight to Mapleton, and don't mention me. You will be admitted to mother. Father is there, and Frank; give them the least chance, and they will tell you about Sybil, and then you can manage the rest. Tell them to bring her back, even with that beastly incumbrance. They will listen to you; they won't to me. If ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... that your dignity is tied to it. I know not how it happens, but this dignity of yours is a terrible incumbrance to you; for it has of late been ever at war with your interest, your equity, and every idea of your policy. Show the thing you contend for to be reason; show it to be common-sense; show it to be the means of attaining some useful end: and then ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... American or English woman will scarcely venture out a second time without the severe escort of husband or brother. These relatives are, accordingly, in great demand. In the thrifty North, man is considered an incumbrance from breakfast to dinner,—and the sooner he is fed and got out of the way in the morning, the better the work of the household goes on. If the master of the house return at an unseasonable hour, he is held to an excuse, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... and she means to make the most of them. If she knew the wealth and position I could give her immediately, would not these certainties bring a different expression into her eyes? I am not an ogre, that she should shrink from me as the only incumbrance." ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... without me,' said Ralph, 'you must pay my debt in full, because you couldn't set her father free otherwise. It's plain, then, that I must have the whole amount, clear of all deduction or incumbrance, or I should lose from being honoured with your confidence, instead of gaining by it. That's the first article of the treaty. For the second, I shall stipulate that for my trouble in negotiation and persuasion, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... slung at his back, together with the well filled, and carefully guarded pouch and horn, he had carelessly cast a keen and bright wood-axe across his shoulder, sustaining the weight of the whole with as much apparent ease, as if he moved, unfettered in limb, and free from incumbrance. ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... place in the field with the others, and proved himself a good worker, but still kept on his kihei, which it would be natural to suppose that he would lay aside as an incumbrance when engaged in hard labor. At last some of the more venturesome of the younger folks managed to tear his kapa off, as if accidentally, when the shark-mouth on his back was seen ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... despair. It ought not to be looked upon as the last and worst shift that a family can come to, but the performance of an imperative duty to our blood, our country, our religion, and to humankind. As soon as children begin to be felt an incumbrance, and what was properly in ancient times Old Testament blessings are no longer welcomed, parents ought to provide for removal to parts of this wide world where every accession is an addition of strength, and every member of the household feels in his inmost heart, 'the ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... the license of a friend, I am about to talk to you about your affairs. This money has been hardly earned by your mental labour, and with difficulty obtained by me for you, only by great perseverance. We are therefore most anxious it should be the means of freeing you from all debt or incumbrance, in order that your mind may be once more at ease, and that you may revel with your muse at will, regardless of all hauntings save hers, and when she troubles you can pay her off in her own coin. The sum you stated some time since I think was L35 as sufficient ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... little above the middle height, well limbed and muscular; with little incumbrance of flesh beyond that which gives shape and manliness to the outline of the figure; with a firm tread, an erect carriage, a countenance strongly patrician, both in feature, profile, and expression, and an appearance remarkable and distinguished. Few could approach him on any duty, or, on any subject ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... giant, with huge shoulders almost too broad; but she had simply said, perhaps with a touch of mockery: "There is one who is tall, to say the least!" And the sentence implied beneath this was: "What an incumbrance he'll be to the woman he marries, a husband of ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... shrieks of terror bounded into the canoe, and wrapping the blankets around them, cowered in abject helpless dread of impending death. They were only an incumbrance, as they had proven in ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... is not entity to be killed by a shot from a professional gun, but a condition, an effort of outraged nature to free itself from an incumbrance, and should be aided rather than hindered by the administration of any nerve irritant. There never will come a time when the laws of health can be evaded. Nor is there any vicarious atonement. The full penalty of disobedience ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... of the effect of what you have been saying will depend. In effecting these various improvements, and in the building of that house, have you been obliged to embarrass yourself, or are they free from incumbrance?"—"Your question," he said, "is a reasonable one, and I will answer it with the frankness you are kind enough to ascribe to me. I have ever made it a rule not to exceed my income. Mrs. ****** bore our first trials with so much cheerfulness, and contributed so much to my happiness ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... so pleasant to live in perpetual vacancy, that he soon dismissed his attention as an useless incumbrance, and resigned himself to carelessness and dissipation, without any regard to the future or the past, or any other motive of action than the impulse of a sudden desire, or the attraction of immediate pleasure. The absent were immediately forgotten, ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... actions of kings, warriors, and statesmen. Homer and the early ballads are indeed the first historians of their countries, and long after Homer one of the most illustrious of the critics of antiquity described history as merely 'poetry free from the incumbrance of verse.' The portraits that adorned it gave some insight into human character; it breathed noble sentiments, rewarded and stimulated noble actions, and kindled by its strong appeals to the imagination high patriotic feeling; ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... my elbow, and three plays (three, think of that!) and a story, all crying out to me, "Finish, finish, make an entire end, make us strong, shapely, viable creatures!" It's enough to put a man crazy. Moreover, I have my thesis given out now, which is a fifth (is it fifth? I can't count) incumbrance. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Though wounded to the heart, he may speak. Then what may be chance to say? What looks of reproach may he cast upon me? The musket may miss fire. If I wound him, the wound may be less mortal than I contemplated. Then what may I not have to fear? His dead body will be an incumbrance to me. It must be moved from the place where it lies. It must be buried. How is all this to be done by me? By one precipitate act, I have involved myself in a long train of loathsome and ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... but only to liberate slaves. Soon, also, he placed pikes in the hands of his black prisoners. But that ceremony did not make soldiers of them, as his favorite maxim taught. They held them in their hands with listless indifference, remaining themselves, as before, an incumbrance instead of a reenforcement. He gave his white prisoners notice that he would hold them as hostages, and informed one or two that, after daylight, he would exchange them for slaves. Before the general fighting began, he endeavored to effect an armistice or compromise with the citizens, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... to believe that he was old and helpless,—a child for the second time,—and that by dying he was but performing his duty to society! To be placed again in a position where he would be an incumbrance to those whom he could not call kindred was, in his opinion, a crime he should ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... (of Connecticut) was for rating them as four to three. Mr. Carroll as four to one. Mr. Williamson (of North Carolina) said he was principled against slavery; and that he thought slaves an incumbrance to society, instead of increasing its ability to pay taxes. Mr. Higginson (of Massachusetts) as four to three. Mr. Rutledge (of South Carolina) said, for the sake of the object, he would agree to rate slaves as two to one, but he sincerely thought three ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... said to have gained something in point of probability, by diminishing the distance which the Niger has to flow in order to reach the Atlantic. But the length of its course, even when thus reduced, is still a considerable difficulty, and a great incumbrance on the hypothesis. The objection arising from the Niger's being conceived to penetrate the Kong Mountains, seems to be nearly of equal weight in both cases, on the supposition that this vast chain of mountains is of the extent generally imagined; which there ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... might be worth investing in as a possible successor to his unrivalled namesake. There is surely money in it. Chang's present earnings are rather less than 7s. a month, without board and lodging; he is unmarried, and has no incumbrance; and he is slightly taller and much more massively built than a well-known American giant whom I once had permission to measure, who has been shown half over the world as the "tallest man on earth," his height being attested ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... firmly; "I have an alternative, and I solemnly believe the only one which will win this noble girl to become my wife. Instead of embezzling my father's property, which does not belong to me, if I marry her, I can renounce that which brings so cruel an incumbrance." ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... a cleet where they ought not to be, to their proper place. This occurred early in Jack's watch, according to Josh's story, and had not been reported, as the boat did not properly belong to the brig, and was an incumbrance rather than an advantage. The mate admired the negro's cunning, as Don Juan related this part of his story, which put him in a situation to throw all the blame on Jack's mendacity in the event of a discovery, while it had the effect to allow ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... by redeeming his libertie, with De la Pooles captiuity. This accomplished, he made choyce to take ship again at Falmouth, that so by the shortest cut, hee might leaue least power in fortune, to thwart him any second incumbrance. ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... discouragement of land speculation on a large scale a further provision is made by the enactment of a further tax upon all lands held by individuals or corporations of a value exceeding $25,000 clear of incumbrance. This is called the graduated land tax, and provides for a farther taxation on all such lands, beginning at one-eighth in addition to the original tax, and rising by advances of an additional eighth for each sum of $25,000 at which the ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... acres. Since that time we have acquired by purchase another tract containing 285 acres. The first tract we paid for in two years; the other is also paid for. The total of 605 acres, I am glad to say, is without incumbrance of ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... successful. He had thought that he could explain the reasons to the Minister, but found himself incapable of explaining them to himself. In regard to means of subsistence he was no better off now than when he began the world. He was, indeed, without incumbrance, but was also without any means of procuring an income. For the last twelve months he had been living on his little capital, and two years more of such life would bring him to the end of all that he had. There was, no doubt, one view of his prospects which was bright enough. If Marie Goesler ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... that either the occasion for which it is required slips by, or a much longer notice is necessary than the most fashionable dressmaker would demand in the very height of the London season, instead of being useful, she is an incumbrance. The dressmaker's bill is not avoided. A steady lady's-maid who is quick at her needle and quick with her eye, can always command good wages and a good place, and they who possess such a treasure will never be willing to part with her. Any one who has not thoroughly gone into the question ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... the Germans have no notion of pampering themselves with good beef. Their system is, not to fatten the beast, and then kill him; but to work him as long as he is fit for work, and then to kill him lest he should become an incumbrance. Neither can their sheep boast much of the symmetry of their proportions, or of the high flavour of their flesh when it comes to table. The wool, as everybody knows, is, indeed, excellent; but the mutton is but sorry food, at least to an Englishman. As I ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... Dawkins's sentiments. She considered—or at any rate so expressed herself—that peas could grow very well without sticks, and could not only grow thus unsupported, but could also make their way about the world without any incumbrance of sticks whatsoever. She did not intend, she said, to rival Ida Pfeiffer, seeing that she was attached in a moderate way to bed and board, and was attached to society in a manner almost more than moderate; but she had no idea of being prevented from seeing anything she ...
— An Unprotected Female at the Pyramids • Anthony Trollope
... land had small room for slaves, dependent and incapable. One of the first large companies included some scores of bondmen; they landed to face a fierce and hungry winter, and straightway the bondmen were set free,—as slaves they would be an incumbrance; as freemen they could get their own living. The thrifty colonists of a later generation did a driving business in African slaves for their southern neighbors, but they had small use for them ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... that's why. Arethusa isn't your incumbrance, in any way. She's my daughter, and I'm not such a pauper that I can't manage to support her, for I most certainly did not marry you to have you caring for my various relatives. You write your letter, and ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... go, and welcome, Madam!" rejoined Kneebone, spitefully. "But, I should think, after the specimen you've just given of your amiable disposition, no person would be likely to saddle himself with such an incumbrance." ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... to live, too, for personal and private reasons. If I could regard myself merely as a helpless incumbrance, a useless jellyfish, absorbing for my maintenance human effort that should be beneficially exerted elsewhere, I think I should be the first to bid them take me out and bury me. But it is my wonderful privilege to look around and see great and beautiful human souls coming to me for guidance ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... will forward or deliver this, and is on his return to England, can inform you of our different movements, but I am very uncertain as to my own return. He will probably be down in Notts, some time or other; but Fletcher, whom I send back as an incumbrance (English servants are sad travellers), will supply his place in the interim, and describe our travels, which ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... charge embraces only the wounded of the garrison. This dead man can only be an incumbrance to you, and it shall be my care that his ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... the necessity and expediency of restoring her, not only out of regard to his own character and that of his nation, but also with a view to his ease, which would in a little time be very much invaded by such an incumbrance, that in all probability would involve him in a thousand difficulties and disgusts. Besides, he assured him that he was already, by order of the lieutenant de police, surrounded with spies, who would watch all ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... but he was an exquisite critic of life; he shared his contemporaries' lack of enthusiasm, but he possessed a fine discrimination, and those less practical, more irresponsible qualities would have been merely an incumbrance to the apostle of good sense and moderation. For when men are young they are much occupied with the framing of ideals and the search after absolute truth; as they grow older they generally become more practical; they accept, more or less, the idea of compromise, and make the best ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... of her husband's family, and she made no claim on Mr. Fairfax, who, for his part, acknowledged none. Bessie's near kinsfolk on her mother's side were all departed this life; there was nobody who wanted the child, or who would have regarded her in any light but an incumbrance. The rector's widow therefore kept her unquestioned; and being a woman of much sense and little pride, she moved no farther from the rectory than to a cottage-lodging in the town, where she found some teaching amongst the children of the small ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... as made him doubt the Reality of the Object, or distrust the Perfection of his Sight; he saw his dear Lady, who had so captivated him the preceeding Day, he saw her in all the heightning Circumstances of her Charms, he saw her in all her native Beauties, free from the Incumbrance of Dress, her Hair as black as Ebony, hung flowing in careless Curls over her Shoulders, it hung link'd in amorous Twinings, as if in Love with its own Beauties; her Eyes not yet freed from the Dullness of the late Sleep, cast ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... be a matter of surprise to some persons that Mr. and Mrs. Squeers should have taken so much trouble to repossess themselves of an incumbrance of which it was their wont to complain so loudly; but the services of the drudge, if performed by any one else, would have cost some ten or twelve shillings per week in the shape of wages; and furthermore, all runaways ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... had no tent. Such an incumbrance would have been troublesome to them, travelling, as they were, afoot. Indeed, all three had their full loads to carry, as much as they could well manage, without the additional weight of a tent. Each had his blanket, and various ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... her freedom, for she had no mother, So that, her father being at sea, she was Free as a married woman, or such other Female, as where she likes may freely pass, Without even the incumbrance of a brother, The freest she that ever gazed on glass; I speak of Christian lands in this comparison, Where wives, at least, are seldom ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... reasonable number of bottles during the play. Mr. Warrington is no other than the Fortunate Youth about whom so many stories have been told in the Public Advertiser and other prints. He has an estate in Virginia as big as Yorkshire, with the incumbrance of a mother, the reigning Sovereign; but, as the country is unwholesome, and fevers plentiful, let us hope that Mrs. Esmond will die soon, and leave this virtuous lad in undisturbed possession. She ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... my brother and sister were both dead. They had been carried off by the small-pox; and she rightly enough conjectured that the rector would not be the less prone to pardon her for being clear of further incumbrance. She enjoined me to intercede in her behalf, and I very sincerely promised to speak as soon as ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... honorable ambition, healthy activity and right purpose in the one as in the other. We are not calling for any change in the character of our institutions or one which they afford no means of effecting, but the removal by a method which they themselves provide of an incumbrance which impairs their nature and impedes their working. No partial measure will suffice—none that will depend for its efficacy on the disposition of those whose duty it will be to enforce it—none that will be exposed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... not be: From lechery fast you flee. For incumbrance it will bring thee, And all that to ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... assured, keeps the soul in constant health; but idleness corrupts and rusts the mind; for a man of great abilities may by negligence and idleness become so mean and despicable as to be an incumbrance to society and a burthen to himself. When the Roman historians described an extraordinary man, it generally entered into his character, as an essential, that he was incredibili industria, diligentia singulari—of incredible industry, of singular diligence and application. And Cato, in ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... help thinking how droll it was that a person whom we all considered a sort of incumbrance and superfluity at first should really turn out an object of prime importance to us all. ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... to his brother. He therefore resolved not to wait until their means were totally exhausted: the next day he disposed of all his clothes except one suit, and found himself richer than he had imagined. Having paid his landlord the trifle due for rent, without any other incumbrance than the packet of articles picked up in the trunk at sea, three pounds sterling in his pocket, and the ring of Madame de Fontanges on his little finger, Newton, with his father, set off on foot for ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... mortals approximate the understanding of Christian Science, they take hold of harmony, and material incumbrance disappears. Having one God, one Mind, one consciousness,—which includes only His own nature,—and loving your neighbor as yourself, constitute Christian Science, which must demonstrate the nothingness of any other ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy
... guide the horse. Cavalry is never really efficient unless trained to rush into close contact with the enemy. To see the whites of their eyes is not sufficient; they must ride over the foe. In the rapid charge the carbine is not only useless, but a positive incumbrance. The saber is comparatively harmless; it serves to frighten the timid, but rarely ever deals a death-wound. Let two men encounter each other in the charge, one relying upon his pistol, the other upon his saber, and the former, though ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... the substance of her reflections. Ida, whom she had kidnapped for certain purposes of her own, was likely to prove an (sic) incumbrance rather than a source of profit. The child, her suspicions awakened in regard to the character of the money she had been employed to pass off, was no longer available for that purpose. So firmly resolved was she not to do what was wrong, that threats and persuasions were alike unavailing. ...
— Timothy Crump's Ward - A Story of American Life • Horatio Alger
... four months conducted, the regency of the state. The capricious attachment of the army, however, to the cause of Shere Singh turned the current of fortune; and the Queen-Mother might seem to have laid aside the incumbrance of her royal apparel, to be more easily strangled by her own slave girls. The accession of Shere Singh opened the floodgates of irretrievable disorder; for the troops, to whom he owed his success, and on whose venal steadiness ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... was a man without the incumbrance of a wife, an expert in the arts of intrigue and seduction. Nihi-aumoe is a word of very suggestive meaning, to walk softly at midnight. In Judge Andrews's dictionary are found the following pertinent Hawaiian verses apropos of ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... at the return of his Majesty's birth-day, and the celebrating it in this distant part of the globe, we with pleasure saw some large piles of wood burnt that had been along time collecting, and which were a great incumbrance to us. ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... restrain the Indians, who were an incumbrance to his army, and whose conduct alienated great numbers of Loyalists from ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... reader. This was in conformity to a prevailing custom of that period. They contain no intrinsic historical interest or value whatever, and, if introduced, would not serve their original purpose, but would rather be an incumbrance, and they have consequently been omitted in the ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... the necessity of the cross-bar feet at bottom, and possesses this advantage, that it may be taken out when done with, and hung up by the side of the wall, so as to allow the area of the room to be quite clear of any incumbrance, and to be used for any other purpose. No. 2, is the socket which should be let into the floor and screwed fast to the side of a joist, so as to keep it perfectly steady; the socket is to be open at bottom so as to let the dust pass through: and No. 1, is a plate, to fit ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... of which he has been accused, he would not now be the inmate of a prison. He could have made, with all ease his Government a dictatorate—or turning off the useless and clamorous Congress, as an incumbrance to a Government which (until the war was won) was an experiment, have ruled during the war with a "committee of ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... in him, the liking began to take on a supervisory form, and it was not without a touch of irritation in his voice that Alan informed his sister that he had acquired a second father, and with juvenile malignity attributed the incumbrance to her ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... abandon his basket of food, which became a perilous incumbrance on the glacier, and had now no means of refreshing himself but by breaking off and eating some of the pieces of ice. This, however, relieved his thirst; an hour's repose recruited his hardy frame, and with the indomitable spirit of avarice ...
— The King of the Golden River - A Short Fairy Tale • John Ruskin.
... was slow and grudging in sending his remittances. Jaime would ask him for money and he would reply with grumbling letters, telling of interest which must be met, of second mortgages on which he could barely realize a loan, of the precariousness of a fortune in which nothing was left free of incumbrance. ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... not have been in vain. But his original stock of this attribute had been limited, and he had long since disposed of the little he once possessed. Such an attribute as honor or pity was viewed by him as a useless incumbrance, for he was a miserable, heartless wretch, seeking the gratification of his own depraved appetite, and ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... to any substantial injury to itself.—Infinitely less favourable to all good ends was the condition of the French people when, a few years past, a Revolution made them, for a season, their own masters,—rid them from the incumbrance of superannuated institutions—the galling pressure of so many unjust laws—and the tyranny of bad customs. The Spaniards became their own masters: and the blessing lay in this, that they became so at once: there had not been time for them to court their power: ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... person whose annual income little more than suffices to meet the annual expenses of a very moderate establishment, an unsought honour may be an incumbrance. It appears, at any rate, opposed to the spirit of such an honour, that it should be loaded with Court Expenses in its ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... who went before, and those who have followed, he was greatly burdened with the financial management. The several schemes which had been adopted to secure an Endowment Fund for the University, had not fully met expectations, and in consequence, an indebtedness had been incurred. To lift this incumbrance became the special concern of President Mason. He traveled over the State, visiting the charges in person, and taking subscriptions wherever they could be obtained. And I am happy to say that through his great ability in this ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... not unguardedly attracted my attention by what she meant for a severe rebuke. I happened to be walking with her and a gentleman whose wife had lately experienced, on some occasion, a narrow escape of her life; "and so Miss Bassett I had nearly become a gentleman free of incumbrance, and then I should have ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... inseparable from regular armies. The regular forces will act as the back-bone of the expedition, but the rock and cover fighting will be done better by levies of such specially raised irregulars. For war with native countries, I think that, except for the defence of posts, artillery is a great incumbrance, far beyond its value. It is a continual source of anxiety. Its transport regulates the speed of the march, and it forms a target for the enemy, while its effects on the scattered enemy is almost nil. An advance of regular troops, ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... this, and Long finally gave in, although he expressed himself as certain that the boys would prove a great incumbrance. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... without having to accompany her kind act with a deep sigh at the anticipation of the parlor storm it would raise at home. And though Mrs. Henrietta still "waxed fat," her good flesh was no longer an incumbrance to her—the leaven of cheerfulness ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... Force as working and expressing and manifesting itself only in phenomena in accordance with natural law—that is, this law is regarded as the expression of the divine will. Science is thus given liberty to investigate phenomena to the fullest extent, and religion is freed from the incumbrance of physical, psychological, and metaphysical theories; the spheres of the two are sharply defined and kept separate. Such a conception is held to differ from "naturalism" or "materialism" in that ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... and there are very few men who would have done that. I shall never forget his kindness. And now let us talk of something else. You will have to establish a little mess on your own account, Mr. Wilson, as both the Captains are married men, and the Major has also an incumbrance." ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... shifting their hands at the same instant, after the manner of the South Sea islanders. As about twenty of them were counted, and seemed to be coming on with much resolution, our people prepared for whatever might be the event. The sloop was put under easy sail, her decks cleared of every incumbrance, and each man was provided with a competent number of musket balls, pistol balls, and buck shot, which were to be used as the distance might require; for it was intended that not a man should escape ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... and my brother's family together; you would all have considered anxiously how to do something for me and set me up as a respectable civilian. But how could any of you feel sure of me when I couldn't so much as feel sure of myself? How could you help regarding as an incumbrance and a discredit to you an idle dragooning chap who was an incumbrance and a discredit to himself, excepting under discipline? How could I look my brother's children in the face and pretend to set them an example—I, the vagabond boy who had run away from home and been the grief and unhappiness ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... opened their padlock, and it was still in their possession. On entering Versailles, and observing the crowd preparing to attack them, they divested themselves of their fetters, and of every other incumbrance. In a few moments their carriages were surrounded, their companions at one end were already murdered, and themselves slightly wounded; but the confusion increasing, they darted amidst the croud, and were in a moment ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... the problem necessarily presented itself to Bentham in a form in which selfishness is the predominating force, and any recognition of independent benevolence rather an incumbrance than a help. If we take the 'self-preference principle' absolutely, the question becomes how a multitude of individuals, each separately pursuing his own happiness, can so arrange matters that their joint action may secure ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... pedantry of the scholar should betray a little ostentation, yet a well-conditioned mind would more easily, methinks, tolerate the fox brush of learned vanity, than the sans culotterie of a contemptuous ignorance, that assumes a merit from mutilation in the self-consoling sneer at the pompous incumbrance of tails. ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... back, so he excited his horse to an increased speed, hoping thus to ride over me; but I stood my ground, and as I made a cut with my sabre, the horse bounded from the road with so sudden a start that the frightened woman lost her hold and fell off. The horseman, free of his incumbrance, would now have used his gun; but, seeing mine already aimed at him, he thought it most prudent to continue his road, and I saw ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... see the lion distinctly. He was a huge, black-maned brute, and he held Luki by the shoulder. The poor lad kept screaming frightfully. The man-eater must have dragged me forty yards before he became aware of a double incumbrance to his progress. Then he halted and turned. By Jove! he made a devilish fierce object with his shaggy, massive head, his green-fire eyes, and his huge jaws holding Luki. I let go of Luki's foot and bethought myself of the gun. But as I lay there on my side, before attempting to ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... slipping, Casey surmised, and had proceeded to divest himself of the incumbrance in the manner best known to mules. Having kicked himself out of it, he had undoubtedly discovered a leaking can—supposing the cans had escaped thus far—and had battered them with his heels until they were all leaking copiously. William ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... the signing of the contract, to discharge every mortgage, debt, and incumbrance on these feudal lands of Corellia in the Garfagnana; also any debts in and about the Guinigi Palace and lands, within and without the walls of Lucca. I take upon myself every incumbrance," Nobili repeated emphatically, raising his voice. "My purpose is fully noted in that contract, ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... second loan, will require between five and six instalments, which will carry us to the end of 1833, or thirteen years from this time. My individual opinion is, that we had better not open the institution until the buildings, library, and all, are finished, and our funds cleared of incumbrance. These buildings once erected, will secure the full object infallibly at the end of thirteen years, and as much earlier as the legislature shall choose. And if we were to begin sooner, with half funds only, it ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... demanded the twinkling General, "if I accept, will you look upon me in the light of an incumbrance or a benefactor?" ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... babble in that hypocritical tone!" said the man. "I did not leave you so destitute; and I took the child off your hands that no incumbrance might ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... ago, when our mails were all carried in coaches drawn by horses, there were some routes on which the weight of the newspaper mails was a serious incumbrance. But at present, so great has been the extension of steam power, that I question if there is a single route to which the number of newspapers sent would be a burden, unless, perhaps, it may be the route by the National ...
— Cheap Postage • Joshua Leavitt
... a finger higher up than the distal end of the second phalanx, unless absolutely compelled by the patient, for the resulting stump, being no longer commanded by the tendons, will prove merely an incumbrance, and may possibly require a secondary operation at no distant ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... she, their natural care-taker, thenceforth has no legal direction of their interests; strangers decide upon the propriety of the sale of the property—earned, perhaps, by her own and her husband's mutual efforts—and her interest in the estate is coolly designated as the "widow's incumbrance!" In the extremity of her bereavement there is piled upon her, not only the dread of separation from her children, but that of being sent homeless from the spot where every object has been consecrated ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... saying (in reply to some ninety-ninth demand of mine) that he thought he could get me some money; and inclosing a letter from a respectable firm in the city of London, connected with the mining interest, which offered to redeem the incumbrance in taking a long lease of certain property of ours, which was still pretty free, upon the Countess's signature; and provided they could be assured of her free will in giving it. They said they heard she lived in terror of her life from me, and meditated a separation, in which case she might repudiate ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... generous pleasure, and encouraged the mirth of the moment. Priests, ladies, gentlemen of the very first quality, romped with the girls of the house in high good-humour, and tripped it away without the incumbrance of petty pride, or the mean vanity of giving what they expressively call foggezzione, to those who were proud of their company and protection. A new-married wench, whose little fortune of a hundred crowns ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... wrong me when you imagine that I care for any one but you. I did disapprove of your following me here, for you know that I must depend upon my wits for a living, and I think I might do better without the incumbrance of a wife." ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton
... returned from Doomasansa, and received me with great joy and satisfaction, as one risen from the dead. Finding that the wearing apparel which I had left under his care was not sold nor sent to England, I lost no time in resuming the English dress, and disrobing my chin of its venerable incumbrance. Karfa surveyed me in my British apparel with great delight; but regretted exceedingly that I had taken off my beard; the loss of which, he said, had converted me from a man into a boy. Dr. Laidley readily undertook ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... men around him. His bottle of brandy and his box of cigars were at their service, and his dress was that of a gentleman. His natural drollery took on a very amusing form during his sickness, and the men found him a source of pleasure rather than an incumbrance. ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland |
