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Encumber   /ɛnkˈəmbər/   Listen
Encumber

verb
(past & past part. encumbered; pres. part. encumbering)  (Written also incumber)
1.
Hold back.  Synonyms: constrain, cumber, restrain.






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"Encumber" Quotes from Famous Books



... the delusions of an over-heated fancy, they do not now influence me; I speak the language of the natural, of the visible world.—You love not me, Annot—you love Menteith—by him you are beloved again, and Allan is no more to you than one of the corpses which encumber yonder heath." ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott

... yet awhile," answered Olfan. "Take this," and he handed Leonard the spear of the third captain, who had left it when he started down the mountain, fearing that it might encumber him, "and drive him along with you at its point. Should we be overpowered, you may buy your lives as the price of his. But should we hold them back and you escape, then do with him ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard

... allow me on an average to go to every other meeting. But it is grievous how often any change knocks me up. I will further pledge myself, as I told Lyell, to resign after a year, if I did not attend pretty often, so that I should AT WORST encumber the Club temporarily. If you can get me elected, I certainly shall be very much pleased. Very many thanks for answers about Glaciers. I am very glad to hear of the second Edition (Of the Himalayan Journal.) so very ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... instant reach the realm assign'd, In wondrous ships, self-moved, instinct with mind; No helm secures their course, no pilot guides; Like man intelligent, they plough the tides, Conscious of every coast, and every bay, That lies beneath the sun's all-seeing ray; Though clouds and darkness veil the encumber'd sky, Fearless through darkness and through clouds they fly; Though tempests rage, though rolls the swelling main, The seas may roll, the tempests rage in vain; E'en the stern god that o'er the waves presides, Safe as they pass, and safe repass the tides, With fury burns; while careless ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... likely to become the most popular, and the most lasting in its popularity, for it has enduring qualities which belong to all ages and generations. The text is simply and clearly opened—critical explanations are given only when they are required—so as not to encumber, but to elucidate; and the practical applications are such as to suit all classes of persons."—Church of England ...
— The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth Edition • Anonymous

... much as if it had been in rhyme; for although an interpreter of poetry undeniably has the difficulties of form to struggle with, yet there is, on the other hand, an inspiration and waft of feeling in the metre which lends him wings and helps him on. If Mr. Stern does not encumber his style with a betrayal of the difficulties he has got over—if he does not give us pedantry and double-epithets, so common in vulgar renderings from the German—he certainly shows no timidity in turning the polished familiarity ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various

... probably his brother had died in infancy. 'The conclusion I have arrived at, after years of legal work,' he said, 'is that the undesirable person lives, while the useful or much wanted one dies. Those who encumber the ground remain longest upon it, and the person in receipt of a large annuity or pension is proverbially long-lived. However, we have so far not found a single trace of the existence of Edward Ogilvie, though ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan

... that my heart is less touched by him than any other; that would be a schoolgirl's reason, which I consider quite beneath me. I actually love no one, sir; you know it, do you not? I do not then see why, without real necessity, I should encumber my life with a perpetual companion. Has not some sage said, 'Nothing too much'? and another, 'I carry all my effects with me'? I have been taught these two aphorisms in Latin and in Greek; one is, I believe, from Phaedrus, and the other ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... nothing in this scene, taken by itself, particularly interesting or impressive. The mountains are not elevated, nor particularly fine in form, and the heaps of stones which encumber the Ticino present nothing notable to the ordinary eye. But, in reality, the place is approached through one of the narrowest and most sublime ravines in the Alps, and after the traveller during the early part of ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin

... the power is born of the time and the need, and not a burden to encumber us on our way. It is not of material nature; cannot be packed and stored away for some occasion that may arise, but is proportioned and adapted to the kind ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams

... masses, whom the ditch Detain'd perforce; there many a royal car With broken pole th' unharness'd horses left. On, shouting to the Greeks, Patroclus press'd The flying Trojans; they, with panic cries, Dispers'd, the roads encumber'd; high uprose The storms of dust, as from the tents and ships Back to the city stretch'd the flying steeds; And ever where the densest throng appear'd With furious threats Patroclus urg'd his course; His glowing axle trac'd by prostrate ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... Chapone heard of my father's difficulties about Chelsea, and fears of removal, on account of his twenty thousand volumes,—"Twenty thousand volumes!" she repeated; "bless me! why, how can he so encumber himself? Why does he not burn half? for how much must be to spare that never can be worth his looking at from such a store! And can he want to keep them all? I should not have suspected Dr. Burney, of all men, of being such ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... means—if it withdraws all solicitude about the handicap this entails to women as a whole, introducing a spirit of laissez-faire competition between men and women, the women with sense enough to see the point will not encumber themselves with children. For each one of these who has no children, some other woman must have six instead of three. And some people encourage this in ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard

... studious than spontaneous, seldom genial but in an ancient friendship. If you knew him to the concealed heart, and were suffered to assay the fine metal beneath this polished surface, you would win a golden friendship; but only on a desert island would he permit the operation. To the shy who may encumber his path his bearing seems marked by an indifference which they magnify into aversion, and are thereby the worse confounded. In a land where such convention reigns they go through life like persons afflicted with a partial deafness; ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... my father, as proprietor of Covent Garden Theater, in consequence of this lawsuit and the debts which encumber the concern, is liable at any time to be called upon for twenty-seven thousand pounds; which, for a man who can not raise five thousand, is not a pleasant predicament. On the other hand, Mr. Harris, our adversary, and joint proprietor with my father, is also liable to enormous demands, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... that one should have a higher commercial value later on? She was sick with this long service at the inner commercial shrine. Yet what else was there? Was life all this, and this only? Everywhere, everything was debased to the same service. Everything went to produce vulgar things, to encumber material life. ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... sandbanks which abound on the outside of the bay, continue to encumber the navigation after it is entered, and the fleet was in consequence compelled to anchor every night. This proceeding unavoidably occasioned much delay. The first day's sail carried us only to the mouth of the James river, and ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig

... depth as far as it extended, and displayed in its precincts, at a little distance from the course of the stream, the towering and lordly castle to which it gave the name. The mist which continued to encumber the valley with its fleecy clouds, showed imperfectly the rude fortifications which served to defend the small town of Douglas, which was strong enough to repel a desultory attack, but not to withstand ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... must assume from my absence that the rebel right extended far, because if it did not I should return to him; in one hour, therefore, he must start to meet our advancing troops; in that case he was not to encumber himself with my horse; I might be able to get back to the spot later in the day. I added that I seriously doubted my ability to get back before the advance of the Union troops should reach the ground, and impressed upon Jones the necessity of communicating with General Morell before ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson

... mysterious kind of explanation,—which made the matter considerably darker than it looked before,—that the only chance of acquiring the requisite knowledge was through the clear, crystal medium of a pure and virgin intelligence, like that of the fair Alice. Not to encumber our story with Mr. Pyncheon's scruples, whether of conscience, pride, or fatherly affection, he at length ordered his daughter to be called. He well knew that she was in her chamber, and engaged in no occupation that could not readily be laid aside; for, as it happened, ever since Alice's ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... writers has enabled him to collect. His description of the triclinium of Scaurus will give the reader the best notion of the style in which such an apartment was furnished and ornamented. For each particular in the description he quotes some authority. We shall not, however, encumber our pages with references to a long list of books not likely to be in ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... a truck in that place in the street? In the first place, to encumber the street; next, in order that it might finish the process of rusting. There is a throng of institutions in the old social order, which one comes across in this fashion as one walks about outdoors, and which have no other reasons ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... father! Had he really begun to count on this? Do men know how their young daughters feel when the first suggestion comes that they are not regarded as born for perpetual daughterhood in the father's house? Would she even encumber his plans, if she clung ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... during this period also, without specifying each scene where it passed, except one, which will be found so remarkable as certainly to deserve a very particular relation. Where the place or the persons do not contribute to the zest of the conversation, it is unnecessary to encumber my page with mentioning them. To know of what vintage our wine is, enables us to judge of its value, and to drink it with more relish: but to have the produce of each vine of one vineyard, in the same year, kept separate, would serve no purpose. To know that our wine, (to use an advertising phrase,) ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... cases, bales, packages and anchors, and guns stuck upright with their muzzles in the ground, and bits of iron chain and spars, and broken boats, and here and there a capstan or a windlass, tall cranes, and all sorts of other articles such as encumber the wharves of a mercantile seaport. As they went along the Baron asked the same question which he had put to the burly individual of several other persons whom he and his friend encountered; some laughed and did not take the trouble of replying, others said that there were vessels of ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston

... the art, Great be the manners of the bard. He shall not his brain encumber With the coil of rhythm and number; But leaving rule and pale forethought He shall aye climb For his rhyme. 'Pass in, pass in,' the angels say, 'In to the upper doors, Nor count compartments of the floors, But mount to paradise By the stairway ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... Ease was properly conducted, so that it might always appear to have Respect for its Motive; And only to act in Obedience to that, as the ruling Principle, it would then comprehend the just Plan of good Breeding; But as this was formerly encumber'd with Ceremonies and Embarrassments, so the modern good Breeding perhaps deviates too far into Negligence and Disregard; —A Fault more unpardonable than the former; As an Inconvenience, evidently proceeding from the Respect which is paid to us, may be easily excus'd; ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris

... in the other a sabre; the elder brother seized his heavy battle-axe; and the younger, a great, two-handed sword, which he wielded in one hand like a feather. We had just time to get clear of the tower, embrace and say good-bye, and part to some little distance, that we might not encumber each other's motions, ere the triple giant-brotherhood drew near to attack us. They were about twice our height, and armed to the teeth. Through the visors of their helmets their monstrous eyes shone with a horrible ferocity. I ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald

... in the armoury, where 'tis right they should be; for men of peace, as these most surely are, encumber not themselves ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton

... thou thus insatiable? why thus unreasonable? why encumber the world?—"Aye, but I fain would have my wife and children with me too."—What, are they then thine, and not His that gave them—His that made thee? Give up then that which is not thine own: yield ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus

... but Pity that Riviere felt for her. And while she silently thanked him for it, it was not enough. She would not encumber the life of a man who felt merely Pity for her. That would be degradation worse than the ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg

... ought to wait, and not immediately after a journey engage men who would have been standing in their arms and arranging themselves for battle at their leisure, whilst they were making a long march with all their beasts of burden and their camp followers to encumber them. As the generals were arguing about this matter, a Numidian courier came from Otho with orders to lose no time, but give battle. Accordingly they consented, and moved. As soon as Caecina had notice, he was much surprised, and quitted his post on the river ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... thousands of yards is practically flat with the ground, for incendiaries have destroyed hundreds and hundreds of houses, and the Chinese commanders are favouring low-lying barricades, which are hard to pick out from the enormous mass of partially burned ruins which encumber the ground. Just as in South Africa we were reading only the other day, before this plight overtook us, that the hardest thing to see is a live Boer on the battlefield, so here it is the merest chance to make out the soldiery that is attacking us. Sometimes dozens of men scuttle across from ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... (uncertain) 475; perdre son Latin[Fr]; stick at, stick in the mud, stick fast; come to a stand, come to a standstill, come to a deadlock; hold the wolf by the ears, hold the tiger by the tail. render difficult &c. adj.; enmesh, encumber, embarrass, ravel, entangle; put a spoke in the wheel &c. (hinder) 706; lead a pretty dance. Adj. difficult, not easy, hard, tough; troublesome, toilsome, irksome; operose[obs3], laborious, onerous, arduous, Herculean, formidable; sooner said than done; more easily said than done, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... your sleep, Not a thought wake and creep In upon your spirit's slumber; Not a memory encumber, Nor a thievish care unbar Sleep's portcullis that no star Nor sentry hath. I'll not speak With my soul even: no, nor seek Other happiness for you When you this happy sleep sleep through. Let no least desire waver Between us, nor impatience quaver; No sudden nearness of me ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman

... women came in, seemingly enjoying the rain like the bushes and trees. They put on little clothing so that they may be the more easily dried, and as for the children, a thin shirt of sheeting is the most they encumber themselves with, and get wet and half dry without seeming to notice it while we shiver with two or three dry coats. They seem to prefer being naked. The men also wear but little in wet weather. When they go out for all day ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir

... kind of friend! say I; the friend who will encumber himself with the responsibility of thinking what's to become of you, when you are down in the world. Those tender-hearted souls who can't bear to think of your misfortunes are a much more ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... a breath of air was stirring, they decided not to encumber the small boat with mast or sail, but to row leisurely across with just as much energy as suited their holiday humour. The channel was on the whole free from currents, and, as Roger knew the landing-places as well ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed

... but one shift, besides what I had on, and two handkerchiefs, and two caps, which my pocket held, (for it was not for me to encumber myself,) and all my stock of money, which was but five or six shillings, to set out for I knew not where; and got out of the window, not without some difficulty, sticking a little at my shoulders and hips; but I was resolved to get out, if possible. And it was farther from the leads ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson

... connection or sympathy with him. I refer to some of the leaders of the political movement against slavery. They feel it to be their mission to marshal and use as effectively as possible the present convictions of the people. They cannot afford to encumber themselves with the odium which twenty years of angry agitation have engendered in great sects sore from unsparing rebuke, parties galled by constant defeat, and leading men provoked by unexpected ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... That all on the wide world on those rappis[240] did wonder. I am the cause of this great light and thunder; It is through my fury that they such noise do make. My fearful countenance the clouds so doth encumber, That often for dread thereof the very earth doth quake. Look when I with malin this bright brand doth shake; All the whole world from the north to the south, I may them destroy with one word of my mouth, To recount unto you ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous

... notes prolong, Now a wild chorus swells the song: Oft have I listen'd, and stood still, As it came soften'd up the hill, And deem'd it the lament of men 140 Who languish'd for their native glen; And thought how sad would be such sound, On Susquehanna's swampy ground, Kentucky's wood-encumber'd brake, Or wild Ontario's boundless lake, 145 Where heart-sick exiles, in the strain, Recall'd ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott

... been already published, that it is needless to encumber this short narrative with any minute enumeration of the qualities which constitute his station in literature; but I shall, as a part of my task, venture to refer to some of those which distinguish him from ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall

... not made the skies any brighter. But, my Lords, do not let us make the Indian sky cloudier than it really is. Do not let us consider the clouds to be darker than they really are. Let me invite your Lordships to look at the formidable difficulties that now encumber us in India, with a ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)

... it is sometimes very hard for young girls to be in the right. They certainly should not be mercenary; they certainly should not marry paupers; they certainly should not allow themselves to become old maids. They should not encumber themselves with early, hopeless loves; nor should they callously resolve to care for nothing but a good income and a good house. There should be some handbook of love, to tell young ladies when they may give way to it without ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... nearly came up to him, that he would loose his hold on his child; but the father's heart was strong within him. He flies, and the Sioux are close upon his heels! He fires and kills one of them. The other Sioux follows: he has nothing to encumber him—he must be victor in such an unequal contest. But the love that was stronger than death nerved the father's arm. He kept firing, and the Sioux retreated. The Chippeway and his young son reached their home in safety, there to mourn the loss of ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman

... island, Captain Furneaux agreed to receive on board his ship a young man named Omai, a native of Ulietea; where he had had some property, of which he had been dispossessed by the people of Bolabola. I at first rather wondered that Captain Furneaux would encumber himself with this man, who, in my opinion, was not a proper sample of the inhabitants of these happy islands, not having any advantage of birth, or acquired rank; nor being eminent in shape, figure, or complexion: For their people of the first rank are much fairer, and usually better ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook

... Like house-encumber'd Snail we creep; While far ahead the women keep, For when to the devil's house we speed, By a thousand steps they ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... the use of this shrub are the casual notices of travellers, who seem to have tasted it, and sometimes not to have liked it: a Russian ambassador, in 1639, who resided at the court of the Mogul, declined accepting a large present of tea for the Czar, "as it would only encumber him with a commodity for which he had no use." The appearance of "a black water" and an acrid taste seems not to have recommended it to the German Olearius in 1633. Dr. Short has recorded an anecdote of a stratagem of the Dutch in their second voyage to China, by which they at first obtained ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... body of men that the incentives to progress chiefly spring. They behold the errors which encumber old systems—they are, indeed, too apt to conceive them as wholly composed of errors. To them, the common and current beliefs appear to be simply superstitious. It irks them that humanity should wallow in its ignorance ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... that convenient size which would admit of its being squeezed into any odd corner, but Dick the hostler got it in somehow, and Mr Chuzzlewit helped him. It was all on Mr Pinch's side, and Mr Chuzzlewit said he was very much afraid it would encumber him; to which Tom said, 'Not at all;' though it forced him into such an awkward position, that he had much ado to see anything but his own knees. But it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good; and the wisdom of the saying was verified in ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... inconsiderable part of every work of fiction. The descriptive passages should be true to fact, and graphic enough to enable the reader to picture the scenes in his mind; but they should not be so long drawn as to encumber or impede the story. Description is subordinate in fiction; instead of being an end in itself, its purpose is to throw light upon the characters and incidents of ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter

... seem to me several Latter-day failures. I suppose it is as hard for him to relinquish his Vocation as other men find it to be in other callings to which they have been devoted; but I think he had better not encumber the produce of his best days by publishing ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald

... of George III. and a model gentleman of his day, that he would have made the tour of Europe without ever touching the back of his travelling carriage. But perhaps we should be most struck with the total absence of those elegant little articles which now embellish and encumber our drawing-room tables. We should miss the sliding bookcases and picture-stands, the letter-weighing machines and envelope cases, the periodicals and illustrated newspapers—above all, the countless swarm of photograph books which now threaten to swallow ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh

... enthusiasm, are described by him in a shrewd, gay, and natural style, and even with some degree of fidelity. But he inaugurates the pleiad of amateur, curious, and commercial travellers. He is the first of that prolific race of tourists who each year encumber geographical literature with numerous volumes, from which the savant finds nothing to ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... here topple and moulder into rest. A white smoke-wreath rising occasionally, enwraps a shattered wall as in a shroud. A gleam of flame shoots a grotesque picture of broken arches and ragged chimneys into the brain. Huge piles of debris begin to encumber the sidewalks, and even the pavements, as we go on. The streets in some places are quite choked up from walking. We are among the ruins of half a city. The wreck, the loneliness, seem interminable. The memory of lights in ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... with; but whatever may be the occupation of man or boy, the gun is never left behind, whether ploughing, or cutting wood, or carrying the heaviest burdens. It is almost extraordinary that they should thus encumber themselves, as, within their own boundary, none are so safe, and their mountains seldom afford them a living mark. I believe it arises very much from a fondness for the weapon. The greatest care is taken of it, and it undergoes a complete cleaning after ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... flounder, boggle, struggle; not know which way to turn &c (uncertain) 475; perdre son Latin [Fr.]; stick at, stick in the mud, stick fast; come to a stand, come to a standstill, come to a deadlock; hold the wolf by the ears, hold the tiger by the tail. render difficult &c adj.; enmesh, encumber, embarrass, ravel, entangle; put a spoke in the wheel &c (hinder) 706; lead a pretty dance. Adj. difficult, not easy, hard, tough; troublesome, toilsome, irksome; operose^, laborious, onerous, arduous, Herculean, formidable; sooner said than done; more easily said than done, easier said ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... threatened; but in vain; and the poor girl became a great thorn in the side of both father and son. She had neither beauty, talent, nor attraction, to get her a husband; and her father was determined not to encumber his already diminished property with such a fortune as would make her on that ground acceptable to ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... three hundred miles. I propose to send all our provisions, furniture, and clothes to my wife's father, who approves of the scheme, and to reserve nothing but a few necessary articles of covering; trusting to the furs of the chase for our future apparel. Were we imprudently to encumber ourselves too much with baggage, we should never reach to the waters of—-, which is the most dangerous as well as the most difficult part of our journey; and yet but a trifle in point of distance. I intend to say to my negroes—In the name of God, be free, my honest lads, I thank you for ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

... imaginative invent, the tuneful sing: beyond him there is no appeal but to the future. He is superstitious, as we have seen, but his gods are few and traditional. He determines to make a stand somewhere; and it is necessary for him to do so, if he would not encumber his literary Olympus with a Hindoo-like pantheon of millions. But how voracious is this general reader in regard to the effusions of his own day! What will become of the myriads of books that have passed through our own unworthy hands? How many of them ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various

... So I encumber the earth, do I, according to you? (to Artamo and slaves) March him off inside! yes, and tie him to a pillar—tight! (to Chrysalus) You shall never take that gold away ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius

... once," interrupted George; "the third dog has turned tail, like a craven, luckily for us. Now slip the bight of the lanyard over your neck, and follow me. Leave the cane-knives; they will only encumber us, and perhaps throw us down the face of the precipice. Now, look out, I'm going ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood

... defence of the Christian faith against the Turk. One condition was attached to the bequest. The legatees were to erect a statue to Colleoni on the Piazza of St. Mark. This, however, involved some difficulty; for the proud republic had never accorded a similar honor, nor did they choose to encumber their splendid square with a monument. They evaded the condition by assigning the Campo in front of the Scuola di S. Marco, where also stands the Church of S. Zanipolo, to the purpose. Here accordingly the finest ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... an unassailable position. This seemingly generous action excited the gratitude of the Macedonians, whose wives and children it had saved from slavery and dishonour, till Antigonus pointed out to them that Eumenes had spared them only that he might not encumber himself.[173] X. After this, Eumenes, who was being constantly pursued by a superior force, recommended the greater part of his men to return to their homes. This he did either because he was anxious for their safety, or because ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... was terminated upon the surrender of Japan. The first of the lend-lease settlement agreements has been completed with the United Kingdom. Negotiations with other lend-lease countries are in progress. In negotiating these agreements, we intend to seek settlements which will not encumber world trade through war debts of a character that proved to be so detrimental to the stability of the world ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... folds of gold-embroidered drapery encumber her supple limbs; but her skirts are of the scantiest, (what Miss Flora MacFlimsey would call skimped,) and pitifully mean as to quality. By no means have the imperial looms of Benares contributed to her professional costume ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... off the upward gaze in one of the other salons, whilst all around medallions large and small of heads and figures, male, female and infantile, with a variety of vine-wreathed Bacchuses and bow-drawing Cupids, which are considered especially fit to decorate cafes, cluster along the mouldings, encumber the panels or fill up the niches. Huge mirrors reflect the pea-green walls, the crystal chandeliers, the gilding, glass and divans; cats perambulate the apartments; people come and go—black, elegant fellows, with broad-rimmed hats, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various

... part of the Iroquois forces was directed against the Neutrals. They carried two frontier villages, in one of which were more than 1600 men, the first at the end of autumn, the second early in the spring of 1651. The old men and children who might encumber them on their homeward journey were massacred. The number of captives was excessive, especially of young women, who were carried off to the Iroquois towns. The other more distant villages were seized with terror. The Neutrals abandoned their houses, their ...
— The Country of the Neutrals - (As Far As Comprised in the County of Elgin), From Champlain to Talbot • James H. Coyne

... carry us, although with considerable labour to the horses. Finding it was getting late, we determined to try and return to the camp round by the head of Nickol Bay, and succeeded in climbing over the rocks and boulders that encumber this portion of the coast, until we were within a quarter of a mile of the camp, when the tide came in upon us so quickly that, after having been repeatedly thrown down by the surf, we were compelled to leave the horses jammed up in the rocks just ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory

... moment having arrived to think about winter, the Voles spread themselves about the steppe. Each hollows little pits around the roots he wishes to extract. After having bared them he cleans them while still in position, so as not to encumber his storehouses with useless earth. This preparatory labour having been completed, he divides the root into slices of a weight proportioned to his strength, and carries away the fragments one by one. Seizing each with his teeth, he walks backwards drawing it after him, and thus traverses ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay

... of the year is without a dial in his mind. His notebooks impair his memory; his libraries overload his wit; the insurance office increases the number of accidents; and it may be a question whether machinery does not encumber; whether we have not lost by refinement some energy, by a Christianity intrenched in establishments and forms, some vigor of wild virtue. For every Stoic was a Stoic; but in Christendom ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... not encumber this preface with my personal qualifications for this little work—the answers ...
— The Stoker's Catechism • W. J. Connor

... the rayed crown of gold, interwoven with the crown of thorns; not dead thorns, but now bearing soft leaves, for the healing of the nations.... The lantern carried in Christ's left hand is the light of conscience.... Its fire is red and fierce; it falls only on the closed door, on the weeds that encumber it, and on an apple shaken from one of the trees of the orchard, thus marking that the entire awakening of the conscience is not to one's own guilt alone, but to the guilt of the ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon

... first degree is to symbolize the struggles of a candidate groping in darkness for intellectual light, that of the second degree represents the same candidate laboring amid all the difficulties that encumber the young beginner in the attainment of learning and science. The Entered Apprentice is to emerge from darkness to light; the Fellow Craft is to come out of ignorance into knowledge. This degree, therefore, by fitting emblems, is intended to typify these struggles of ...
— Masonic Monitor of the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason • George Thornburgh

... the toil of men, and conspire against their fame; which are cunning to consume, and {112} prolific to encumber; and of whose perverse and unwelcome sowing we know, and can say assuredly, "An ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin

... could make, I stripped off my clothes and flung them upon the rocks. My shoes and stockings followed—even my shirt was thrown aside, lest it might encumber me, and just as if I was going in to have a bathe and a swim, I launched myself upon the water. I had no wading to do. The water was beyond my depth from the very edge of the reef, and I had to swim from the first ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid

... whatever in this eccentric proceeding: he wants to make us all happy, especially my mother, without seeming to lay us under too great an obligation. Surely good-nature was never carried so far before; ha, ha! Monsieur, I will encumber you with my friendship forever, if you permit me, but farther than that I will not abuse ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade

... use of in reasoning on other subjects, they would approach to the mathematics in simplicity and in truth, and the science of medicine in particular would be stripped of the heaps of learned rubbish which now encumber it, and would appear in true and native simplicity. Such is the method I propose to follow: I am certain of the rectitude of the plan; of the success of the reasoning it does not become me ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett

... Good in art? Here again the philosophical standard bars the way and demands priority. What, then, is Good independent of varied feelings and of all the varied and contradictory interests of human subjectivity which encumber it in the minds of the multitude of ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... convey his separate property without his wife's signature. The wife can not sell or encumber her separate property without her ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... Don Alfonso was arrived, With torches, friends, and servants in great number; The major part of them had long been wived, And therefore paused not to disturb the slumber Of any wicked woman, who contrived By stealth her husband's temples to encumber: Examples of this kind are so contagious, Were one not ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... that night, and, the next day, being singularly fine for an English summer, he resolved to go to Moleswich on foot. He had no need this time to encumber himself with a knapsack; he had left sufficient change of dress in his ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... in some master node is:— What takes M'Adam where a road is, To hammer little pebbles less? His organ of Destructiveness. What makes great Joseph so encumber Debate? a lumping lump of Number: Or Malthas rail at babies so? The smallness of his Philopro— What severs man and wife? a simple Defect of the Adhesive pimple: Or makes weak women go astray? Their bumps are more ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... waste and pathless, Under snow-encumber'd branches, Homeward hurried Hiawatha, Empty-handed, heavy-hearted, Heard Nokomis moaning, wailing; "Wahonowin! Wahonowin! Would that I had perish'd for you, Would that I were dead as you are! Wahonowin! Wahonowin!" And he rush'd into the wigwam, Saw the ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard

... shot him through the head. Phinnes and Timothy Murphy testified the same, and to show the bloody disposition of this wretch, William Booth testified that Williams proposed afterwards to the company that if they took any more ships they should not encumber themselves with the men, having already so many prisoners that in case of a fight they should not be safe with them; but that they should take them and tie them, back to back, and throw them all overboard into ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... how long a particular reading was retained, or through how many editions it ran. It is to be assumed, however, that it was retained in all intermediate editions till the next change of text is stated. It would encumber the notes with too many figures if, in every instance in which a change was made, the corresponding state of the text in all the other editions was indicated. But if no new reading follows the text quoted, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... looked with awful veneration. This girl was regarded with an unfavourable eye by, all the competitors, honest Dinmont only excepted; the rest conceived they should find in her a formidable competitor, whose claims might at least encumber and diminish their chance of succession. Yet she was the only person present who seemed really to feel sorrow for the deceased. Mrs. Bertram had been her protectress, although from selfish motives, and her capricious tyranny was forgotten at the moment while the tears followed each ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... replied. "We lost no time when your messenger came, Guy, but it took some time to rouse the men-at-arms and to saddle our horses. You must have made a stout defence indeed, judging by the pile of dead that encumber your passage." ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty

... have done well; and, what they did Being perfect, it shall triumph. Let them slumber: No king of Egypt in a pyramid Is safer from oblivion, though he number Full seventy cerements for a coverlid. These Dead be seeds of life, and shall encumber The sad heart of the land until it loose The clammy clods and let out the Spring-growth In beatific green through every bruise. The tyrant should take heed to what he doth, Since every victim-carrion turns to use, And drives a chariot, ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... forts of Matagorda and Puntales, affords generally good anchorage, and contains a harbour formed by a projecting mole, where vessels of small burden may discharge. The entrance to the bays is rendered somewhat dangerous by the low shelving rocks (Cochinos and Las Puercas) which encumber the passage, and by the shifting banks of mud deposited by the Guadalete and the Rio Santi Petri, a broad channel separating the Isla de Leon from the mainland. At the mouth of this channel is the village of Caracca; close beside ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... milk of human kindness full, Of rotund form and smiling face, Who kept an entertaining place For travel-worn and weary fellows Who landed where Caleb S. Bellows, Out on "the Point" his habitation Built in a pleasant situation, Before the days when piles of lumber Did first fair nature's face encumber; Quite near the spot where first with skill John Perkins built his little mill, Where Philip Thompson many a year Ago, commenced his bright career, And took the ebbing of the tide, Which into golden waves did glide; He man'd his craft and steered her well O'er placid calm ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett

... King, having directed Talmash to superintend the retreat, put himself at the head of a few brave regiments, and by desperate efforts arrested the progress of the enemy. His risk was greater than that which others ran. For he could not be persuaded either to encumber his feeble frame with a cuirass, or to hide the ensigns of the garter. He thought his star a good rallying point for his own troops, and only smiled when he was told that it was a good mark for the enemy. Many fell on his right hand ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Fathers' voice Shall call my spirit, joyful in their choice; When, pois'd upon the gale, my form shall ride, Or, dark in mist, descend the mountain's side; Oh! may my shade behold no sculptur'd urns, To mark the spot where earth to earth returns! No lengthen'd scroll, no praise-encumber'd stone; [i] My epitaph shall be my name alone: [2] If that with honour fail to crown my clay, [ii] Oh! may no other fame my deeds repay! That, only that, shall single out the spot; By that remember'd, or ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... (London, 1868.) What Sir Patrick says professionally of Scotch Marriages in this chapter is taken from this high authority. What the lawyer (in the Prologue) says professionally of Irish Marriages is also derived from the same source. It is needless to encumber these pages with quotations. But as a means of satisfying my readers that they may depend on me, I subjoin an extract from my list of references to the Report of the Marriage Commission, which any persons who may be so inclined can ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... full of specie. Where, Sir, should we put it, and what should we do with it? Should we ship it, by cargoes, every day, from New York to New Orleans, and from New Orleans back to New York? Should we encumber the turnpikes, the railroads, and the steamboats with it, whenever purchases and sales were to be made in one place of articles to be transported to another? The carriage of the money would, in some cases, cost half as much as the carriage of the goods. Sir, the very first day, under such a state ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... it necessary to encumber myself with my rifle, and was, therefore, provided with no weapon of defence but the long gad I used to urge on the cattle. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when I rounded Sandy Point, that long point which is about a mile a-head of us on the left shore, when ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... alia, to the annual interest and sinking fund, amounting in 1910-11 to L24,554,000, on the National Debt of the United Kingdom. It is impossible to estimate her share of the capital of the Debt, and I scarcely think that anyone would seriously propose to encumber the new Ireland with an old Debt, based on some arbitrary estimate. For the great bulk of Debt created in the past she has little moral responsibility—no more, at any rate, than the self-governing ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... be understood or attended to by these three descriptions of men? Will not the landholder know and feel whatever will promote or insure the interest of landed property? And will he not, from his own interest in that species of property, be sufficiently prone to resist every attempt to prejudice or encumber it? Will not the merchant understand and be disposed to cultivate, as far as may be proper, the interests of the mechanic and manufacturing arts, to which his commerce is so nearly allied? Will not ...
— The Federalist Papers

... 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 in his father's garden as if every garden had similar ruins to adorn or encumber it, according as the owner might ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald

... up her letter, to write another, which she addressed to the steamer which was to carry him the greater part of his long journey. She did not give her address; she told him how she believed it would be for his advantage not to encumber his noble career with concern for her. She had added that, if it were destined for them to meet, nothing would give her greater pleasure than to see him again. She ended by wishing him God-speed, a safe return, a successful and happy life. ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... sentinel which stands guard for the great ice-caps beyond. Winter snows, summer fogs and rains have washed the hillsides clean; they are leached out and they present a lifeless, forbidding front to travelers. In many places the granite fragments which still encumber them lie piled one above another in such titanic chaos as to discourage man's puny efforts to climb over them. Nevertheless, men have done so, and by the thousands, by the tens of thousands. On this particular morning ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... been at once determined on. As a first step, the whole fleet, except some dozen vessels, was burned, since twelve was a sufficient number to serve as pontoons, and it was not worth the army's while to encumber itself with the remainder. They could only have been tracked up the strong stream of the Tigris by devoting to the work some 20,000 men; thus greatly weakening the strength of the armed force, and at the same time hampering its movements. Julian, in ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson

... other officer. We had also a very respectable library, in which, among many valuable works, conspicuously selected with an eye to our special objects, I recall with amusement certain ancient encyclopaedias, contributed apparently by well-wishers from stock which had begun to encumber their shelves. Howbeit, like Quaker guns, these made a brave show if not too closely scrutinized, and spared us the semblance of poverty in vacant spaces. Every military man understands the value of an imposing ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... Upbear it to the mountain's brow, Round which, aloft before thee now, The misty chaplets wreathe— Not stopping once to breathe." One knight, whose nostrils bled, Betokening courage fled, Cried out, 'What if that current's sweep Not only rapid be, but deep! And grant it cross'd,—pray, why encumber One's arms with that unwieldy lumber, An elephant of stone? Perhaps the artist may have done His work in such a way, that one Might lug it twice its length; But then to reach yon mountain top, And that ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... gave to man's encumber'd hours The tuneful joys of truth serene, And twined our life's neglected ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various

... body of this petrifaction, she was almost satisfied to abandon the pair, to let them take their wretched chance. But this was a climax which did not occur often; she returned, in most of her waking moments, to devising schemes by which Laura might be delivered into the hands she was so likely to encumber. The new French poet, the American novelist of the year, and a work by Mr. John Morley lay upon Alicia's table many days together for this reason. She sometimes remembered what she expected of these volumes, what plein air sensations, or what profound plunges, ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... cry, however, was quite as devoid of reason as the suspicion entertained of old against the Gypsy communities of harbouring disguised priests. Gypsy women, as the writer had occasion to remark many a long year ago, have plenty of children of their own, and have no wish to encumber themselves with those of other people. A yet more extraordinary charge was, likewise, brought against them—that of running away with wenches. Now, the idea of Gypsy women running away with wenches! Where were ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow

... from the skies, Till they glance thro' the shade, and Come down to your brow Like—eyes of the maiden Who calls on you now— Arise! from your dreaming In violet bowers, To duty beseeming These star-litten hours— And shake from your tresses Encumber'd with dew The breath of those kisses That cumber them too— (O! how, without you, Love! Could angels be blest?) Those kisses of true love That lull'd ye to rest! Up!—shake from your wing Each hindering thing: The dew of the night— It would weigh down your ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... game-bag, his gourd, his tobacco-pouch, and various articles of daily use. As for his iron pot, his smoked meat, his stock of skins, and bottles of seal-oil, he leaves them under the guardianship of Marimonda in the grotto which he will now make his store-house, his kitchen: he will not encumber with them ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine

... dreamt of in your philosophy. But come;— Here, as before, never, so help you mercy, How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself,— As I, perchance, hereafter shall think meet To put an antic disposition on,— That you, at such times seeing me, never shall, With arms encumber'd thus, or this head-shake, Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase, As 'Well, well, we know'; or 'We could, an if we would';— Or 'If we list to speak'; or 'There be, an if they might';— Or such ambiguous giving out, ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... and restitution, you talk to the deaf; his heart and soul, with all his senses, are got among his bags, or he is gravely asleep, and dreaming of a mortgage. Tell a man of business, that the cares of the world choke the good seed; that we must not encumber ourselves with much serving; that the salvation of his soul is the one thing necessary. You see, indeed, the shape of a man before you, but his faculties are all gone off among clients and papers, thinking how to defend a bad cause, or find flaws in a good one; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 477, Saturday, February 19, 1831 • Various

... become blasphemous under the treatment of men like the Caracci. Gods without power, satyrs without rusticity, nymphs without innocence, men without humanity, gather into idiot groups upon the polluted canvas, and scenic affectations encumber the streets with preposterous marble. Lower and lower declines the level of abused intellect; the base school of landscape[23] gradually usurps the place of the historical painting, which had sunk into prurient ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... West was straddling up and down the room, a pent volcano ready to explode. He knew Whaley's advice was good. It would be suicide to encumber himself with this girl in his flight. But he had never disciplined his desires. He wanted her. He meant to take her. Passion, the lust for revenge, the bully streak in him that gloated at the sight of some one young and fine trembling before him: all these were factors contributing ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine

... verse is free; The shackles that encumber me, The fetters that are my obsession, Are ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams

... lions, and doing what in certain sad epochs is unanimously voted to be impossible and unattemptable,—exults along with him; and perhaps whispers to his own poor heart, nearly choked by the immeasurable imbroglio of Blue-books and Parliamentary Eloquences which for the present encumber Heaven and Earth, "MELIORA SPERO." To Mirabeau, the following details, from first-hand, but already of twenty-three years distance, were not known, [Appeared first in Tome v. of "OEuvres Posthumes de Frederic II." (are in ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... were—as a careful study of the tract, particularly taken in connection with its Postscript, fails to bring any reader to a clear conception of them; and as its whole matter was altogether immaterial to my subject—I did not think it worth while to encumber my pages with it. So in respect to many other points, in treating which extended discussions might be demanded. If I had been governed by such notions as the Reviewer seems to entertain, my book, which he complains of as too long, would have been lengthened ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham

... to North Wilkesboro', where he proposed to make a first essay in railway journeying, Zeke seated himself under the shade of a grove of persimmon-trees by the wayside, there painfully to encumber his feet with the new shoes. As he laced these, he indulged in soliloquy, after a fashion bred of his lonely life, on a subject born of ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... calculated for effecting the improvement of the colony, and, at the same time, their own condition, must be looked for among the English and Scotch farmers; these cannot fail. To such we would recommend not to encumber themselves, and incur a great and unnecessary expense, by carrying out live-stock from home, but to take them from the Cape of Good Hope. At Algoa Bay, which is perfectly safe for six months in the year, they ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 369, Saturday, May 9, 1829. • Various

... names in our lesson are probably tribal, and not personal, names. The whole march northward and back again comes in between verses 22 and 23; for Eshcol was close to Hebron, and the spies would not encumber themselves with the bunch of grapes on their northward march. The details of the exploration are given more fully in the spies' report, which shows that they had gone up north from Hebron, through the hills, and possibly came back by the valley of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... wear enormous sealskin boots the whole length of their legs. The tops of these boots are made extremely wide, for the purpose of stowing away blubber, or babies, or other odd articles that might encumber ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne

... not seen the general orders. Clinton is too good an officer to so encumber himself; and the orders are strict that only the women of the regiments be permitted to march with the army. I take it ye scarce wish to class yourselves with them, however much it might ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... the same enduring substance; at once perfectly distinct and eternally inseparable. In history we can but study character in relation to events, to situation and circumstances, which disguise and encumber it: we are left to imagine, to infer, what certain people must have been, from the manner in which they have acted or suffered. Shakspeare and nature bring us back to the true order of things; and showing us ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... not encumber the main idea of a sentence with superfluous details. Place some of the details in another sentence, ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever

... Peace, And banish dire Immanity and War. Strong Nature's bent, continual increase, Still counteracts Humanity's fond wish, The perpetuity of Peace, and Love; Alas! progressive Increase cannot last. Soon mourns the encumber'd land it's human load: Too soon arrives the inauspicious hour; The Natal Hour of the unhappy Man, Who all his life goes mourning up and down That there is neither bough, nor mud, nor straw That he may take to make himself a hut; No, not in all his native land a twig That he may take, nor spot ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield

... Wife controls own earnings. Husband and wife are equal guardians of children. Wife controls her separate property, can sue, etc., as if unmarried. Neither husband nor wife can convey or encumber real estate without consent of other; nor dispose by will of more than one half of the separate property without other's consent. If there are no children, the surviving husband or wife takes all the property, real and personal; if there are children, ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker

... have been a dream, monsieur," she said with sad finality. "It is folly to encumber one's ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton

... have, but in his happier hour Of social pleasure, ill exchanged for power. Seen him, encumber'd with the venal tribe, Smile without art and ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen

... hundred other things merely as well as anybody else would not alter the sentence or add to his respectability; on the contrary, his being able to do so many other things well would probably interfere with and encumber him in the execution of the only thing that others cannot do as well as he, and so far be a drawback and a disadvantage. More people, in fact, fail from a multiplicity of talents and pretensions than from an absolute ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... of my schoolfellows is going to be married," she said. "He has a pretty bachelor cottage in the neighbourhood of the Regent's Park—and he wants to sell it, with the furniture, just as it is. I don't know whether you care to encumber yourself with a little house of your own. His sister has asked me to distribute some of his cards, with the address and the particulars. It might be worth your while, perhaps, to look at the cottage when you pass ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins

... which has suffered severely from Indian wars, and other causes of depression. With the exception of divorce cases, there were really no bad laws passed; and no disposition manifested to excessive legislation, or to encumber the statute book with new schemes. Local and specific acts absorbed the chief attention during ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... no suspicion of our being here. I think we should return to our former place of concealment, and watch their motions. There is no saying when the party with Miss Percival may return, they may have arrived while we have been away, or they may come to-morrow. It will be better, therefore, not to encumber ourselves with more prisoners unless ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat

... "One book at a time." He would not encumber himself with books any more than he would with shoes. But that the mind might not go barefoot, he always bought a new book before destroying the one in hand. Destroying? Yes; for after reading or studying a book, he warms his hands upon its flames, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... encumber herself with too many tools; but she will not shirk the expense of necessary implements, the simplest by preference, and ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day

... deliberate, and too much collected, not to feel his advantage. Anxious to keep his means of further defence in the best condition, he directed all the guns to cease, and the damages to be repaired. Then he went with a party toward the boat that had fallen into his hands. To encumber himself with prisoners of any sort, in his actual situation, would have been a capital mistake, but to do this with wounded men would have been an act of folly. The boat had tourniquets and other similar appliances in it, and he directed some of the ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... said in a sorrowful tone, "dis Massa Leo's." I recognised it indeed as the one Leo had with him. Fatigue alone could have made him throw it aside; and perhaps, hoping soon to reach the Europeans of whom he had heard, he would no longer encumber himself with it. Securing it to the ox's back, we went on still more eagerly, looking carefully about on every side. I expected every moment to overtake Leo. We went on for another mile or more, when to my dismay we found his rifle on the ground. That he certainly would ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... officer of field rank in His Majesty's Army it was certainly a peculiar collection, few or none of these articles being included in the Field Service regulations. Still, not more peculiar than some of the things with which solicitous friends and relatives encumber officers at the Front. ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan

... treasuries have been burnt down because of their failing to support the Cause. Holy Fire, it goes on to say, has been aroused to its sacred function of purifying the country; and other agencies are also at work to see that those who are not true sons of the motherland do cease to encumber her lap. The signature is an ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore

... Gustave's smile, as though he had heard other words than those—perchance an unconscious wish, the hope that the old aunt might die before he himself did, that he would inherit the promised half-million of francs, and then not long encumber his family. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... flag; but the Director-in-chief on board Repeller No. 1 was of the opinion that with her propeller extracted it mattered little what flag she flew. His work with the Scarabaeus was over; for it had been ordered by the Syndicate that its vessels should not encumber themselves ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton

... the strange, calm bitterness that possessed my soul: "What value has life to you and your deformed one? Poor, widowed, sickly, and despised, why should you wish to live? Why encumber me?" ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... from whom I take my instructions, and for whom I am not otherwise responsible. That person is the person from whom you derive your expectations, and the secret is solely held by that person and by me. Again, not a very difficult condition with which to encumber such a rise in fortune; but if you have any objection to it, this is the time to mention ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... as we will, this symbolic Word—this knowledge of divine Truth—is never thoroughly attained in this life, or in its symbol, the Master Mason's lodge. The corruptions of mortality, which encumber and cloud the human intellect, hide it, as with a thick veil, from mortal eyes. It is only, as I have just said, beyond the tomb, and when released from the earthly burden of life, that man is capable of fully receiving and appreciating the revelation. Hence, then, when ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... Christian doctrine of redemption, is monstrous. There is no proof that Abel know anything about it. The probabilities lean all the other way. It is a pity those self-satisfied theorizers have not something else to do, than to encumber religion and perplex good people by their ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... first-rate in their range, though their range is different; and with poetry second-rate in quality no one ought to be allowed to trouble mankind. There is quite enough of the best,—much more than we can ever read or enjoy in the length of a life; and it is a literal wrong or sin in any person to encumber us with inferior work. I have no patience with apologies made by young pseudo-poets, "that they believe there is some good in what they have written: that they hope to do better in time," etc. Some good! If there is not all good, there is no good. If they ever hope to do better, why ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... overwhelming the sufferers with caresses. I will not stand by and see my fellow-man drowning, without stretching out a hand to help him, till he has, by his own efforts and presence of mind, reached the shore in safety, and then encumber him with aid. With suffering Greece, now is the crisis of her fate—her great, it may be her last struggle. Sir, while we sit here deliberating, her destiny may be decided. The Greeks, contending with ruthless oppressors, turn their eyes to us, and ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... be right than president notwithstanding. The absolute perfectionist is the most tiresome of men, and a waster of time and of nerves. The stickler, the fly-speckler, the bully and the sadist serve only to encumber those parts of the establishment which they touch; their subordinates spend part of their own strength clearing away the wreckage which ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense

... Ishall take no notice of them. He then cites some verses of blind Harry, (who knows not blind Harry?) written in the time of King Edward IV.; and some from the Pilgrimage of the Soul, printed by Caxton in 1483. Iwill not encumber my page by transcribing them; and will only observe, that they do not at all prove the point for which they are adduced, being by no means harmonious. But were these few verses ever so smooth, they would not serve to decide ...
— Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley (1782) • Edmond Malone

... in the over-pompous Cathedral of Cologne, where halberdiers overawe the crowd—here, on the contrary, the simplicity of this primitive cult is touching and respectable in the extreme. These Copts who install themselves in their church, as round their firesides, who make their home there and encumber the place with their fretful little ones, have, in their own way, well understood the word of Him who said: "Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and do not forbid them, for of such is ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti

... feeling of life itself. Poetry is that which gleans most by keeping nearest to life. Books and firesides avail but little. Secretaries for the baggage of erudition do not enhance poetic values, they encumber them. Poetry is not declamation, it is not propaganda, it is breathing natural breaths. There is nothing mechanical about poetry excepting the affectation of forms. Poetry is the world's, it is everybody's. ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley

... the difficulty in a proper organization of the judicial system so as to secure its efficiency and uniformity in all parts of the Union and at the same time to avoid such an increase of judges as would encumber the supreme appellate tribunal, it should not be allowed to weigh against the great injustice which the present operation ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson

... SORIN'S house. Doors open out of it to the right and left. A table stands in the centre of the room. Trunks and boxes encumber the floor, and preparations for departure are evident. TRIGORIN is sitting at a table eating his breakfast, and MASHA is ...
— The Sea-Gull • Anton Checkov

... railing in of Lower China Street and the lower part of Hog Lane, and the garden walls to be kept free from Chinese buildings, excepting the military and police stations already erected.—8. Removal of the stationary boats which at present encumber the avenue to the factory ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... drink with you," replied M'Brair. "I am come upon my Master's errand! woe be upon me if I should anyways mince the same. Hall Haddo, I summon you to quit this kirk which you encumber." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson

... drawing and was sending a loving gaze out of the open window, where nature and summer were revelling in their conjoined riches. Art shewed her hand too, stealthily, having drawn out of the way of the others whatever might encumber the revel. Across a wide stretch of wooded and cultivated country, the eye caught the umbrageous heights on the further side of the valley of the Ryth. Eleanor's gaze was fixed. ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner

... gratified than I. Mr. Speaker, I have neither the time nor the inclination to notice the many illogical and forced conclusions, the numerous transfers of terms, or the vulgar insinuations which further encumber the argument of the gentleman from Kentucky. Reason and argument are worse than wasted upon those who meet every demand for political and civil liberty by such ribaldry as this—extracted from the speech of the gentleman from Kentucky: "I suppose there are gentlemen on this floor ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... Kamchadales and Aleutians. These natives have harpoons with short lines to which they attach bladders or skin bags filled with air. A great many boats surround a whale and stick him with as many harpoons as possible. If successful, they will so encumber him that his strength is not equal to the buoyancy of the bladders, and in this condition he is finished with a lance. A great feast is sure to follow his capture, and every interested native indulges in ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... Bohemianism, has very truly shown that the rationale of a great deal of this is simply the attempt of men to obtain from social intercourse the largest amount of positive pleasure or amusement it can give by discarding the forms, the costly conventionalities, the social restrictions that encumber and limit it. One of the worst tendencies of a very wealthy society is that by the mere competition of ostentation the standard of conventional expense is raised, and the intercourse of men limited ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... his "Ndese," garters and armlets of plaited palm fibre, and tightened by little cross-bars of brass; they are the "Hibas" which the Bedawin wear under their lower articulations as preservatives against cramp. Lastly, a Fetish horn hangs from the breast, and heavy copper rings encumber the wrists and ankles. Though unskilful in managing canoes—an art to be learned, like riding and dancing, only in childhood—many villagers affect to walk about with a paddle, like the semi-aquatic Kru-men. Up country it is said they make rafts which are towed across the stream by ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... brave resistance of the Belgae. The leaders accordingly resolved, now that their numbers were thus swelled, to enter in all earnest on the expedition to Italy which they had several times contemplated. In order not to encumber themselves with the spoil which they had heretofore collected, they left it behind under the protection of a division of 6000 men, which after many wanderings subsequently gave rise to the tribe of the Aduatuci on the Sambre. But, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... these consequences, and to relieve the Kantian doctrine itself from the inconsistency which gave rise to them. So long as the reason is regarded as a separate faculty from the understanding, and things in themselves as ideas of the reason, so long the apparent contradictions, which encumber the attempt to conceive the unconditioned, must be regarded as inherent in the constitution of the reason itself, and as the result of its legitimate exercise on its proper objects. This sceptical conclusion Hamilton endeavoured to avoid by rejecting ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel

... except a skin of some animal, which they throw over their shoulders when they lie in the open air. They knit up their hair, which is very long, with a roll of ostrich feathers, and usually carry their arrows wrapped up brit, that they may not encumber them, they being made with reeds, headed with flint, and, therefore, not heavy. Their bows are ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... herrings in powers Of silvery showers All number out-numbered; And great ling so lengthy Was there in such plenty The shore was encumber'd. ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... a mark of your friendship; but as I cannot have any doubt of the warmth of your affection, I am far from exacting so heavy a sacrifice. She is a stupid girl, and has nothing to recommend her. I would not, therefore, on my account, have you encumber one moment of your precious time by sending for her to Edward Street, especially as every visit is so much deducted from the grand affair of education, which I really wish to have attended to while she remains ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... married woman shall not mortgage or in any manner encumber her separate property acquired by descent, devise or gift, as a security for the debt or liability of her ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... his messengers that as they went forth they must expect to meet with dangers. "I send you forth as lambs in the midst of wolves." They were, however, to encumber themselves with nothing superfluous and they were to waste no time in idle ceremonies; they must journey as men who are impelled by one ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman

... mixes and chimes with the chink of the gold, From a vision, that flits in a luminous haze, Of figures forever eluding the gaze; It fleets through the doorway, it gleams on the glass, And the weird words pursue it—Rouge, Impair, et Passe! Like a sound borne in sleep through such dreams as encumber With haggard emotions the wild wicked slumber Of some witch when she seeks, through a nightmare, to grab at The hot hoof of the fiend, on ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith



Words linked to "Encumber" :   limit, bridle, throttle, clog, constrain, curb, confine, trammel, bound, restrict



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