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Incumbent   Listen
noun
Incumbent  n.  A person who is in present possession of a benefice or of any office. "The incumbent lieth at the mercy of his patron."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Incumbent" Quotes from Famous Books



... Hotel la Luna who crossed himself by a rapid motion of his fork just before he began to eat, and Miss Bertha Thomas told me she saw an Italian lady at Varallo at the table-d'hote cross herself with her fan. I do not cross myself before eating nor do I think it incumbent upon me to kneel down on the hard floor in church—perhaps because I am not an English bishop. We were sorry for this one and for his young lady, but it ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler

... special element of Gothic architecture. Greek and Egyptian buildings," he says—and I should have added, Roman building also, in proportion to their age, i.e. to the amount of the Roman elements in them—"stand for the most part by their own weight and mass, one stone passively incumbent on another: but in the Gothic vaults and traceries there is a stiffness analogous to that of the bones of a limb, or fibres of a tree; an elastic tension and communication of force from part to part; and also a studious expression of this throughout every part ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... looked about with the complaisance of those who examine a hotel property, find criticism incumbent, and have no errand. These two women had outdressed their occasion. In their presence Di kept silence, turned away her head, gave them to know that she had nothing to do with this blue cotton person beside her. When they had gone on, "What ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale

... the spread of the many waves and cross-tides, as follows. Or, to change the figure, I will present my varied little collation (what is our Country itself but an infinitely vast and varied collation?) in the hope that the show itself indicates a duty getting more and more incumbent every day. ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... state of suspense, which as far as one of us was concerned, ended in a nervous attack that was not unlike heart failure. I allude, of course, to Caroline, and it took Isabella and myself a good half hour to bring her back to a normal condition, and when this was done, Isabella thought it incumbent upon her to go off into hysterics, which, being but a weak simulation of the other's state, I met with severity and cured with a frown. When both were in trim again I allowed ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green

... Lafayette, that, in my poor judgment, the question admitted of a good deal of controversy. Names did not signify much, but every administration should receive its main impulses, subject to the common wishes and interests, from a close conformity of views, whether there were one incumbent or a dozen. The English system certainly made a near approach to a divided executive, but the power was so distributed as to prevent much clashing; and when things went wrong, the ministers resigned; ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... doubt as to the side on which the advantage would ultimately be taken. Marzio went half-way up the steps of the Capitol, and then stopped to look at the two wretched wolves which the Roman municipality thinks it incumbent on the descendants of Romulus to support. He thought one of them very like Carnesecchi. He watched the poor beasts a moment or two as they tramped and swung and pressed their lean sides against the bars of ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford

... spirit—the source of much awkwardness—with a constant aim to make others happy. Remember that it is incumbent upon gentlemen and ladies alike to be neat ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... pope, while the salary of each titular, large or small, was his private property, the annual product of a piece of land or of some indebtedness attached to his office and which he administered. Nowadays, every incumbent, from the cardinal-archbishop down to a canon, cantonal cure, and director or teacher in a seminary, is appointed or accepted by the civil power to which he swears fidelity. His salary, set down in the budget, is simply that of a public employee, so many francs and centimes for which he comes ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century, affairs assumed so critical an aspect that it became incumbent upon the central government to adopt some coercive measure. Sultan Selim was the first who endeavoured to suppress these turbulent spirits. He was unequal to the task, and fell a victim to their revengeful displeasure. 'Bairaktar, ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot

... angle of nearly forty-five degrees, were to receive our wearied bodies. The materiel of the beds was straw; but the sheets were white and well aired, and edged (I think) with a narrow lace; while an eider down quilt—like a super-incumbent bed—was placed upon the first quilt. It was scarcely day-light, when Mr. Lewis found himself upon the floor, awoke from sleep, having gradually slid down. By five o'clock, the smith's hammer was heard at work below—upon the door of the ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... forward with profound satisfaction to the privilege of enshrining and perpetuating in my own person the genial traditions that have clustered round the institution of Liquor. If elected, I shall endeavor to carry on the fine old rituals and pass them down unimpaired to the next incumbent. I shall endeavor to make duty a pleasure, and pleasure a duty. I shall remind myself that I am only performing the service to humanity that each one of you would willingly render if you were in ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley

... spot—I kissed the earth that covered them—I contemplated, with gloomy delight, the time when I should mingle my dust with theirs—and kneeled, with my arms incumbent on the gravestone, in a kind of mental ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... material blessings on the people; nay, it is our belief that, when a whole nation has been so long subjected to all the evils which not only render this life miserable, but absolutely intolerable, it is incumbent on those intrusted with the direction of affairs to remedy those evils instantly, and endeavor to make the people forget their misfortunes by, at least, the enjoyments of this life's ordinary comforts. Forgetfulness of the past can be obtained ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... was quite aware that it was incumbent on her to determine what she would do. It may be as well to declare at once that she had determined—had determined fully, before her uncle and George had started for their walk up to the wood-cutting. When she was ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope

... lower classes of society. His hero is a bull-fighter, his heroine a grisette. Of bull-fights, especially within the last few years, one has heard enough and to spare, since every literary traveller in Spain thinks it incumbent on him to describe them. But this is the first instance we remember where the incidents of the bull-ring, and the exploits and peculiarities of its gladiators, are taken as groundwork for a romantic tale. The attempt has been ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... true, however, that the most exalted station may be degraded by filling it with a low or despicable incumbent, for the mental effort necessary to the abstraction of the employment from him who pursues it, is one which most men do not take the trouble to make: an effort, indeed, which the majority of men are incapable of making. A vicious ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... office, and his place supplied by the Laird of Johnstones; all the blood of the Maxwells was aroused; a quarrel and a combat were the result; and, in the scuffle, the new-made Earl of Morton was killed. The injury was not forgotten, and John, who succeeded the murdered man, deemed it incumbent upon him to avenge his father. In consequence, the Laird of Johnstone soon fell a sacrifice to this notion of honour, or outbreak of offended pride. The crime was not, however, passed over by law; the offender was tried, and executed, in 1613, at the Cross in Edinburgh; and ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson

... language, India was Daru-l-harb or a Mansion of War. In these later years, on the contrary, it is generally recognised by Mahomedans that India under the British rule is not Daru-l-harb, but Daru-l-Islam, or a Mansion of Islamism, in which war on infidels is not incumbent.[60] It may be noted that the decree, recently issued from Mecca, that British territory is Daru-l-Islam, can ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison

... Robert Campbell presiding, and through their representative in Parliament, Colonel Livingston, presented their "humble Address" to the king, in which they refer to their predecessors who had "suffered early and greatly in the cause of liberty" and now judge it incumbent upon themselves "to express our sense of the blessings we enjoy under your Majesty's mild and constitutional Government; and, at the same time, to declare our abhorrence of the unnatural rebellion of our deluded fellow-subjects ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... second day's work at the box-factory, and before detailing any of the strange things which that day brought forth, I feel it incumbent upon me to give some word of explanation as to my whereabouts during the intervening night. It will be remembered that when I left the factory at the end of the first day, I had neither a lodging nor a ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson

... top and, surely enough, there came all the school children marching along, Jahnke strutting majestically beside the right flank, while a little drum major marched at the head of the procession, several paces in advance, with an expression on his countenance as though it were incumbent upon him to fight the battle of Sedan all over again. Effi waved her handkerchief and he promptly returned the greeting by a salute with his ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... worthy Van Kortlandt was observed to be particularly zealous in his devotions to the trencher; for, having the cares of the expedition especially committed to his care, he deemed it incumbent on him to eat profoundly for the public good. In proportion as he filled himself to the very brim with the dainty viands before him, did the heart of this excellent burgher rise up toward his throat, until he seemed crammed and almost choked with good eating ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... the offense, it is incumbent on the prosecution to show affirmatively, not only that the defendant knowingly voted, but that she so voted knowing that she had no right to vote. That is, the term "knowingly" applies, not to the fact of voting, but to the fact ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... wedding, and your manner confirms my suspicions. Now I must be made acquainted with all the facts, must know your reason for claiming the paper in my possession, before I surrender it. As a minister of the Gospel, it is incumbent upon me to act cautiously, lest I innocently become auxiliary to deception, —possibly ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... It is a duty incumbent upon upright and credible men of all ranks, who have performed anything noble or praiseworthy, to truthfully record, in their own writing, the principal events of their ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... vide, empty, connected with Lat. vacuus), the action of making empty, void or null, hence, in law, invalidation, annulment (see CONFESSION AND AVOIDANCE); also the becoming void or vacant, hence in ecclesiastical law a term signifying the vacancy of a benefice—that it is void of an incumbent. In general use, the word means the action of keeping away from ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... was a choir-practice at St. Sylvester's. Mr. Clifton was peculiarly tiresome, and the young organist replied with an air of easy scorn, the more irritating that it was so good-humored. Had the worthy incumbent been a shade less musical there would have been a quarrel then and there. But how could he part with a man who played so splendidly? Bertie received his instructions as to their next meeting with an unmoved face. "It is so important now ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... of screaming, dancing and singing natives we made our way to the chief's house. By some miracle this majestic-looking savage was sober. Perhaps he felt it incumbent upon him as host not to partake himself of the luxuries with which he regaled his guests. He took us hospitably into his great community house of split cedar planks with carved totem poles for corner posts, and called his young men to ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young

... vision does not believe in "spirit" or "life-force" or "durational streams of tendency." Starting with personality it is not incumbent upon it to show how personality has been evolved. It is no more incumbent upon it to show how personality has been evolved than it is incumbent upon pantheistic idealism to show how God or how ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys

... the Brooke matter, he felt it incumbent upon him immediately to find some safe means of communicating with the girl. She could be trusted not to betray him to the police, however much she might at first incline to doubt him. But he would persuade her ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... were soon well pleased with each other. Wilson felt that the duty of entertaining a fellow Judge from a sister city was incumbent upon him, and he just spread ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol

... some of their more obvious, not to say essential duties, were brought under the notice of Irish landlords, but in vain. The writer quoted above on the Famine of 1822 says: "It is therefore a duty incumbent on all those who possess property, and consequently have an interest in the prosperity of this country, to prevent a recurrence of this awful calamity [the Famine], and to provide for those persons over whom fortune has placed them, and whom they should ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... directly by the owner of the goods or by the household attached to him and for this purpose identified with him in theory. This is at least felt to be the economically legitimate end of acquisition, which alone it is incumbent on the theory to take account of. Such consumption may of course be conceived to serve the consumer's physical wants—his physical comfort—or his so-called higher wants—spiritual, aesthetic, intellectual, or what not; the latter class ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen

... the ever-strengthening fact, however unpalatable, that the development and emancipation of womanhood has brought women to the front as workers, to stay; and he will perceive that therefore it is incumbent upon the men to endeavour to find that happy mean, where they can work together to the advantage of both, and to the stability and greatness of ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... my dear Valentine; perhaps I am painting the picture in too gloomy colors; but my experience and my love render this duty incumbent upon me." ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz

... Relenting nature, and his lusty steers Drives from their stalls, to where the well-used plough Lies in the furrow, loosened from the frost; There, unrefusing, to the harnessed yoke They lend their shoulder, and begin their toil, Cheered by the simple song and soaring lark; Meanwhile incumbent o'er the shining share The master leans, removes th' obstructing clay, Winds the whole work, and sidelong lays the glebe. White through the neighbouring fields the sower stalks, With measured step, and liberal throws the grain Into the faithful bosom of the ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... Cecil, suddenly beating with his two fists on the counterpane as though he'd seen as much valuable time wasted as he felt it incumbent upon him to tolerate. 'Go on where ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... and heart-splitting perplexities of women. But experience has taught me that human beings, of whichever sex they may be, will do amazing things in times of spiritual upheaval. I have known the primmest of vicar's churchwardens curse like a coal-heaver when a new incumbent chose in his stead a less prim ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke

... was their next field of operation, and Mr. Maybold, the lately-arrived incumbent, duly received his share of the night's harmonies. It was hoped that by reason of his profession he would have been led to open the window, and an extra carol in quick time was added to draw him forth. But ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy

... been induced to publish "The Mother's Recompense," in compliance with the repeated solicitations of many friends, but in doing so I feel it incumbent on me to state that, unlike its predecessor, it has not received the advantage of that correction, which later years and ripened judgment would doubtless have cast around it. A long and fatal illness prevented its revision for the press; the ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar

... their judicial administration of the parish largely, of course, through the medium of the officers of the parish. These were the churchwardens, the sidemen and the incumbent, whether rector, vicar ...
— The Elizabethan Parish in its Ecclesiastical and Financial Aspects • Sedley Lynch Ware

... though no serious danger had ever threatened from this quarter, there had been frequent raids into Egypt on the part of the native Africans, and most of the more warlike of the Egyptian monarchs had regarded it as incumbent on them to lead from time to time expeditions into the region, for the purpose of weakening the wild tribes, Tahennu, Maxyes, and others, and inspiring them with a wholesome dread of the Egyptian power. Ramesses II. had on one occasion warred in this ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... doubt, that the indiscretion of certain of your admirers last Saturday at the Opera-house occasioned a disturbance which to a young woman of delicacy I should imagine must be very alarming: now as I consider myself concerned in your fame and welfare from regarding you as my ward, I think it is incumbent upon me to make enquiries into such of your affairs as become public; for I should feel in some measure disgraced myself, should it appear to the world, while you are under my guardianship, that there was any want of propriety in the ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney

... something peculiarly pathetic in the passing of King. In accepting the collectorship he yielded to the solicitation of friends who urged him to retain it after his health, due to worry and overwork, was seriously impaired. "He thought it incumbent upon him," says Weed, "to sign nothing he did not personally examine, becoming nervously apprehensive that his bondsmen might suffer."[1034] It was surmised, also, that the President's change of policy occasioned him extreme solicitude ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... in the latter, I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear, to find the hot breath of the thing upon my face, and its vast weight—an incarnate Night-Mare that I had no power to shake off—incumbent eternally ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... would my own son if I had one. I shall not blame you if the enterprise does not succeed; so do not take it to heart, for I know that you will do your best, and no man can do more." Mr Thursby considered that it was incumbent on him to take a dignified farewell of me, and to impress on me all the duties and responsibilities of my office; but he broke down, and a tear stood in his eye as he wrung my hand, and said in a husky voice, "You know all about it, my dear boy; you'll do well, and we shall have you back ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston

... may not, be familiar to the reader. Sir Richard Phillips relates:[3] "In conversation with Mr. Butterman, (at Dronfield), I heard two anecdotes of Lord Eldon, which, as an example to Lord Chancellors, and to public spirited parishioners, I consider it my duty to introduce. The incumbent, some years ago, thought proper to propose an exchange with an incompetent clergyman; when Mr. B., as a friend to the church, and some of his respectable neighbours took alarm at the negotiation, and in the commencement he penned a letter to the Chancellor. The other ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20. No. 568 - 29 Sept 1832 • Various

... to say to my young clergyman, whose fear of trespassing against English usages seemed to leave him hardly any other idea, "Sir, are you not a foreigner, an American? May I ask why it is to be considered incumbent upon you, either by yourself or others, to dress and speak like an ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... sea, which apparently was that of a man in distress, and the sound uttered was "Oh, Oh." Thus Davies's attention was divided between the dismal, "Oh," and his fox. But, as the sound was a far way off, he felt disinclined to heed it, for he did not think it incumbent on him to ascertain the cause of that distressing utterance, nor did he think it his duty to go to the relief of a suffering fellow creature. He therefore did not leave his seat on the tree. But the cry of anguish, every now and again, reached ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... associate myself with this expedition, I felt that it was incumbent upon me to explain that, while I doubted the wisdom of the undertaking and felt that it might do harm instead of good, I honored the noble and unselfish motives by which Mr. Ford was inspired. His hatred of war and blood-shed, and his desire ...
— The Jew and American Ideals • John Spargo

... remarked that the inexplicable Mitchell House policy remained in force in the years since McClintock's return; witness the present incumbent, frivolous Thompson, foreigner from Buffalo—him and his house parties! It was Mitchell House still, mauger the McClintock millions and a half-century of possession. Whether this clinging to the old name was tribute to the free-handed Mitchells or evidence of fine ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... me of the man of wealth who thought it incumbent upon him to give his neighbors some benefit of his money in the way of pleasure. So he went to Europe and bought a great quantity of marble statuary and had the pieces placed in the spacious grounds about his home. When the opening day came there ensued much suppressed ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson

... ministers of England are displeased with the late Governor, Warren Hastings, Esquire, upon the suspicion that he oppressed us, took money from us by deceit and force, and ruined the country, therefore we, upon the strength of our religion, which we think it incumbent on and necessary for us to abide by, following the rules laid down in giving evidence, declare the particulars of the acts and deeds of Warren Hastings, Esquire, full of circumspection and caution, civility and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... institution of slavery, anywhere within the limits of the United States. Then it cannot be the Territorial question that has given them cause for rebellion. When was the Fugitive Slave Law executed with more fidelity than since the inauguration of the present incumbent of the Presidential office? Let the people of Chicago speak and tell us when were the laws of the land executed with as much firmness and fidelity, so far as the fugitive slaves are concerned, as they ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom

... daily life (which the State should regulate). What sort of moralist can he be, who makes no conscience of what he does in his daily intercourse with other men? "I have deeply reflected upon the nature of virtue, and am convinced that a certain proceeding is incumbent on me. But the hangman supported by an Act of Parliament assures me that I am mistaken. If I yield my opinion to his dictum, my action becomes modified, and my character also.... Countries exposed to the perpetual ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford

... large number of guests to sea, even more than the cutter in Marryat's "The Three Cutters". They use the yacht as a means of getting to a picnic spot on a beach, where they are met by even more people, including the new incumbent of the local parish, the family who own the presentation to the living, and a couple of Roman priests who are ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston

... parents and my own inclination, I chose, was the profession of the Law. After having completed an education in which, perhaps, more than any other citizen of that time I had advantages, and which of course brought with it the incumbent duty of manifesting by my life that those extraordinary advantages of education, secured to me by my father, had not been worthlessly bestowed,—on coming into life after such great advantages, and ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... act in opposition to the King's laws relating to the customs and excise, even though the Israelite be the most heavily taxed ('Baba Kama,' 112; 'Pesakhim,' cxii. p. 2; Maimonides, 'Halakhot Melakhim,' ch. iv., sec. 1; 'Khoshen Mishpat,' ch. ccclxix., sec. 6); and from the same authority it is incumbent on us to show the same veneration to those who are representatives of the monarch as to himself ('Tract ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore

... the naval support given. Sir William Howe alludes to it frequently, both in general and specifically; while the Admiral sums up his always guarded and often cumbrous expressions of opinion in these words: "It is incumbent upon me to represent to your Lordships, and I cannot too pointedly express, the unabating perseverance and alacrity with which the several classes of officers and seamen have supported a long attendance and unusual degree ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan

... As the incumbent of this office for two terms, Mr. Calhoun did not make a great mark in history. His office was one of dignity and not of power; but during his vice-presidency important discussions took place in Congress ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord

... the consideration of this should move all, in whom is any thing of the zeal of God, and love to souls, their own and others', to appear in the defence of the gospel of our salvation, by all means incumbent to them, and possible for them; for if this citadel and stronghold, wherein our all, and the all of pure and true religion, lyeth, be blown up, we are gone; and indeed no less is intended by this antichristian and antievangelic enemy, than the utter subversion of true Christian religion. Who ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)

... makes a closer consideration and appreciation of the author's works and personality incumbent on us. ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald

... young German who, according to him, knew everything and could do everything. His son-in-law was working too hard. This Karl Hartrott would assist him in the bookkeeping. Desnoyers accepted the situation, and in a few days felt increasing esteem for the new incumbent. ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... whole lives, and some devoted men have actually died as martyrs to the drink, or gluttony, or whatever branch of vice they may have chosen for their especial study. The greater number, however, take no harm by the excursions into the various departments of vice which it is incumbent upon ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler

... it to weakness,—if it be not rouzed to prove its strength by applying it to the humiliation of your pride. The Portugueze had been weak; and, in connection with their Allies the Spaniards, they were prepared to become strong. It was, therefore, doubly incumbent upon us to foster and encourage them—to look favourably upon their efforts—generously to give them credit upon their promises—to hope with them and for them; and, thus anticipating and foreseeing, we should, by a natural operation of love, have contributed ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... law forbidding the Pope to provide any person (by anticipation) with a position in the English Church until the death of the incumbent. [1] Praemunire: see Constitutional Documents, p. xxxii. Neither the law of Provisors nor of Praemunire was strictly enforced until Henry VIII's reign. [2] Villeins appear, however, to have had the right of voting for knights of the shire until ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... Place (leading into Onslow Square), on the opposite side of the road, is Sydney Street, leading direct to St. Luke's Church, the late incumbent of which, the Rev. Charles Kingsley, who died on 29th February, 1860, aged 78, was the father of the well-known popular writer, the Rev. Charles Kingsley, of Eversley Rectory, Hants. Sydney Street was originally called Upper ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker

... knowledge and experience of the truth. This is a lovely feature in the character of a young Christian. If it have pleased God, in the free dispensation of his mercy, to call the child by his grace while the parents remain still in ignorance and sin, how great is the duty incumbent on that child to do what is possible to promote the conversion of those to whom so much is owing! Happy is it when the ties of grace sanctify those ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond

... to conduct. It is incumbent upon us to honour all secular powers, with subjection, obedience, promptitude, and payment of tribute. On the Sabbath, cease ye from all worldly labours, abstain from sin, do good works, and pay your devotions to God. Remember, ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt

... having found it imperatively incumbent on them to award the punishment of death to the prisoner, private Frank Halloway, at the same time gladly avail themselves of their privilege by strongly recommending him to mercy. The court cannot, in justice to the character of the prisoner, refrain from expressing their unanimous conviction, ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... in the procession. After this third act of disobedience with regard to the same person and the same office, and after calling the proceedings unwarrantable, "in order to vindicate and uphold their own authority, and thinking it a duty incumbent on them to maintain the authority of the Court of Directors," they again order Mr. Bristow to be reinstated, and Mr. Middleton to be recalled: in this circle the whole ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... Phronsie, feeling quite relieved that it wasn't really incumbent on her to ask for explanations. So she sat back quietly in her big chair, while Tom shot Polly ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney

... surprising occurrences and remarkable events that chanced to happen to them in the course of Providence, during their journey through life—that such as come after them might take warning and be benefited—I have found it incumbent on me, following a right example, to do the same thing; and have set down, in black and white, a good few uncos, that I should reckon will not soon be forgotten, provided they make as deep an impression on ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... obligation of a previous oath not to give evidence against certain of his friends and associates. Now, could anything in the whole circle of religion or ethics be conceived that renders the epic style of swearing so incumbent upon Paddy? There is a kind of moral fitness in all things; for where the necessity of invention exists, it is consolatory to reflect that the ability to invent is bestowed along ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton

... still more, the tithes were in this period taken from the incumbent, appropriated to the use of the Priory at Lewes, and have never since been restored; and a Convent of mendicant friars, more burthensome than ten endowed ones of monks, was founded and dedicated ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 535, Saturday, February 25, 1832. • Various

... they have not covered themselves with applause, rather with confusion; and this defect in Cromwell's mind will probably be looked upon with great indulgence. Nevertheless, people who go to war to demolish an existing government, ought to have taken thought for a substitute; on them it is incumbent to have a political creed, and a constitution to set up. At this very moment when the question is no less, than whether the king should be put to death, and monarchy rooted out of the land—ay, and the Parliament coerced, in order to effect these objects—our Puritan ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... exempt. The difference between them is simple and obvious; but, according to the sentiments of antiquity, it was of the highest importance. The Jews were a nation; the Christians were a sect: and if it was natural for every community to respect the sacred institutions of their neighbors, it was incumbent on them to persevere in those of their ancestors. The voice of oracles, the precepts of philosophers, and the authority of the laws, unanimously enforced this national obligation. By their lofty claim of superior sanctity the Jews might provoke the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... loose practice of occasional or indiscriminate hearing; and even in some instances of ministerial intercommunion—the law of their church on that matter having become obsolete. Against these courses, in some of which that body has obstinately persevered for more than a hundred years, we deem it incumbent on us to continue an uncompromising testimony. Many comments the Moral Governor of the nations has furnished in his providence within the last century, making still more intelligible the righteous claims of his word: but Seceders seem to have their ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery

... support of whom in inactivity would be daily consuming their little all, embraced this the only immediate mode of subsistence that occurred to them. These people, as soon as the helping hand of the government was withdrawn, and it became incumbent on them to depend on their own proper resources, would be immediately subject to the same privation and misery which pressed on their body, and would consequently be under the necessity of resorting to the same expedients for relief. ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... thought it incumbent upon me, in virtue of my student's uniform, to reply in a very "clever and original" manner to every question put to me by people whom I did not know very well, and regarded such short, clear answers as "Yes," "No," "I like it," or "I do not care for it," as things to be ashamed of. Accordingly, ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy

... repeated conferences and urgings, to comprehend how strange and stubborn in some points was the humble creature whom his proposals so highly honoured. Though his daughter was indeed his first object in life; though for her he was willing to make a mesalliance, the extent of which it would be incumbent on him studiously to conceal,—yet still, the beauty of Alice awoke an earthlier sentiment that he was not disposed to conquer. He was quite willing to make promises, and talk generously; but when it came to an oath,—a solemn, ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... not exactly said to be incumbent upon all men, is yet endowed with something that is almost of the nature of a duty. If a man cannot love, it is looked on as a sort of moral misfortune, if not as a moral fault in him. And when a man can love, and does love successfully, ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock

... often grazed on the lawn, went to drink. The grounds were bounded on one side by a broad river, on the other by a sufficiently well-travelled highway. What particular river and highway these were, through what particular state and county they ran, we do not think it incumbent on us to reveal. It may easily be inferred, however, that Wyllys-Roof belonged to one of the older parts of the country, at no great distance from the seaboard, for the trees that shaded the house were of a growth that could not ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... eyeglass, dropped it in sheer nervousness. Alec, throwing an arm round his mother, recalled the hoarse yelling of the newsboys on the boulevards. Was it this latest doom of a monarchy that they were bawling so lustily? He glanced at his father, and the dapper little man found it incumbent on him to ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... on Seathwaite Chapel, and the life of Robert Walker, the incumbent of Seathwaite, which is given at length in the notes to the sonnets on the Duddon, afford a still more characteristic instance of the clerical ideal towards which Wordsworth naturally turned. In Robert Walker he had a Cumbrian statesman turned into ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers

... West Fazeby, left vacant because of Mr. Truelocke's sturdiness in his opinion, did not wait long for an incumbent, but was quickly bestowed on a Mr. Lambert; a man not troubled with awkward scruples, for he had been a strong Presbyterian under the Commonwealth, and now was become as strong a Churchman; but an honest man as the world goes now, and not hard-hearted. He had another better living ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling

... hours from the moment in which her aunt had so far certified herself as to Colonel Osborne's visit to Nuncombe as to make her feel it to be incumbent on her to interfere. After much consideration Miss Stanbury had told her niece the dreadful news, and had told also what she intended to do. Dorothy, who was in truth horrified at the iniquity of the fact which was related, and who never dreamed of ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... ignorant, he was humble, zealous, and grateful; and he has certainly done something towards the accomplishment of that desirable object, an accurate GENERAL HISTORY OF PRINTING. The preceding was inserted in the first edition of this work. It is incumbent on me to say something more, and less declamatory, of so extraordinary a character; and as my sources of information are such as do not fall into the hands of the majority of readers, I trust the prolixity of what follows, appertaining to the aforesaid ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... Wish BISHOP OF WORCESTER hadn't said that he knew a Clergyman who stayed in bed because he had no decent clothes to wear. Congregation seem to think he meant me! Two blankets, and a rig-out of "Cellular under-clothing," from "CHURCH DEFENCE," addressed to "Our Beloved but Impoverished Incumbent." Quite insulting! Give blankets to Gardener, and send the Cellular things to Curate, as his tendencies ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 25, 1893 • Various

... at Mary. It was incumbent on him to say something. Twice he attempted to speak, and each time, on finding himself about to say something regarding the weather, he stopped. Mary did not look at him; her eyes were fixed stubbornly on a part of the wall well away from his neighborhood, and it seemed to him that she had ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens

... than a man, but usually only the upper part is actually worked into shape, though many instances are observed of smaller statues the entire surface of which is crudely carved. When a death occurs many duties are incumbent on the surviving relatives, one of the first being to make the kapatong, the soul of which waits on and guards the soul of ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... "restoration," carried out by men ignorant of architecture and antiquities. But we are learning better now. The Society of Antiquaries has done much to prevent injudicious restoration and the destruction of our old churches, and if any incumbent and his parishioners are thinking of restoring their church, they cannot do better than to consult the secretaries of that learned body, who will show how best to preserve the interesting memorials of the past ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield

... General Counsel of the Army. At his departure the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Civil Rights was consolidated with that of the Deputy for Civilian Personnel and Industrial Relations. The incumbent of the latter position, Stephen Shulman, became Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Civilian Personnel, Industrial Relations, and Civil Rights. Shulman, a graduate of Yale Law School and former Executive Assistant to the Secretary of Labor, had ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... navigation, but he is, as he expresses it, "in the ministry." Mr. Chadband is attached to no particular denomination and is considered by his persecutors to have nothing so very remarkable to say on the greatest of subjects as to render his volunteering, on his own account, at all incumbent on his conscience; but he has his followers, and Mrs. Snagsby is of the number. Mrs. Snagsby has but recently taken a passage upward by the vessel, Chadband; and her attention was attracted to that Bark A 1, when she was something flushed by the ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... Of the secondary duties which next come in course—and which, be it remembered, arise not from the mastership, but from the neighbourship—the first is that of 'making his factory, and the processes carried on there, as healthy as care and sanitary science can render them.' 'This is the more incumbent upon him, as it is little likely to be thought of or demanded by his workmen. It is a topic on which his cultivated intelligence is almost sure to place him far ahead of them; and out of the superiority, as we have seen, springs the obligation.' Our reviewer adds the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various

... won't last the winter; may drop any day. Just the thing for Mr. Helwyse,—Dr. Helwyse." And the subject, being discussed at some length between the two gentlemen, took on a promising aspect. His house was picked out for the new incumbent, his earnings calculated, his success foretold. Two characters so diverse as were the President and his clerk united, it seems, in ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... I in answer, "in a spirit very different from that by which Monsieur de Chatellerault appears to have been actuated. He made it incumbent upon me to afford proof of my courage. That proof I have afforded; I decline to do more. Moreover, as Monsieur de Chatellerault himself must perceive, the light is failing us, and in a few minutes it will be ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini

... remain in the quiet and undisturbed enjoyment of a metropolis, from the possession of which we derived an advantage so odious to our neighbors, and, in their opinion, so oppressive? Should we be able to preserve it against the incumbent weight of Connecticut on the one side, and the co-operating pressure of New Jersey on the other? These are questions that temerity alone will answer in the affirmative. The public debt of the Union would be a further cause ...
— The Federalist Papers

... however, without considerable misgiving on the part of many members of both Houses who voted for it. It was an extreme proposition,—a new departure from the long-established usage of the Federal Government, and for that reason, if for no other, personally degrading to the incumbent of the Presidential office. It could only have grown out of the abnormal excitement created by the dissensions between the two great Departments of the Government. The bitterness engendered resembled that which always distinguishes ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... now owns a farm in Maine, or at least holds a deed of it, given him, for a consideration, by another man who in turn had bought it of a previous incumbent who had seized it from the Indians, wood-chucks, hares, foxes and other original proprietors, without, as I hear, making them any return whatever; who, in fact, ejected them without ceremony. For some years whenever the wood-chucks ate anything ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... by the exercise, it was affirmed, of mere moral pressure, though not perhaps always without a display or threat of material pressure behind it in the event of moral pressure proving inadequate. Amongst others, the incumbent of the Golden Temple at Amritsar, the most sacred of all Sikh shrines, was constrained to make a public confession of his wrongdoings and resign his office into the hands of a Reformers' Committee. Next to Amritsar in wealth and sanctity came Nankhanda Saheb ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol

... that the dog most undoubtedly has all the qualities of a man possessed of good feeling, and adds that man has not the fine qualities of the dog. We make a virtue of that gratitude which is nothing more than a duty incumbent upon us, while it is an inherent quality ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... some aid should be extended towards such poor unhappy sufferers, wherever they may be discovered, either in this city or its neighborhood; and, as loosing the bonds of wickedness, and setting the oppressed free, is evidently a duty incumbent on all professors of Christianity, but more especially at a time when justice, liberty, and the laws of the land are the general topics among most ranks and stations of men. Therefore, being desirous, as much as in us lies, to contribute ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole

... as to the identity and habitat of the lady of the Governor's adoration, nevertheless made it incumbent upon Archie to make some sort of reply. The Governor would probably be disappointed in him if he confessed the meagerness of his experiences, and he felt that it would be a grave error to jeopardize his standing ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... this nature have not been considered as within the inquiry directed by the Act, because we cannot consider any right or property as lost to the party where the Government of the country has expressly provided and stipulated for a remedy by a public treaty. We think it, however, incumbent upon us to represent that the claimants uniformly state to us the insuperable difficulties they find themselves under, as individuals, in seeking the recovery of their debts according to the provision ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... Julia had been condemned for her lewdness and adultery, and that a bill of divorce had been sent to her in his name, by the authority of Augustus. Though he secretly rejoiced at this intelligence, he thought it incumbent upon him, in point of decency, to interpose in her behalf by frequent letters to Augustus, and to allow her to retain the presents which he had made her, notwithstanding the little regard she merited from him. When the period of his tribunitian authority expired ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... the Government, was writing: "Peace with Spain makes offensive war in Piedmont certain; my plan is being discussed; Vado will soon be taken;" and a few days later, on the 25th of August, "Troops from Spain are marching to Italy." It was incumbent upon the French to repossess Vado, for, by affording safe anchorage to small hostile cruisers, it effectually stopped the trade with Genoa. De Vins had there equipped several privateers, under the Austrian ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... incumbent on me to declare In the last speaker's face my censure, based On grounds most clear and constitutional.— An Act it is that studies to create A standing army, large and permanent; Which kind of force has ever been beheld ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... forbearance of his colleagues, is illustrated by an anecdote commonly told. It appears that two friends were living together, one of whom had engaged a Ramoosee, while the other, not imagining it to be incumbent upon him to incur the same expense, neglected this precaution. One night, every thing belonging to this unfortunate chum was stolen. The Ramoosee was summoned, and accused of not having performed his duty. He boldly denied the charge. "All master's property is ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts

... on the charge that he is rightfully no prince at all, but a pauper peasant; that the real prince died when two and one-half years old; that the death was concealed, and a peasant child smuggled into the royal cradle, and that this present incumbent was that smuggled substitute. This is the very material that so many oriental tales have been ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... her eyes. She wished that she had somehow contrived to come on a week-day. Such a good man might be prejudiced against a woman who had chosen Sunday, never realizing the necessities of her case. But it was incumbent upon her to go on now. She took off the thick boots in which she had walked thus far, put on her pretty thin ones of patent leather, and, stuffing the former into the hedge by the gatepost where she might readily find them again, descended the hill; ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... eye on Ishmael. "Are you still pure?" he shot at him in his deepest bass. "I see you are; your look answers for you." And he strode on again. He turned to add over his shoulder: "I cannot in the intewests of my pwofession emulate you; it is incumbent on me to know first hand all that is possible, but I consider it an excellent thing for the layman. Keep it up. Don't let Killigrew, who is a commonplace sinner, laugh ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... to change their sovereign, in order, with the assistance and under protection of another Christian potentate, to maintain the provinces against their enemies. Orange, moreover, expressed the opinion that upon so important a subject it was decidedly incumbent upon them all to take the sense of the city governments. The members for the various municipalities acquiesced in the propriety of this suggestion, and resolved to consult their constituents, while the deputies of the nobility also desired to consult with their whole body. After ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... less inclination to an amour than at present; but gallantry to the ladies was among his principles of honour; and he held it as much incumbent on him to accept a challenge to love, as if it had been a challenge to fight. Nay, his very love to Sophia made it necessary for him to keep well with the lady, as he made no doubt but she was capable of bringing him into the ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... gravely on this theme for two or three chapters; and then wanders away into an account of the local midwife, upon whose sole services Mrs. Shandy, in opposition to her husband, was inclined to rely. From the midwife it is an easy transition to her patron and protector, the incumbent of the parish, and this, in its turn, suggests a long excursus on the character, habits, appearance, home, friends, enemies, and finally death, burial, and epitaph of the Rev. Mr. Yorick. Thence we return to Mr. and Mrs. Shandy, and are made acquainted, in absurdly minute ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill

... she had, by the use of intemperate language on the occasion when she would not be driven out in the carriage, given him ample cause for a breach. To tell the truth, he had thought then that a breach would be expedient. But she had fallen ill, and it was incumbent on him to be tender and gentle. Then, from her very sick bed, she had ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope

... in harming the former, but to join in their liberation, and not to allow the Athenians in the end to destroy us, but to act in time against them. Our revolt, however, has taken place prematurely and without preparation—a fact which makes it all the more incumbent on you to receive us into alliance and to send us speedy relief, in order to show that you support your friends, and at the same time do harm to your enemies. You have an opportunity such as you never had before. ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... remnants of the Zoroastrian community. The Guebres gave themselves up chiefly to gardening and the cultivation of mulberry trees, notably of the species of brown fibre, the wearing of which was formerly incumbent on them. But a great change has taken place, and such a trader now possesses a thousand camels. There are schools there, four Fire Temples, and several Towers of Silence. About twenty kilometres to the south-west is the town of Taft, where was preserved for a ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant

... situation, and urging him to bring his influence to bear. If the, Dogma were carried— he declared, no man who accepted it could remain a loyal subject and Catholics would everywhere become 'irredeemable enemies of civil and religious liberty'. In these circumstances, was it not plainly incumbent upon the English Government, involved as it was with the powerful Roman Catholic forces in Ireland, to intervene? Mr. Gladstone allowed himself to become convinced, and Lord Acton began to hope that his efforts would be successful. But, he ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

... would keep a bond as faithfully as common soldiers! The hardest tasks of the statesmen of those days arose out of such extraordinary expectations, out of the ruinous supposition of the childish-minded that the honoring of a bond, the fulfilment of a promise in return for benefits received, is equally incumbent ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... and delicate line of policy the unstable breed was pursuing was obvious. Lagrange was one of those who wanted to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds simply because he did not particularly care for either, and it was incumbent upon him that he should do one or the other. When the proper time came he certainly wanted to be with the side that got the best of it, and he had a shrewd suspicion that that would be the English. He was delightfully immune from any ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie

... convince my companion, that, as the Publick had seen in HOWARD a person who reflected more genuine honour on our country than any of her Philosophers, her Poets, her Orators, her Heroes, or Divines, it is incumbent on the Nation to consult her own glory by commemorating, in the fullest manner, his beneficent exertions, and by establishing the ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley

... difficulties," said Mrs Morgan, as she and her husband discussed the question in the drawing-room of the Rectory. It was a pretty drawing-room, though Mr Proctor's taste was not quite in accordance with the principles of the new incumbent's wife: however, as the furniture was all new, and as the former rector had no further need for it, it was of course, much the best and most economical arrangement to take it as it stood—though the bouquets on the carpet were a grievance which ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... conscience of the human race proclaims that the fatality of the universe—that is, the highest, the supreme fatality—is adequate to an infinite reason as well as to an infinite liberty, it simply puts forth an hypothesis in every way legitimate, the verification of which is incumbent ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... vigilance against the usurpations of the court of Rome, endeavored to enforce the former statutes enacted for that purpose. The commons petitioned, that no foreigner should be capable of any church preferment, and that the patron might be allowed to present anew upon the non-residence of any incumbent:[*] but the king eluded these petitions. Pope Martin wrote him a severe letter against the statute of provisors; which he calls an abominable law, that would infallibly damn every one who observed it.[**] The cardinal of Winchester was legate; and as he was ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... 1841, the legislature, now Democratic in both branches, removed the Whig incumbent from the office of secretary of state, and the governor at once appointed Douglas to succeed him. That office, however, he held less than a month, for the legislature had also reconstructed the supreme court in such a ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown

... Dillon at this emphasis to a rumor hitherto too light for printing. The present incumbent of the high office mentioned by Lord Constantine lay dying. Livingstone coveted few places, and this would be one. In so exalted a station he would be "enskied and sainted." Even his proud soul would not disdain to step from the throne-room of Windsor ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith

... would be in Lady Lufton's hands, if it should fall vacant before the young lord was twenty-five years of ago, and in the young lord's hands if it should fall afterwards. But the mother and the heir consented to give a joint promise to Dr. Robarts. Now, as the present incumbent was over seventy, and as the living was worth L900 a year, there could be no doubt as to the eligibility of the clerical profession. And I must further say, that the dowager and the doctor were justified in their choice by the life and principles of the young man—as far as ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... please leave entirely to me, Winnie," he repeated with determination. "We are both in danger—great danger; and that being so, it is incumbent upon me to act boldly and fearlessly. I mean to get the key, and see what ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux

... to themselves and the corolla, smooth & membraneous. the Anther is oblong, obtusely pointed, 2 horned or forked at one end and furrowed longitudinally with four channels, the upper and lower of which seem almost to divide it into two loabs, incumbent patent, membranous, very short, naked, two valved and fertile with pollen, which last is of a yellow colour— the anther in a few hours after the corolla unfoalds, bursts, discharges it's pollen and becomes very minute and shrivled; the above ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... that Westermarck in his History of Human Marriage quotes a number of authorities to prove that among many ancient nations marriage was a religious duty incumbent upon all. Among Mohammedan people generally it is still considered a duty. Hebrew celibacy was unheard of, and they have a proverb, 'He who has no wife is no man.' In Egypt it is improper and even disreputable for a man to ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby

... be instructed and prepared, and they are always at liberty to recede. Their reason must approve the obligations and duties of their station, or they are unfit for it. If they recede, one duty is still incumbent upon them: they must observe an inviolable silence. To this they are not held by any promise. They must weigh consequences, and freely decide; but they must not fail to number among these ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown

... of his father [leave to make] the pilgrimage to the Holy House of God and to visit the tomb of the Prophet (whom God bless and keep!). Now between them and Mecca was a journey of five hundred parasangs; but his father could not gainsay him, for that the law of God made this[FN178] incumbent on him and because of that which he hoped for him of improvement [therefrom]. So he joined unto him a governor, in whom he trusted, and gave him much money and took leave of him. The son set out on the holy pilgrimage[FN179] with the governor ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... enter at once upon my duties, as teacher in the dwelling-house of the Reverend Walter Fairman. X.Y.Z. was a man of business; and, fortunately for me, had known my father well. He was satisfied with my connexion, and with the unbounded recommendation which Thompson gave with me. Mr Fairman was incumbent of one of the loveliest parishes in England, and the guardian and teacher of six boys. My salary was fifty pounds per annum, with board and lodging. The matter was settled in a few hours, and before I had time to consider, my place was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... needs and desires. These point the way to enlargement. How, then, can I disinterestedly prefer another's gain? Each of us is penned within the range of his solitary consciousness, which may be broadened or narrowed but cannot be passed. It is incumbent on us, therefore, to study our own enrichment. Anticipating whatever might confirm or crumble our being, we should strenuously seize the one and reject the other. Deliberately to turn toward loss would ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer

... wedding guests grew so excessively convivial that they carried everything on the tables at the wedding breakfast, silver plate, glass, china, and all, down to the bridge at Fochabers, and threw them into the Spey. We may congratulate ourselves on the fact that it is no longer incumbent on wedding guests to drink the health of the newly married couple so fervently, and that a proportional saving in table ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... above all, without either baptism or the Christian education of their children. Added to this, he adhered strenuously to his belief, which we have noticed long before, that certain duties with reference to religion and the Church were incumbent on the civil authorities, the princes and magistrates, in common with all the rest of Christendom. It was their duty, he declared in those earlier writings of his, to prohibit, by force if necessary, the proceedings ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... very rival to the blushing flower. "It is a great misfortune that has fallen upon us—at least we can only look at it in that light at present, and will, beyond doubt, be productive of some embarrassment. Do you not see, William, that it is incumbent upon us all to endeavour to lighten this embarrassment, those of us who can do so? I must assume ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... perverting the meaning of the text, you speak ignorantly, Mr. Tinker. When He whom you call the Saviour gave His followers the sop and bade them eat it, telling them it was His body, He delicately alluded to what it was incumbent upon them to do after His death, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... It was, however, incumbent on Germany to prevent her defensive offensives from combining the major costs of an offensive with the minor advantages produced by a defence; and economy in the waste of man-power was becoming urgent. Hence her attacks must be on a more limited front than those ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... denominated the Church of Scotland Benefices Act, will soon be tested, and is now undergoing the ordeal of proof, in consequence of objections lodged by the parishioners of Banff, with the presbytery of Fordyce, against the presentation, induction, and translation of the Rev. George Henderson, now incumbent of the church and parish of Cullen, to the cure and pastoral charge of the church and parish ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... residence (the former incumbent being absent in arms against his country) for the term of one year, and wrote at once for Mrs. Brigadier-General Doke and the vital issues—excepting Jabez Leonidas. In the camp of treason opposite here there are supposed to be three thousand ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce

... at his own gate, defending it, if need be, against insult and spoil, that also, not in a less, but in a more devoted measure, he is to be at the gate of his country, leaving his home, if need be, even to the spoiler, to do his more incumbent work there. ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin

... Church, Nottingham, for a confirmation. The story of what happened was told long afterwards in a letter written in December 1773 by John Disney, rector of Swinderby, Lincolnshire, the grandson of the Mr. Disney who at the time of the Archbishop's visit to St. Mary's was incumbent of that church. This letter was addressed to James Granger, and was published in Granger's correspondence. "The anecdote which you mention," wrote the Mr. Disney of Swinderby, "is, I believe, unquestionably true. The affair happened ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson

... does not follow that we believe that any sort of representative or official body pitched into any sort of area is necessarily better than any sort of private control. The more we are disposed to municipalize, the more incumbent it is upon us to search out, study, and invent, and to work to develop the most efficient public bodies possible. And my case to-night is, that the existing local government bodies, your town councils, borough ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... the crags and peaks that pierced through them were set on fire by the rising sun. Great fissures and gorges in the hills, which at other times lay concealed in the blue haze of distance, were revealed by the mists and the slanting rays of the sun, and the incumbent cliffs, bluff promontories, and capes, were in some places sharply defined, in others luminously softened, so that the mountains displayed at once that appearance of solid reality, mingled with melting mystery, which ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne

... his hands worrying over the affairs of the home. He was aware of the fact that funds were low and needs were increasing. The home needed another nurse and a higher-priced cook, who would prepare the food with more care than the present slatternly incumbent. It needed several hospital wards, where children could be isolated when attacked by contagious diseases. The doctor had known his family, varying from thirty to fifty, all down at one time with bad colds, or coryza, as named by the medical profession, when isolating ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson

... necessity of again getting out of the way. We filled and stood off, as fast as possible. It was time something of the sort was done, in another sense, also. When M. Menneval bore up, his antagonists were closing fast on his weather-quarter, and unless he meant to fight to leeward, it was incumbent on him to get out of ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... time for the bride and bridegroom to depart for their honeymoon, which they were to spend in Norway. Walter had had no holiday of any sort that year and had thought the desire for solitude incumbent on newly married couples might reasonably be conjoined with the desire for catching salmon; and Muriel ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall

... a little, and he felt that it applied more to himself than to Dalton. He knew Shepard and he knew something of his ways. Moreover, his was the blood of the greatest of all trailers, and it was incumbent upon him to find the spy. Yet he was trailing in a city and not in a forest. In spite of everything he clung ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... watch the billowy Lavas, as they boil; Where, in basaltic caves imprison'd deep, Reluctant fires in dread suspension sleep; Or sphere on sphere in widening waves expand, And glad with genial warmth the incumbent land. 145 So when the Mother-bird selects their food With curious bill, and feeds her callow brood; Warmth from her tender heart eternal springs, And pleased she clasps them with ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin

... Dares, Butes, Sybaris he slew, Whom o'er his neck his flound'ring courser threw. As when loud Boreas, with his blust'ring train, Stoops from above, incumbent on the main; Where'er he flies, he drives the rack before, And rolls the billows on th' Aegaean shore: So, where resistless Turnus takes his course, The scatter'd squadrons bend before his force; His crest of horses' hair is blown behind By adverse air, ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... is liable to be called upon to render active service for his country; and when a war is raging within our borders, of whose termination the only thing that can be predicted with certainty is that it can be reached only through fearful suffering and destruction of life and property, is it not incumbent on every man to prepare himself by whatever means are within his reach to render his services efficient? That the affirmative would be the popular answer is sufficiently proved by a recurrence to the zeal with which we organized drill-clubs ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various

... not occur to Dunham that she might consider the present situation an ordeal, but he was certain of Judge Trent's frame of mind, and he felt it incumbent upon him to do what ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham

... shall add one instance only to those which I have thought it incumbent on me to point out. Talking of Mr. Garrick's having signified his willingness to let Johnson have the loan of any of his books to assist him in his edition of Shakspeare [ante, ii. 192]; Sir John says, (p. 444,) 'Mr. Garrick knew not what ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... went into the nursery, I found the children playing at church, or rather at preaching; for, except a few minutes of singing, the preaching occupied the whole time. There were two clergymen, Ernest and Charles, alternately incumbent and curate. The chief duty of the curate for the time being was to lend his aid to the rescue of his incumbent from any difficulty in which the extemporaneous character of his discourse might ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald

... historian feels it incumbent upon him, as a philosopher and serious psychologist, to express his ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston

... It was now incumbent on the Pharaoh to erect to this newly made favourite a temple whose size and magnificence should be worthy of the rank to which his votaries had exalted him. To this end, Ramses III. chose a suitable site to the south of the hypostyle hall of Karnak, close to a corner of the enclosing wall, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... gentleman, into whose shoes Thaddeus was seeking to place his feet—the incumbent of the mighty office to ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs

... and Mignon had come to a definite understanding regarding the operetta. Mignon had informed him boldly that she wished to sing the part of the Princess, and he had assured her that he would arrange matters to her satisfaction. It, therefore, became incumbent upon him to keep his word. He had begun his persistent annoying of Constance, convinced that, unable to endure it, she would resign and leave the field of honor free to the French girl. But Constance did nothing of the sort. She stood her ground, half-heartedly ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... consider it as a duty incumbent on me to endeavor to set forth his peculiar and exalted merits, which live in the recollection of his contemporaries and will transmit his name with immortal glory to posterity. Those who consider James Watt only as a great practical mechanic form a very erroneous idea ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie

... what was formerly demanded, Her Majesty was ready to concur with them; but would no longer bear those disproportions of expense, yearly increased upon her, nor the deficiency of the confederates in every part of the war: That it was therefore incumbent upon them to furnish, for the future, such quotas of ships and forces as they were now wanting in, and to increase their expense, while Her Majesty reduced hers to a ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... overturn all the most established notions of personal identity? In this view, therefore, memory does not so much produce as discover personal identity, by shewing us the relation of cause and effect among our different perceptions. It will be incumbent on those, who affirm that memory produces entirely our personal identity, to give a reason why we cm thus extend our identity ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume



Words linked to "Incumbent" :   official, current, superjacent, functionary, incumbency, office-bearer, officeholder



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