"Encumbrance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... scenery from the windows of the train, and you can see nothing of the huge expanses of moorland stretching away from the precipices on either side. So that we, who would learn something of this region, must make the journey on foot; for a bicycle would be an encumbrance when crossing the heather, and there are many places where a horse would be a source of danger. The sides of the valley are closely wooded for the first seven or eight miles north of Pickering, but the surrounding country ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... inconvenient to one to lose, against what one does not want to win; but parry those invitations ludicrously, 'et en badinant'. Say that, if you were sure to lose, you might possibly play, but that as you may as well win, you dread 'l'embarras des richesses', ever since you have seen what an encumbrance they were to poor Harlequin, and that, therefore, you are determined never to venture the winning above two louis a-day; this sort of light trifling way of declining invitations to vice and folly, is more becoming your ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... almost all the lower parts of Asia by a line extending from the sea that is opposite Cyprus to the Euxine. And this tract is the neck of the whole peninsula, the distance of the journey being such that five days are spent on the way by a man without encumbrance. 86 ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... had all been removed. The house was absolutely free from every encumbrance; the people owned ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... during the progress of this book, which is the history of the experiences of others rather than of myself, to lay any stress on my personal history, and here I would only say that any one who is burdened with a physical disease or encumbrance that will remain to the end of life must know that there are certain moments when this hindrance leaps up at him like the grinning face of a devil—despairing hideous moments they are! I have said that during our drive ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... Norsemen, her home is on the wave, at least in the yacht, for she always lives in it, and her cabin is quite a sight; she is great fun, she cooks when there is anything to cook, and is stewardess and everything. Francie and I knew a maid would be a vain encumbrance, so we are taking care of ourselves, and, if you will let me, I will try and set your hair ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... letter of credit isn't an encumbrance? Do you have to deposit the whole amount it calls for? If that is so, it is an encumbrance, and we must withdraw it and take the money out of soak. I have never made drafts upon it except when compelled, because ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... it would be agreeable, at our Lady's next feast. I have partly fixed upon most delectable rooms, which look out (when you stand a-tiptoe) over the Thames and Surrey Hills, at the upper end of King's Bench Walks, in the Temple. There I shall have all the privacy of a house without the encumbrance; and shall be able to lock my friends out as often as I desire to hold free converse with my immortal mind; for my present lodgings resemble a minister's levee, I have so increased my acquaintance (as they ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... marriage. If any one rebelled or neglected his duties, he was either crushed by the imperial forces, or put to the ban of the empire', and his territories were assigned to any one who would undertake to conquer them.[8] Their attendance at our viceroyal court would be a sad encumbrance;[9] and our Governor- General could not well conciliate them by matrimonial alliances, unless we were to alter a good deal in their favour our law against polygamy; nor would it be desirable to 'let slip the dogs of war' once more throughout the land by adopting ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... loaded," he replied, "when I go to the woods, I find it an encumbrance. In addition to my other traps, I find forty weight of pemican as much ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... been so hard at work (and shall be for the next eight or nine months), that sometimes I fancy I have a digestion, or a head, or nerves, or some odd encumbrance of that kind, to which I am altogether unaccustomed, and am obliged to rush at some other object for relief; at present the house is in a state of tremendous excitement, on account of Mr. Collins having nearly finished the new play we are to act at Christmas, which is very ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... some ignominiously bred cur at my heels; but Roger never cared for them, and little by little I had dropped the attempt to keep one, since he objected to exercising them in town, did not care to bother with them in the country, and absolutely refused to endure the encumbrance of one while travelling. Not that he was ever cruel or careless: when thrown into necessary relations with animals he was far more just and thoughtful of them than many a sentimental animal lover of my acquaintance! Strangely enough, I have never seen a dog or cat that would not go to him in preference ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... conveying objects of value; now most of talk, and much of life, is exactly of that indispensable useful uselessness. They are silent for the same reason that they are frequently inactive, recognizing that words and actions are so often mere litter and encumbrance. One feels frozen occasionally by their unspoken criticism; one's small exuberances checked by lack of sympathy and indulgence; one would like, sometimes, to pick a quarrel with them, to offer a penny for their thoughts, to force them to be as unselective and vulgar as one's self. But ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... adventure, the recital of which elicited frequent exclamations of wonder, alarm, and admiration, the latter being vastly increased when he produced his valuable specimens, to which he had resolutely "stuck" through it all notwithstanding that their weight had proved a serious encumbrance ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... to get invited, or commanded, to attend on the bridal accordingly, at which there were but few persons present; for James, on such occasions, preferred a snug privacy, which gave him liberty to lay aside the encumbrance, as he felt it to be, of his regal dignity. The company was very small, and indeed there were at least two persons absent whose presence might have been expected. The first of these was the Lady Dalgarno, the state of whose ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... evening, had its inauspicious side. But for the mishap that suddenly enveloped the happy man in flames at a moment when he was sprawled on his back with his whole right side, as it were, in a sling, Mr. Harold Willett might indeed have returned to duty and department headquarters with no other encumbrance than a mortgaged pay account, and it was not fair to Lilian to speak of her engagement as "announced" that Friday evening; but in her wondrous happiness she could find no fault with anything about it. It was all just perfect, just ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... "Ras was drowsing by Sherrill's on a load of hay and I bought the cart and the hay and the horses and Ras at a bargain and set out. Ras is a free lance without an encumbrance on earth and I can't imagine a more comfortable manner of getting about than stretched out full length on a load of hay. You can always sleep when you feel like it. And every morning we peel the bed—that is, we dispense with a layer of mattress and presto! ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... very likely found it an encumbrance, living in England, as an Englishman—especially if he was n't very rich," said Anthony. "He very likely felt that it rendered him rather uncomfortably conspicuous. Besides, a man does n't actually drop a title—he merely puts it in his pocket—he ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... "seems to me oddly in the way yonder. Were it not better to bestow it in the hold, where it will cease to be an encumbrance in ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... encumbrance in a sprinting match. Hiram, with longer legs than the pudgy Cap'n, drew ahead and overhauled the fugitive foot by foot. And at sound of his footsteps behind her, and his hoarse grunt, "I've got ye!" she whirled and, before the amazed showman could protect himself, she struck out and ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... working girls the waifs, the foundlings, came at all sorts of tender years, came from God only knows where—I could never find out exactly—some of them, perhaps, from city asylums, some from the families upon which they had been left as an encumbrance. They came as little children, and they went away as grown women. For them the home was practically a prison. Locked in here from morning till night, week in, week out, year after year, they were prisoners at all save certain stated times when they were taken abroad ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... beds in that house, and not a single soul to sleep in them." I was very much annoyed, at the time, that there was no possibility of returning them to their rightful owner, as, independent of its being nothing short of a regular robbery, I really looked upon them as a very unnecessary encumbrance; but being forced, in some measure, to indulge in their comforts, I was not long in changing my mind; and was, ultimately, not very sorry that the possibility of restoration ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... Frowenfeld. "It seems we are not to be granted suffrage yet; but the Creoles have a way of casting votes in their mind. For example, they have voted Honore Grandissime a traitor; they have voted me an encumbrance; I hear one of them ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... and limits the time of their return. They are furnished with a waggon and a slave, who drives the oxen, and looks after them: but unless there are women in the company, the waggon is sent back at the end of the journey as a needless encumbrance: while they are on the road, they carry no provisions with them; yet they want nothing, but are everywhere treated as if they were at home. If they stay in any place longer than a night, every one follows his proper ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... which some of the bacon and lard was to be sent to Telfair's town house; the cotton seed were abundant and easily handled, but they were thought good for fertilizing corn only; the stable and cowpen manure was embarrassingly plentiful in view of the pressure of work for the mules and oxen; and the encumbrance of logs and brush on the fields intended for cotton was straining all the labor available to clear them. The sheep, he continued, had not had many lambs; and many of the pigs had died in spite of ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... was desired, and Jack struck out with such force that he cut through the water like a boat; while I, being free from all encumbrance, succeeded in keeping up with him. As we had by this time drawn pretty near to the shore, a few minutes more sufficed to carry us into shallow water; and, finally, we landed in safety, though very much exhausted, and not a little ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... seen, for we know that they are there, living to God, one with us, fellows of our life and love. So let us address ourselves afresh to the spiritual race, the course of faith. Let us, as athletes of the soul, strip all encumbrance off, "every weight" of allowed wrong, all guilty links with the world of rebellion and self-love; "the sin which doth so easily beset us," clinging so soon around the feet, like a net of fine but stubborn meshes, till the runner gives up the ...
— Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews • Handley C.G. Moule
... posts under the impression that they were to make a night attack upon the enemy.[169] The order as actually given was far more rational, and less likely to excite suspicion as to its true intent. In the first place, the sick, "being an encumbrance to the army" were directed to be sent to the hospital, their arms and accoutrements taken with them, and from there to be conveyed across to New York and reported to Surgeon-General Morgan. In the next place, the order announced that troops under General ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... assurances of his friendship and esteem, and treated me with incessant marks of the most passionate love; so that I concluded his intention was cold, though his temper was warm. Considering myself as an encumbrance upon his fortune, I redoubled my endeavours to obtain a separate maintenance from my lord, and removed from St. James's-square to lodgings at Kensington, where I had not long enjoyed myself in tranquility, before I was interrupted by a ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... have been pleasanter for you," replied Verheyst, smiling, "but we get nothing for nothing; and if the old lady has chosen you to be her instrument of revenge, why you cannot do less than accept the encumbrance." ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... greaves. Over his back his longbow was slung beside his full arrow sheaf. At his right side was his dirk, at his left the sword of Somerled. On his arm he carried a small round shield studded with nails, though this was more an encumbrance than a defence, since his sword required the use of his two hands, and the shield might only be employed as a protection against arrows fired ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... a Concomitant of a pompous Felicity, but a Mediocrity is safe; this was always my Study, not to make any Advantage to myself from the Disadvantages of other People. I embraced as much as I could, that which the Greeks call Freedom from the Encumbrance of Business. I intermeddled with no one's Affairs; but especially I kept myself clear from those that could not be meddled with without gaining the ill Will of a great many. If a Friend wants my Assistance, I so serve him, as thereby not to procure any Enemies ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... captivity, allowing a motherless calf to suck along with her own young one. When a calf is born the mother and the herd usually remain in that place for two days. The calf is then capable of marching. Even at this tender age calves are no encumbrance to the herd's movement; the youngest climb hills and cross rivers, assisted by their dams. In swimming, very young calves are supported by their mothers' trunks, and are held in front of them. When they are a few months old they scramble on to their ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... too precipitate, and frightened the bird away," remarked Mrs. Fraudhurst. "But," continued she, after a moment's pause, "perhaps it is as well she has taken this step. Her presence here is now no longer necessary. You have the property without the encumbrance." ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... of chap I despises," remarks Tom, pointing to a steady-looking man, without encumbrance, who had just entered the yard, evidently a coachman to a pious family; "see him handle a hoss. Smear—smear—like bees-waxing a table. Nothing varminty about him—nothing of this sort of thing (spreading himself out to the gaze of his admiring auditory), ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 12, 1841 • Various
... very pretty picking in 3000 pounds per annum! one would not think much of a little encumbrance upon such an estate." ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... wondering, as she always wondered, what association there had been between him and such a man as her father—what had induced him to take upon himself the burden that had been laid upon him. And her cheeks grew hot again at the thought of the encumbrance she was to him. It was preposterous that he should ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... streets to the quay, and I suggested that although Mediterranean air was good, we couldn't exactly live on it during the passage across. But he pointed out that as his dinghy was very old and rotten, it would be quite a useless encumbrance on the cruise; and so, dropping me on board the cutter, he sculled off again to swap this ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... Their bodies, necks, and arms were, with the exception of a few slight ornaments, entirely naked; and even the blanket, that served them as a couch by night and a covering by day, had, with one single exception, been dispensed with, apparently with a view to avoid any thing like encumbrance in their approaching sport. Each individual was provided with a stout sapling of about three feet in length, curved, and flattened at the root extremity, like that used at the Irish hurdle; which game, in fact, the manner of ball-playing among the ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... the sky by looking upward, he was still in the forest, and had a hard journey before him, ere he gained the pleasant champaign he was seeking so eagerly. The cash he received on selling his house was barely sufficient to clear it of all encumbrance. He was, therefore, still hard pressed for money in his business. The sale of his handsome furniture would help him a good deal, and he determined, resolutely, to have this done forthwith. His wife ventured a demurrer, which he immediately overruled. ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... country between Fort Churchill and the three or four great rivers, still almost unknown, that flow into the head-waters of Chesterfield Inlet. In the beginning of June, as the snow began to melt, progress grew more and more difficult. Snowshoes became a useless encumbrance, and on the 10th of the month even the sledges were abandoned. Every man must now shoulder a heavy load. Hearne himself staggered under a pack which included a bag of clothes, a box of papers, a hatchet and other tools, and the clumsy weight of his quadrant and its stand. ...
— Adventurers of the Far North - A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas • Stephen Leacock
... was getting very short. I wanted to dodge the shelling, but had missed a quiet interval that occurred at 2.30 a.m. At 3 a.m. I moved, leading the party in a long column over the open ground north of Fayet to reach its eastern side. The inevitable 'wire mats,' an encumbrance without which few raiding parties ever started, hampered the progress. It was a pitch dark night, nor was I certain of the way. To cover the mile and then pass 150 men, ignorant of their whereabouts, silently and in single file through a gap into No-Man's-Land ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... Longman, Murray, or Blackwood—in the hope that the prospect of being let in to the profits of the already established favorite, would overcome effectually the hesitation of one or other of these houses about venturing on the encumbrance which Constable seemed to shrink from with such pertinacity; but upon this ingenious proposition Scott at once set his veto. He writes ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... getting short I could not therefore with propriety check the progress of the party; and indeed it appeared to me less necessary as I understood the river had been carefully surveyed. In the afternoon we had to resume the encumbrance of the snowshoes and to pass over a rugged part where the ice had been piled over a collection of stones. The tracks of animals were very abundant on the river, particularly near the remains of an old establishment ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... less liking and respecting him. I remember that once a Foreigner, a German, I think, was in our Company; and that whilst Goldsmith was speaking, he observ'd the Doctor preparing to utter something. Unconsciously looking upon Goldsmith as a meer Encumbrance when compar'd to the greater Man, the Foreigner bluntly interrupted him and incurr'd his lasting Hostility by crying, "Hush, Toctor Shonson ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... signally unjust to lay upon you alone the reproaches that every being brought under the yoke (conjugium) has the right to heap upon that necessary, sacred, useful, eminently conservative institution,—one, however, that is often somewhat of an encumbrance, and tight about the joints, though sometimes it is also ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... woollen trousers were beginning to show the result of the attacks of bush, rock, and water, but our blue flannel shirts and soft felt hats were still quite respectable. Our coats we had left behind us as an unnecessary encumbrance. ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... over-sized head-gear of the child's had so shoved itself down in the course of his journey to the pillow, under the clothes, that when he got his face fairly out on the bolster, he was all nightcap down to his mouth. He soon freed himself, however, from this slight encumbrance by turning the ends of the cap up gravely to their old place over his eyebrows—looked at Trottle—said, "Snug, ain't it? Good-bye!"—popped his face under the clothes again—and left nothing to be seen of him but the ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... an expressive word used by Beaumont and Fletcher in their "Bonduca," etc., to describe the case of a person retarded or embarrassed in flight, or in pursuit, by some encumbrance, whether thing or person, too ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... the proposal to encourage and utilize the Irish Volunteers. The first view was that Volunteers of any kind were a superfluous encumbrance at a moment when the supreme need was for men in the actual fighting-line; that encouragement of Volunteers gave an excuse for shirking war; and further, that Volunteers outside the State's control were a danger; ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... had acquired the mortgage following such patient steps, my father checkmated you by making and recording a deed of gift of the ranch to me, subject of course to the encumbrance. The war-time moratorium, which protected men in the military or naval service from civil actions, forced you to sit tight and play a waiting game. Then I was reported killed in action. My poor father was in a quandary. ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... eyes are opened at last. The thin, waxen mask of assumed kindness has melted from her face! I am a burden to her,—an encumbrance,—an offence. She only desires ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... idea of the cost of maintaining a standing army of two or three hundred thousand men even in times of peace. This has done a great deal to retard the progress of Europe; and that we, as a nation, have heretofore been free from this encumbrance, is doubtless one of the reasons why we have made such rapid strides in so much that makes a nation great and happy. But standing armies imply war, and the international wars of Europe have done much to exhaust her resources and paralyze her prosperity. Guizot says—and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Henry and Major Webb, as said "the Chief," had united, and here were two men who could be counted on to push the pursuit "for all they were worth." Hitherto, acting in the open country and free from encumbrance, the Indians had been hard to reach. Now they were being driven into their fastnesses among the mountains toward the distant shelter whither their few wounded had been conveyed, and where the old men, the women and children were in hiding. Now it meant that, unless the troops could be ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... that Archie Sinclair's mind was made up and fixed, and also so obvious that a delicate little boy would be a great encumbrance on a hunting expedition that Dan thought of attempting the expedient of winning Little Bill himself over to his side. He had no difficulty in doing that, for Billie was to the full as amiable and unselfish as his brother. After a short conversation, he made Billie promise to do his very best to ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... an army on its march; then consider that they carry more than a fortnight's provision, and whatever else they may want: that they carry the burthen of the stakes,(83) for as to shield, sword, or helmet, they look on them as no more encumbrance than their own limbs, for they say that arms are the limbs of a soldier, and those indeed they carry so commodiously, that when there is occasion they throw down their burdens, and use their arms as readily as their limbs. Why need I mention the exercises of the legions? ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... caused by anything in the shape of caste feelings or regulations; and amongst these necessities I, of course, include the desire to avoid shame, or the prospect of shame in the family, or starvation, as well as the fact that women are an encumbrance to some tribes. Some people, I may add, are under the impression that polyandric habits, when once established, become necessarily a cause of infanticide. But we have no means of knowing that this was ever the case, while the Coorgs may be pointed to ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... because it would be more encumbrance than help in the showdown. He checked, shoelaces, and strapped on the cleats he had made for what they were worth. He vetoed the bag of sand and salt he kept for minor difficulties—far too slow. He got out of ...
— A Matter of Proportion • Anne Walker
... day more inevitable; and it was the more difficult for him to make his exertions for defence or escape, that Elspat, amid his evil days, had increased his family with an infant child, which was a considerable encumbrance upon the necessary rapidity of ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... occurred, when there was a pretty scramble among the eligible to see who should solace the stricken widower. Among other matrimonial candidates was Agrippina, a beautiful widow, twenty-nine in June, rich in her own right, and with only a small encumbrance in the way of a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... purpose aside. In changing his plan, however, which was done in the course of printing, the early sheets retained the vestiges of the original tenor of the story, although they now hang upon it as an unnecessary and unnatural encumbrance. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... you must admit that now and then I have been at no small pains to—er—assist you. But there, I don't intend to speak of the past; and to tell the truth, I suspect that we are of one mind. You regard me as more or less of an encumbrance; you think your movements are hampered; you consider yourself to be ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... highly, but not inflamed, which looked out from a rich profusion of short chestnut-curls; and although his armour was of a massive and simple form, he moved under it with such elasticity and ease, that it seemed a graceful attire, not a burden or encumbrance. A furred mantle had not sat on him with more easy grace than the heavy hauberk, which complied with every gesture of his noble form. Yet his countenance was so juvenile, that only the down on the upper lip announced decisively the approach to manhood. The females, who thronged into ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... nature of their circumstances, and to propose that all hands should unstrip their upper clothing when the higher parts of the rock were laid under water; that the seamen should remove every unnecessary weight and encumbrance from the boats; that a specified number of men should go into each boat, and that the remainder should hang by the gunwales, while the boats were to be rowed gently towards the Smeaton, as the course to the Pharos, or floating light, lay rather to windward of the rock. But when ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of his torture, they manacled him hand and foot, and placed him on an unbridled and unbroken horse, and turned the animal loose, driving it off at its utmost speed, with shouts, delighted at witnessing its mode of managing with its living burden. The horse unable to shake off this new and strange encumbrance, made for the thickest covert of the woods and brambles, with the speed of the winds. It is easy to conjecture the position and suffering of the victim. The terrified animal exhausted itself in fruitless ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... trumpet gave the signal of departure, the camp was almost instantly broke up, and the troops fell into their ranks without delay or confusion. Besides their arms, which the legendaries scarcely considered as an encumbrance, they were laden with their kitchen furniture, the instruments of fortification, and the provision of many days. [62] Under this weight, which would oppress the delicacy of a modern soldier, they were trained by a regular step to advance, in about six ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... horseback. At fourteen the page became an esquire, and began a course of severer and more laborious exercises. To vault on a horse in heavy armor; to run, to scale walls, and spring over ditches, under the same encumbrance; to wrestle, to wield the battle-axe for a length of time, without raising the visor or taking breath; to perform with grace all the evolutions of horsemanship,—were necessary preliminaries to the reception of knighthood, ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... in Salem, and that a speedy flight can alone ensure your liberty. You have made a great sacrifice for my sake; and I will also make one for yours. I will not even ask to fly with you, for I could only be an encumbrance to you at this inclement season of the year, and my presence here may be of use to you. My heart rebels while I say it, Roger; but you must go alone, and use every exertion to reach Plymouth as speedily as possible. When you are safe beneath my father's roof, then will be time enough ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... mercenary or false. I was neither. I had been talked into a belief that I ought to marry Jack, but when the trial came all the potential reasons failed. Had I kept my engagement to him, I should have been a clog, an encumbrance, upon him: he is better ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... broken down somewhat in the same fashion. Each had treated the girl as an encumbrance he was to undertake,—at a very great price. But as affairs prospered with the Melmottes, as princes and duchesses were obtained by other means,—costly no doubt, but not so ruinously costly,—the immediate disposition of Marie became less necessary, ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... have never brought me any happiness, and I am uncertain whether it is a kindness to bequeath to you what to me has been but an irksome encumbrance. After giving long and earnest thought to the matter, I have decided to leave it in the ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... encircled by the lost trap. The bear lifted the iron glove towards his face, examined it, turned his paw round and round, bent his head from side to side, looked at the trap askance with the most puzzled air, felt the encumbrance, tapped it on the rock, and evidently knew not what to do. Then he began to feel pain and licked it; but Ruhe soon put an end to all his conjectures, by shooting ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... is given here minute in every point of real interest, and without the encumbrance of useless opinions. There is no sentence thrown away—no time lost in mere ornament. Perhaps no book extant containing so few pages, can said to convey so many genuine historical facts. There is here no attempt to glaze over recorded ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... this uncouth protuberance had not effectually prevented the formation of any such ornamental setting to our house. My mother's repeated applications to our landlord (the village baker) to remove or allow her to remove this unsightly encumbrance were unavailing. He thought he might have future use for the sand, and he knew he had no other present place of deposit for it; and there it remained, defying all my mother's ingenuity and love of beauty to convert it into any thing useful or ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... the immense parcel of books with which he burdened himself. That part of the journeying public which loves to see some new thing puzzled itself mightily over the gentleman of full habit, who in addition to his not inconsiderable encumbrance of flesh and luggage, chose to carry about a shawl-strap loaded to utmost capacity with a composite mass of books, magazines, and newspapers. It was enormously heavy, and the way in which its component parts adhered was but ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... is much good service to be got out of twenty-three well-drilled and well-chosen marines: look at those fellows, Mr. Griffith, and then tell me if you think them an encumbrance in the hour ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... every unnecessary encumbrance, we set forth, followed by the dogs. I had taken off my crinoline, because Eleanor said we might have to climb some walls, and I had borrowed a pair of her boots, because my own were so uncomfortable from being ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... of dearth Nor lie for their fruit's sake fallow Laugh large in the depth of their mirth But inshore here in the shallow, Embroiled with encumbrance of earth, Their skirts are turbid ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the world less romantic than my position in the midst of a circle of sneering footmen; and, as if to put romance for ever out of the question, I was relieved from my plumed and mantled encumbrance only by the assistance of Townshend, then the prince of Bow Street officers; who, knowing every thing and every body, informed me that the lady was a person of prodigious rank, and that he should 'feel it his duty,' before he parted with me, to ascertain whether her ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... travelling, and limits the time of their return. They are furnished with a waggon and a slave, who drives the oxen and looks after them; but, unless there are women in the company, the waggon is sent back at the end of the journey as a needless encumbrance. While they are on the road they carry no provisions with them, yet they want for nothing, but are everywhere treated as if they were at home. If they stay in any place longer than a night, every one follows his proper occupation, and is very well used by those ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... in the centre of the lower half of its corolla, that an insect must use as its landing place, comes the necessity for the pistil to occupy a central position. Naturally, a fifth stamen would be only in its way, an encumbrance to be banished in time. In the figwort, for example, we have seen the fifth stamen reduced, from long sterility, to a mere scale on the roof of the corolla tube; in other lipped flowers, the useless organ has disappeared; but ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... "I'm just a useless encumbrance 'round the house; give me a corner where I may sit and look on and—he'p ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... forehead, and had buttoned his shooting-coat up round his chin. Harry had recommended to him a great-coat, in order that he might the better conceal his face; but Frank had found that the great-coat was an encumbrance to his arm. He put it on, and when thus clothed he had tried the whip, he found that he cut the air with much less potency than in the lighter garment. He contented himself, therefore, with looking down ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... memorable evening nine months before, when Ansell had been sitting in the Grand Cafe, and Carlier had slipped in to warn him that the police had arrested Bonnemain and the rest, and had already been to his lodgings. Two hours later, without baggage or any encumbrance, he had reached Melun in a hired motor-car, and had thence left it at midnight for Lyons, after which he doubled his tracks and travelled by way of Cherbourg across to Southampton, while Carlier had, on that same night, ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... appear strange to the inexpert. These must bear in mind the great density of the water of the sea, and the surprising results of transplantation to that medium. To understand a little what these are, and how a man's weight, so far from being an encumbrance, is the very ground of his agility, was the chief lesson of my submarine experience. The knowledge came upon me by degrees. As I began to go forward with the hand of my estranged companion, a world of tumbled ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... idol; but she was kind, and pure, and gentle, and devoted. It was consoling to be loved to one who was so wretched. It seemed to him that life must ever be a blank without the woman who, a few months ago, he had left an encumbrance. The recollection of past happiness was balm to one who was so forlorn. He shuddered at the thought of losing his only precious possession, and he was never more attached to his mistress than when the soul of friendship rose from the ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... hundred and seventy-six, the very illustrious doctor, Francisco de Sande, governor and captain-general for his Majesty of these islands of the West, and auditor of his royal Audiencia established in the City of Mexico in Nueba Espana, declared that it is an encumbrance and damage to the royal treasury for his Majesty's officials to hold encomiendas of Indians; and, as such, his Majesty has forbidden this by laws, and recently in a letter which his Majesty wrote to the said ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... these birds is easy and graceful, sweeping with facility over the loftiest trees of their native forests, their strangely developed bills being no encumbrance to them, replete as they are with a tissue of air-filled cells rendering them very light ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [January, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... was crossing on the half-submerged structure. Horses reared and plunged in terror at sight of the swift-running stream, the wheel of a caisson ran over the guard-rail; immediately a hundred strong arms seized the encumbrance and hurled the heavy vehicle to the bottom of the river that it might not obstruct the passage. And as the young man watched the slow, toilsome retreat along the opposite bank, a movement that had commenced the day before and certainly would not be ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... white and bloodless as she turned from Fred's door. It was not hard to work for the children—to support and domineer over Susan; but it was hard for such an alert uncompromising little soul to tolerate that useless hulk—that heavy encumbrance of a man, for whom hope and life were dead. She bit her lip as she discharged her sharp stinging arrow at him through the half-opened door, and then went down singing, to take her place at the table which her own hands ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... not first discharge both himself and his mind of the burden with which he finds himself oppressed, motion will but make it press the harder and sit the heavier, as the lading of a ship is of less encumbrance when fast and bestowed in a settled posture. You do a sick man more harm than good in removing him from place to place; you fix and establish the disease by motion, as stakes sink deeper and more firmly into the earth by being moved up and ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... who always see difficulties and never the way to get over them? And who that has had to lead a company of Christian men has not often been ready to wish that he could sound out Gideon's proclamation, and bid the 'fearful and afraid' take away the chilling encumbrance of their presence, and leave him with thinned ranks of trusty men? Cowardice, dressed up as cautious prudence, weakens the efficiency of every regiment in ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... fortune in securing for the initiation of his new venture the play which Captain BRUCE BAIRNSFATHER and Captain ARTHUR ELIOT have written round the adventures of "Old Bill." In form it resembles a revue, but I prefer to call it a play, because it possesses a plot, distinct if slight—an encumbrance banned by most revue producers; and because it contains an abundance of honest spontaneous fun. The authors start with the advantage, if it be an advantage, that the principal characters are already familiar to the audience through the medium of Captain BAIRNSFATHER's popular drawings; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 15, 1917 • Various
... property are so complicated that Lord St. Leonards devotes five chapters of his book on Property Law to the subject. The only circumstances strong enough to vitiate a purchase, which has been reduced to a written contract, is proof of fraudulent representation as to an encumbrance of which the buyer was ignorant, or a defect in title; but every circumstance which the purchaser might have learned by careful investigation, the law presumes that he did know. Thus, in buying a leasehold estate or house, all the covenants of the original lease ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... overtook her just above Grand Gulf, and attacked her after dark on the 24th of February. The Indianola was superior to all the others in armament, and probably would have destroyed them or driven them away, but for her encumbrance. As it was she fought them for an hour and a half, but, in the dark, was struck seven or eight times by the ram and other vessels, and was finally disabled and reduced to a sinking condition. The armament was thrown overboard ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... steamer that ever visits that Post. Not to connect with the Pelican would, therefore, mean imprisonment in the north for an entire year, or a return around the coast by dog train in winter. The former of these alternatives was out of the question; the latter would be impossible with an encumbrance of four men, for dog teams and drivers in the early winter are usually all away to the hunting grounds and hard to engage. I therefore concluded that but one course was open to me. Three of the men must be sent back and with a single companion I would push on to Ungava. This, ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... pounds per acre, with very often dwelling and farms on them, and a clear title may be readily obtained, after inquiry at the registry office of the county, to see whether any mortgage or other encumbrance exist—a course always to be adopted, both in Upper and Lower Canada. A settler must take the precaution of tracing the original grant, and that the land, if he buys from an individual, is neither Crown nor ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... of the words (for I felt not the encumbrance of the body nor the acuteness of the spirit) seemed to possess me wholly. Although the water gave me strength and comfort, and somewhat of celestial pleasure, many tears fell around the border ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... trust was placed on the property, and in the title is recorded "no encumbrance except a small wooden house in which Mrs. Margaret Beall now lives, in which she has her ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... Nothing was to be seen connected with it but many brown oval husky shells, which by no means looked like insects, but rather resembled bits of the dry bark of the vine. The tree had a plentiful crop of grapes set, when this pest appeared upon it; but the fruit was manifestly injured by this foul encumbrance. It remained all the summer, still increasing, and loaded the woody and bearing branches to a vast degree. I often pulled off great quantities by handfuls; but it was so slimy and tenacious that it could by no means ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... floor is like a grating, and is a necessary precaution of their natural laziness and dirtiness; for by this way of making their floors they avoid having to sweep them, since the houses can so easily be washed and rid of all dirt. They have no benches or chairs, and thus they get rid of the encumbrance of much furniture. They consider a seat on the floor as more secure. They use tables somewhat; these are round and hollowed out in the middle, in the manner of an ordinary brasier, and are built wholly for use rather than for display. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... big an army is likely to be a mere encumbrance in war, it is perhaps even a still graver blunder to maintain one during that conflict of preparation which is at present the European substitute for actual hostilities. It consumes. It produces nothing. It not only eats ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... intact; and the tub was all there; what had given way was the paint; and gleaming up at her from the bottom of the bath tub, like a full moon through the clouds, was a bright and shining circle of the tin, free from all encumbrance in the ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy
... not go without that old man," the most authoritative speech I have heard either Martyn or Mary make to their daughters; but it was so much breath wasted on Pica, who maintains her right to judge for herself. The ancient mariner had been voted an encumbrance and exchanged ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... through the conduit was not so difficult, even with the encumbrance of the unconscious Chester Pelton, but Prestonby was convinced that, except for the giant strength of Doug Yetsko, it would have been nearly impossible. Ray Pelton, recovered from his after-battle nausea and steeled by responsibility, went first. Cardon crawled after him, ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... orders, and a battle ensued. The mule ran off with his rider, and ascended a high bank, on the side of which stood a coal-house, filled with coal through an aperture in the top. At length, Independence, in the hope of clearing himself of his encumbrance, entered the coal-house at full speed, the colonel firmly keeping his seat, and both came down an inclined plane of coal, not less than thirty feet in height. On reaching the ground without injury, Burr hired a man to lead the animal a mile or two, and ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... providing themselves with every conceivable comfort for their exile. In vain did their friends assure them that they could purchase any thing they desired in any part of Europe; that such quantities of luggage would be only an encumbrance; that it was dangerous, under the eyes of their vigilant enemies, to be making such extensive preparations. Neither the king nor queen would heed such monitions. The queen persisted in her resolution to send to Brussels, piece ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... said as he entered. "Rinaldo, do you see that the men come out one by one. As each comes out a weapon will be placed in his hands, and he will be then led to the starboard side of the hold, which is free from encumbrance, and will there stand until he receives orders to move further. Remember that not the slightest noise must be made, for if any stumbled and fell, and the noise were heard above, it might be thought that some of the stores had shifted from their places, and men would be sent below to ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... the part more of a partner than a 83 subordinate, moved forward without the encumbrance of baggage, neither marching so slowly as to look like holding back, nor so rapidly as not to allow time for rumours to spread. He realized that his force was small, and that the less people saw the more they would believe of it. However, he had a solid column following in support, composed of ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... mode of telling will have left an idea simply of their absurdities; but, in truth, I was wretched,—sometimes almost unto death, and have often cursed the hour in which I was born. There had clung to me a feeling that I had been looked upon always as an evil, an encumbrance, a useless thing,—as a creature of whom those connected with him had to be ashamed. And I feel certain now that in my young days I was so regarded. Even my few friends who had found with me a certain capacity for enjoyment were half ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... trying to make. It will probably be necessary for me to travel. And for that I must be alone. I must be a mobile force. I should dearly like to keep you with me, but you can see for yourself that for the moment you would be an encumbrance. Later on, no doubt, when my affairs are more ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... trick played them by the Banyai. The Makololo had shot a hippopotamus, when a number of the natives came across, pretending to assist them in rolling it ashore, and advised them to cast off the rope, saying that it was an encumbrance. All were shouting and talking, when suddenly the carcass disappeared in a deep hole. The Makololo jumped in after it, one catching the tail, another a foot, but down it went, and they got but a lean fowl instead. It floated during the night, ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... this encumbrance was usually expected of Laura and Mrs. Madison, but to their surprise Cora offered a sprightly rejoinder and presently dropped behind them with Mr. Trumble. Mr. Trumble was also ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... he is represented in bed, surrounded by medical men, who treat him with very little respect. One insists on his fee, because Hill has never been acknowledged as one of themselves; and another, to his plea of want of money, responds, "Sell your sword, it is only an encumbrance."] ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... it is dangerous to stem in its career. The thirst of riches, and the consciousness of success, redouble their valor, and valor is of more avail than arms or numbers. Be patient till they have loaded themselves with the encumbrance of wealth. The possession of wealth will divide their councils and assure your victory." This subtile policy is perhaps a refinement of the Arabian writers; and the situation of Charles will suggest a more narrow ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... deal. And yet we were cast down, and beaten down many times to the hard earth by winds and thunders and tempests. But evermore God of his grace holp us. And so we passed that perilous vale without peril and without encumbrance, ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... blood-stained face—was visible; and then a gust of wind lifted his mantle and flung it about his head so that all was concealed; and an exquisite pity for him was aroused—while he struggled painfully to rid himself of the encumbrance—by the imposition of that petty annoyance upon his mortal agony ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... between an encumbrance and a purpose is not very clearly defined, is it?" she said lightly; and then added a question, "What are you doing in ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... experience; he was no stranger to Fathom's qualifications, the happy exertion of which he had often seen. He knew him to be an economist of the most frugal order, consequently concluded his finances were worthy of examination; and, upon the true principles of a sharper, eased him of the encumbrance, taking it for granted, that, in so doing, he only precluded Ferdinand from the power of acting the same tragedy upon him, should ever opportunity concur with his inclination. He had therefore concerted his measures with the dexterity of an experienced conveyancer, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... bearded cannibals. In the vicinity of Pebas dwell the inoffensive Yaguas. The shape of the head (but not their vacant expression) is well represented by Catlin's portrait of "Black Hawk," a Sauk chief. They are quite free from the encumbrance of dress, the men wearing a girdle of fibrous bark around the loins, with bunches looking like a mop hanging down in front and rear, and similar bunches hung around the neck and arms. The women tie a strip of brown cotton cloth about ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... of the Gaston de Paris ran flush, with little encumbrance save a deck-house forward given over to electrical and ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... 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 encumbrance of a brother, The freest she that ever gazed on glass: I speak of Christian lands in this comparison, Where wives, at least, are ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... a source of untold satisfaction in this day of presumptuous spires or burdensome church debts, that the Allen Street Presbyterian Church has no such encumbrance—not one dollar of mortgage rests upon it; that at the close of each fiscal year, by means of the voluntary system, and the kindly aid of friends interested in the prosperity of the church, and the maintenance of the preached word in ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... captain and his men, determined not to lose their venture, made a bold resistance. The dragoons came riding in from all quarters, but the ground was unfavourable for them, hemmed in as it was on all sides by the sea, and on the other by the cliff, besides the encumbrance of the carts and waggons, behind which the cutlasses of the smugglers were fully ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... other day, and came on the 7th to the goodly river Shind. The 18th, the king passed through between two mountains, the road having been cut through the woods, but with so much trouble and difficulty, and so much encumbrance to the baggage, that it was left behind, without provisions for man and beast. This day likewise I lost my tents and baggage, but found them again at midnight, having been obliged till then to take up my lodging under a tree. This part of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... tied in holding them, so that she cannot clear her feet from her long, heavy skirt, with its manifold flounces switching about them, while she is laboring to lift them with a movement of her hips and pinioned arms, and yet feels herself liable every instant to be thrown from her balance by all this encumbrance—let her undertake this, and she will learn that there is something besides study that is endangering the health of our school girls. Again, let her take her stand at the top of one of these long flights of stairs—the last ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... yonder, beneath the outer tip of a live-oak which we have found to stretch and droop twenty-four paces from the seven-foot trunk, a little fleet of canoes. They belong to the professional fisherman whose too tarry nets are quite an encumbrance for some yards of the sandy beach, and whose well may be noticed about a rifle-shot out from the shore. More than that, though Piscator is absent, some one is inspecting his boats. In fact,—and it is simple fact, and I am not smuggling ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... whereas a gift should be selected entirely with a view to the pleasure or use it will afford to its future owner. A grand piano is no good to a girl who will not have {79} a room large enough to hold it and herself. Costly china is only an encumbrance to a woman who is going to follow the fortunes of her soldier husband, and who will not have a settled home for years. There must be kindly sympathy in the choice of gifts as well as tact and courtesy in the ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... made easy; for I had found a prodigious vessel on the shore, able to carry me on the sea, which he had given orders to fit up with my own assistance and direction; and he hoped, in a few weeks, both empires would be freed from so insupportable an encumbrance. ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... have been a great encumbrance, had Bob wanted to swim fast. As it was, he simply placed his hands upon it, and struck out with his feet, making straight out from the shore. This he did for some ten minutes; and then, being certain that he was far beyond the sight of anyone on shore, he turned and, as nearly ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... the desk. "Careless way to carry such evidence around—shows the amateur. Thought it would add to the appeal to justice for Henley to have a wife, I presume. Why not a child also? Permit me to state, my dear sir, that I possess no such encumbrance." ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... was a small one; and such a situation as this had never come within range of his experience. In utter panic he lashed out with his powerful tail and darted forward, carrying the octopus with him. But the weight upon his head, the crushing encumbrance about his body, were too much for him, and bore him slowly downward. Suddenly two tentacles, which had been trailing for an anchorage, got grip upon the bottom—and the dolphin's frantic flight came ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... it should be accepted, and that it was made in direct opposition to the wishes of his bride. He was at once relieved from his perplexity, and at the same time mortified, by the calm simplicity with which William replied, "I thank you, cousin, for this invitation; but you know I should be an encumbrance to you at Germaine-park: and I make it a rule neither to go into any company that would be ashamed of me, or of ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... great deal. We know already under what nightmare conditions Friedrich wrote to his Father! The attitude of the Crown-Prince, sincerely reverent and filial, though obliged to appear ineffably so, and on the whole struggling under such mountains of encumbrance, yet loyally maintaining his equilibrium, does at last acquire, in these Letters, silently a kind of beauty to the best class of readers. But that is nearly their sole merit. By far the most human of them, that on ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... was still in danger; the increasing volumes of smoke warned him that in a few minutes the uppermost storey might be in flames. He took off his overcoat to allow himself more freedom of action; the manuscript, now an encumbrance, must precede him over the chimney-stack, and there was only one way of effecting that. With care he stowed the papers into the pockets of the coat; then he rolled the garment together, tied it up in its own sleeves, took a deliberate aim—and the bundle ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... the launch. She declares that she cannot move; but our experienced escort, who much fears bilious fever for her, is resolved that she shall as soon as any means of transit can be procured. Heretofore, I have always traveled "without encumbrance." Is it treasonable to feel at this moment that these fair ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... cottage—indeed, in the very garden—of which, along with the house, he had purchased the fen—that is, the place was his own, so long as he paid a small sum—not more than fifteen shillings a year, I think—to his superior. How long it was since the Priory had come to be looked upon as the mere encumbrance of a cottage garden, nobody thereabouts knew; and although by this time I presume archaeologists have ferreted out everything concerning it, nobody except its owner had then taken the trouble to make the least inquiry into its history. To Willie it was just the Priory, as naturally ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... presented to me one of their life-jackets—an invaluable companion if a long immersion in the water is to be undergone. But for convenience in working the ropes and sails I was content to use the less bulky life-belt. It is conveniently arranged, and you soon forget it as an encumbrance. Indeed on one occasion I walked up to a house without recollecting that my life-belt was upon ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... relinquish management, just as Congreve had done some time before, cunning Christopher gave his consent, curiously enough, to what was nothing more or less than the setting up of a rival company of actors. In the first place, he probably looked upon his players as an encumbrance, since he was in the vein for operatic entertainments just then, and, furthermore, he pictured himself as a future monopolist controlling the destinies of two houses. For he never dreamed, did this haggling, pettifogging lawyer, that Swiney ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... representation worth when even now, in this State, no married woman has the right to the use of her own property, and no woman, even a widow, is the natural guardian of her own children? Even in Connecticut, under man's representation, a widow whose husband dies without a will is regarded by law as an encumbrance on the estate which she, through years of drudgery, has helped to acquire. She can inherit none of the houses or land, but has merely the use of one-third, while the balance goes to his relatives—rich, perhaps, and persons whom she never saw. Does not this suggest reasons why woman ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Sergeant reported. Cockerell's guess was correct. The British private has only one point of view about the portable property of the State. To him, as an individual, the sacred emergency ration is an unnecessary encumbrance, and the carrying thereof a "fatigue." Consequently, when engaged in battle, one of the first (of many) things which he jettisons is this very ration. When all is over, he reports with unctuous solemnity that the provender in question has been blown out of his haversack by a shell. ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... ask him to sit for such a statue. Women generally sit for their own statues, from a natural disinclination to admit the superior beauty of a friend, but they expect to be idealised. I understood that the multitude of these statues was beginning to be felt as an encumbrance in almost every family, and that the custom would probably ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... a surgeon," quoth Lord Claud, with a smile on his face; "perchance they are wise. For myself, I never trouble to do so. I count a leech a needless encumbrance." ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green |
