"Burthen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... receiving such reinforcements as might come from Spain or from any of the American colonies; as every one coming by land from these quarters must necessarily pass by the way of San Miguel, especially if accompanied by horses or beasts of burthen. He expected therefore to be able in this place to collect reinforcements to his army, so as to be in condition to renew the war, and employed himself to collect men, horses, and arms, so that he was soon at the head of five hundred men, tolerably ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... this we pray in vain, Unless He does in our affections reign. How fond it were to wish for such a King, And no obedience to his sceptre bring, Whose yoke is easy, and His burthen light; His service freedom, ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... extended and maintained; that a canal of communication between the arsenal of Venice and the Pass of Mala-Mocco should be dug; and finally that this passage itself should be cleared and deepened sufficiently for vessels of the line of seventy-four tons burthen to ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... from these lofty thoughts I woke, 'What is it?' said I, 'that you bear Beneath the covert of your cloak, Protected from this cold damp air?' She answered, soon as she the question heard, 'A simple burthen, Sir, ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... distance it might have attained. Paramatta is built along a small fresh-water stream, which falls into the harbour of Port Jackson, at the very head of which the town is seated. For the last few miles the harbour is navigable only for boats of twelve or fifteen tons burthen. The town consists chiefly of one long street, and being backed by a ridge of hills, it has a pleasing appearance, especially from the Sydney road, where it breaks suddenly upon the view. The population ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... cog-wheels, and immediately connected with them is a couple of shafts, which give a rotary motion to a couple of water-wheels, one on each side, and which usually propel a keel about 100 feet in length, and of about 75 tons burthen; over it is a roof and covering, usually called a cargo box, to protect the inside from the weather, and the whole making an appearance similar to an Ohio river keel boat, with the exception of a space left her to operate in. The difficulty and danger attending the management of a boat propelled ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... each other; one said, 'Let us throw the corpse of this dead man on the plain; the dogs and crows will soon eat it up.' The other replied, 'If the king should make investigation, and learn this circumstance, he will bury us alive, and grind our children to paste; what! are our lives become a burthen to us, that we ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... happens in such cases, I make little doubt some that belonged to other persons. The ships then made sail, each on her own course; the Spaniard running down the coast, while we spread our studding-sails for the island. As soon as this was done, I felt relieved from a great burthen, and had leisure to think of other matters. I ought to mention, however, that I put the second-mate, or him who had become chief-mate by my own advancement, in command of the "Pretty Poll," giving him two experienced seamen as his own mates, ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... thou spedst, Cui vestes sudore iugi, cui sica cruore, Whose clothing wet with dailie swet, whose blade with bloudie stainte, Tincta iugi, quantum sit onus regnare probarunt, Do proue how great a burthen tis in roialtie to raine, Non fuit immensi quisquam per climata mundi, There hath not beene in anie part of all the world so wide, Cui tot in aduersis vel respirare liceret, One that was able breath to take, and troubles such ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (6 of 8) - The Sixt Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... pastime, gambling. To this vice, all classes are passionately addicted; and nothing is more common than to see a gang of coolies sit down in the middle of the road, and gamble for hours on the few pieces they may have just earned for having carried a heavy burthen a couple of miles. The inhabitants of the districts in which the coercion I speak of has been put in force, are now better satisfied with their rulers ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... have known, what they carry, whence they come, or whither they go. But I know that, long ere dawn, and for hours together, they stream continuously past, with the same rolling and jerking of wheels and the same clink of horses' feet. It was not for nothing that they made the burthen of my wishes all night through. They are really the first throbbings of life, the harbingers of day; and it pleases you as much to hear them as it must please a shipwrecked seaman once again to grasp a hand of flesh and blood after years of miserable solitude. They have the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... topsy-turvy, harum-scarum whirligig. Give me the old, solemn, straightforward, regular Dutch canal—three miles an hour for expresses, and two for ordinary journeys, with a yoke of oxen for a heavy load! I go for beasts of burthen: it is more primitive and scriptural, and suits a moral and religious people better. None of your ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... but not to be ruined and undone by her. In a word, nothing could mollify her, nor any argument persuade her to moderation; but withal she took it so heinously that I should pretend to restrain her, that she told me in so many words she would drop her burthen with me, and then if I did not like it she would take care of herself; she would not live with me an hour, for she would not be restrained, not she; and talked a long while at ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... and that small pittance of estate which, through much hard labor and industry, we have got together to sustain ourselves and families withall. We apprehend it, therefore, to be hard usage, and will doubtless (if continued) reduce us to a state of beggary, whereby we shall become a burthen to others, if not timely prevented by the interposition ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... rose, it was free from its burthen, and bottom upwards; and Mrs. White found herself directly beneath it, painfully endeavoring to extricate herself, enduring dreadful agony in her ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... The burthen of all the pamphlets of this period dealing with the land question, was an attack on landowners for their excessive desire to throw land into grass. One published in 1727 has this passage: "By running into the fancy of grazing after the manner of the Scythians, they [the landowners] ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... the poor people, it was claimed, "for building work houses and stoare houses and other houses for the propogating & encouragem't of handicraft and manufactury, which were by our Burgesses to our great charge and burthen by their long and frequent sitting invented and proposed. Yet for want of due care the said houses were never finished or made useful, and the propagating & manufactury wholy in a short time neglected, and noe good ever effected ... save the particular profitt of the Undertakers, who (as is usually ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... that if this amendment should take place, the Southern colonies would have all the benefit of slaves, whilst the Northern ones would bear the burthen: that slaves increase the profits of a state, which the Southern states mean to take to themselves; that they also increase the burthen of defence, which would of course fall so much the heavier on the Northern: that ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... common shop this; it was a magic shop, and all the prancing precedence Gip would have taken in the matter of mere toys was wanting. He left the burthen of ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... find him a good master." And with that he opened his book, which was the customary signal of dismission. But it would be little that he read, and less that he understood; Culloden field and the Master, these would be the burthen of his thought; and the burthen of mine was an unnatural jealousy of the dead man for Mr. Henry's sake, that had even then begun ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... armament, And all the pains and penalties of Fate. And oh ye loved ones! that already sleep, Hushed in the noiseless bed of endless rest, For whom, while living, I could only weep, But never help in all your sore distress, And ye who still your lonely burthen bear, Spilling your blood beneath life's bitter thrall, A little while and we shall all meet there, And one kind Mother's bosom screen us all; Oppression's harness will no longer tire Or gall us there, nor Sorrow's whip ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... on which we were embarked, was a screw steamer of two hundred tons burthen, a sort of pocket edition of the new boats of the Cunard line. She carried the flag and the person of Colonel Charles S. Bulkley, Engineer in Chief of the Russo-American Telegraph Expedition. She could sail or steam at the pleasure of her captain, provided circumstances were favorable. ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... quickness of feeling, that has sometimes given you pain—Yes, I will be good, that I may deserve to be happy; and whilst you love me, I cannot again fall into the miserable state, which rendered life a burthen almost too heavy to ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... longest war, against her most powerful enemy, without ever knowing the want of a dollar, without dependence on the traitorous classes of her citizens, without bearing hard on the resources of the people, or loading the public with an indefinite burthen of debt, I know nothing of my countrymen. Not by any novel project, not by any charlatanry, but by ordinary and well-experienced means; by the total prohibition of all paper at all times, by reasonable taxes in war, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... fairy vessel veered From its moorings— tacked and steered For the centre of the current Sailed away and disappeared: And the burthen that it bore From the long-enchanted shore— "Alas! The South Wind and the Sun!" I ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... of a Man's Name, hiding one Thought of him, and explaining what you hide by saying something to his Advantage when you speak, a Merchant hurt in his Credit; and him who, every Day he lived, literally added to the Value of his Native Country, undone by one who was only a Burthen and a Blemish to it. Since every Body who knows the World is sensible of this great Evil, how careful ought a Man to be in his Language of a Merchant? It may possibly be in the Power of a very shallow Creature to lay the Ruin of the best Family in the most opulent City; and the more so, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... as if he were casting off a burthen, and picking little George up in his arms, tossed him and swung him round in the air in an ecstasy; while John and Annie and David went down on the grass together, and tumbled and rolled one over the other like three kittens, their legs and arms kicking about, so that it was hard to tell whose ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is spent collectively instead of individually. To the Socialist the best of Governments is that which spends the most. The only possible policy is deliberately to tax the rich, especially those who live on wealth which they do not earn; for thus, and thus only, can we reduce the burthen upon the poor."[453] ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... danger of destruction by a most wicked and malicious projector, without waiting until I were called to its assistance; which attempt, however it may perhaps give me the title of pragmatical and overweening will never lie a burthen upon my conscience. God knows whether I may not with all my caution have already run myself into danger, by offering thus much in my own vindication. For I have heard of a judge, who, upon the criminal's ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... said Iohn, and to the heires of them, and euery of them, and their deputies, full and free authority, leaue, and power to saile to all parts, countreys, and seas of the East, of the West, and of the North, under our banners and ensignes, with fiue ships of what burthen or quality soeuer they be, and as many mariners or men as they will haue with them in the sayd ships, vpon their owne proper costs and charges, to seeke out, discouer, and finde whatsoeuer isles, countreys, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... an appearance of the desired pleasure; for the knot is tied, and the Publick Notary doth at large and very circumstantially write the Contract of Matrimony, which is signed by both parties. Oh Heavens! this is a burthen from my heart, and a Milstone removed out of the way. Here's now right matter for more then ordinary mirth; all the friends wish the young couple much joy; about goes a health, the good success of the ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... gliding as I goe, With this burthen full of woe, Through still silence of the night, Guided by the Gloe-worms light, Hither am I come at last, Many a Thicket have I past Not a twig that durst deny me, Not a bush that durst descry me, To the little ...
— The Faithful Shepherdess - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10). • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... look upon Christianity as separable from Morality, does the most that is possible misrepresent it; and therein (as effectually as they can do so) undermine both Natural and Reveal'd Religion; the latter of which dispences not with any breach of the former; and exempts us only from the burthen of such outward performances as have no Efficacy to the making Men better, but often do make them very much worse; they conceiving that they are able, thereby, to expiate or attone for their Sins; whence they become less careful in regard ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... achieved, and they also will reap great benefit. If, however, the Kauravas, without listening to my words, resolve to maintain their opinion, then there will undoubtedly be a formidable war. In this war burthen resteth on thee, O Bhimasena. That burthen should also be borne by Arjuna, while other warriors should all be led by both of you. In case of war happening, I will certainly be the driver of Vibhatsu's car, for that, indeed, is Dhananjaya's wish and not that I myself am not desirous ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... than one of their children. Indeed, it would not have been much more possible to send her out to shift for herself in England; and her own people seemed to have vanished in the famine, for her letters, with her savings, came back from the dead-letter office. She put her shoulder to the burthen, and, with one small scrub under her, got through an amazing amount of work: and though her great deep liquid brown eyes looked as pathetic as ever, she certainly was in far better spirits than when she ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... precious than ever to the Spanish sovereigns; and Isabel pressed for her daughter's union with the king's second son, Henry, whom his brother's death left heir to the throne. In his anxiety to avoid a breach with Spain the king suffered Henry to be betrothed to Catharine, and threw the burthen of decision on Rome. A dispensation was necessary, and the case was of course the more difficult if the first marriage had been completed. The pleadings were put in, though both Julius the Second and ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... circumstances, they would be wholly unavailing to the true interests of the people. Intrigue and faction might again place me in the predicament in which I found myself previous to my departure from Valparaiso, viz., a cypher and a public burthen; for the ships of war might again be placed in the hands of a Governor Zenteno, for the purpose of exposing me to popular odium, as a person receiving a large salary from the state, for which—without a ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... breath, He smote, and clinging to the serious chords, With godlike ravishment drew forth a breath So deep, so strong, so fervid thick with love, Blissful yet laden as with twenty prayers, That Juno yearned with no diviner soul To the first burthen of the lips of Jove. Th' exceeding mystery of the loveliness Sadden'd delight, and with his mournful look, Dreary and gaunt, hanging his pallid face 'Twixt his dark flowing locks, he almost seem'd Too feeble, or to melancholy eyes One that has parted with his soul for ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... what you're drivin' at. But I can't do it—I can't wait so long. My life's a burthen and a sufferin' to me. Wherever I go, by day or by night, he's always there, standin' before me, and drivin' ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... pounds of lead upon each foot and my {172} whole person swollen with ply and ply of woollen underclothing. One moment, the salt wind was whistling round my night-capped head; the next, I was crushed almost double under the weight of the helmet. As that intolerable burthen was laid upon me, I could have found it in my heart (only for shame's sake) to cry off from the whole enterprise. But it was too late. The attendants began to turn the hurdy-gurdy, and the air to whistle through the tube; some one screwed in the barred window of the vizor; ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... some deep-chested organ whose grand inspiration, Serenely majestic in utterance, lofty and calm, Interprets to mortals with melody great as its burthen The mystical harmonies chiming for ever throughout ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... common in his prose as gold in the richest quartz. How excellent are his words on the first faint but certain breath of Autumn in the air, felt, perhaps, early in July. "And then came Autumn, with his immense burthen of apples, dropping them continually from his overladen shoulders as he trudged along." Keats might have written so of Autumn in the orchards—if Keats ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... aside, who represents the traditional English peasant. Observe a company of haymakers, when you see them at a distance, tossing up the forkfuls of hay in the golden light, while the wagon creeps—slowly with its increasing burthen over the meadow, and the bright green space which tells of work done gets larger and larger, you pronounce the scene "smiling," and you think that these companions in labor must be as bright and cheerful as the picture to which they give animation. Approach nearer, and you will certainly ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... skirts of the woodlands flow numerous rivers, which intersect the country in all directions, and several of which are navigable for miles up by ships of considerable burthen. Various lines of communication are in this way established between the opposite coasts of the northern island; while some of the minor streams, that rush down to the sea through the more precipitous ravines, are interrupted in their ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... as to the importance of the object, in view of its commerce, as concerned in the exports from England. If I were to detail the imports, I could show how many enjoyments they procure which deceive the burthen of life; how many materials which invigorate the springs of national industry, and extend and animate every part of our foreign and domestic commerce. This would be a curious subject indeed; but I must prescribe bounds to myself in a ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... manned to see what they were; who upon sight of the said pinnaces approaching near unto them, abandoned for the most part all their ships, being Frenchmen, laden all with salt, and bound homewards into France. Amongst which ships, being all of small burthen, there was one so well liked, which also had no man in her, as being brought unto the General, he thought good to make stay of her for the service, meaning to pay for her, as also accordingly he performed ...
— Drake's Great Armada • Walter Biggs
... still remained standing: as in the inward parte the naues and columnes carrieng and bearing vp an immesurable and monstrous weight, and Corinthies of a lesser sort, a diuine and vnknowen work abounding in variety of perfections as proportion required and needfullnes did desire to beare vp the burthen that was laide vppon them. Their ornature and decking with woorkes, and deuises imitating the apparreling of princely bodies indewed as it were with an artificiall reason. For as to a large big and corpulent body strong legges, and broad feete, are necessarie to beare ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... face. Her hair grew white in those days, her face greyer. She had not even enough to eat. She lay down and slept whenever she could find a roof to cover her. And always, night and day, she carried with her the burthen of that bad news of which she would not seek to relieve herself by the usual human method of ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... beating of her heart was heard to fill The pauses of her music, and her breath 170 Tumultuously accorded with those fits Of intermitted song. Sudden she rose, As if her heart impatiently endured Its bursting burthen: at the sound he turned, And saw by the warm light of their own life 175 Her glowing limbs beneath the sinuous veil Of woven wind, her outspread arms now bare, Her dark locks floating in the breath of night, Her beamy bending eyes, her parted lips Outstretched, and pale, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... here, a very considerable river, and principal in the whole county; and within three miles, or thereabouts, it receives ships of any ordinary burthen, the port there being called Topsham. But now by the application, and at the expense, of the citizens the channel of the river is so widened, deepened, and cleansed from the shoal, which would otherwise interrupt the navigation, ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... damages they inflicted. Meanwhile, the 'foreigners' have it, I apprehend, much their own way. They are masters of the situation, pay no duties except tonnage dues, which are paid by them at about one-third of the amount paid by native vessels of the same burthen! ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... as burthen. Liston's song was published by Goulding and Co., Soho Square, entitled "The Love-sick Frog," with an original air by C.E.H., Esq. (qy. Charles Edward Horn?), and an accompaniment by Thomas Cook. The first verse is ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 28. Saturday, May 11, 1850 • Various
... the emperors, was almost the sole business of the praetors, whose dignity, as Tacitus expresses it, consisted in the idle trappings of state; whence Boethius justly terms the praetorship "an empty name, and a grievous burthen on the senatorian rank." ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... pump in the middle of the vessel, by which the water was drawn in at the bow and expelled at the stern through a horizontal trough in her hull. The engine weighed about one third of a ton, and the boat had a capacity of about three tons burthen. When thus laden, a speed of about four miles an hour could be attained. The boiler held only five gallons of water, and needed but a pint at a time. Rumsey went to England to exhibit his plan on the Thames, and died there ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... become, as it were, part and parcel of the place wherein it was wrought; that the leaves of the trees should whisper it to the winds of evening; that the echoes of the lonely hills should repeat it; that the waters should sigh a burthen to its strain; and that the very night should assume a deeper shadow, a more horrid gloom, from the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... inhabiting their borders, and acquiring a knowledge of the state of their cultivation and population. Accompanied by Doctor Russel, he engaged in this hardy enterprise in an open boat of about three tons burthen, and with a crew of thirteen men. On the 2d of June, he descended the river in company with the last of Newport's two vessels, and, parting with her at the capes, began his survey at cape Charles. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... crisis, which human foresight could not anticipate, should arise in his favour. This opinion changed the moral face of the chateau. The duc de Duras, who had not previously suspected even the existence of danger, began to feel how weighty a burthen reposed on his shoulders; he recommended to the medical attendants the utmost caution and silence, pointing out, at the same time, all the ill consequences which might arise, were any imprudent or sudden explanation of ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... while the fair Breaks in sweet sounds the willing air; She raised her voice so high, and sang so clear, At every close she made the attending throng Replied, and bore the burthen of the song; So just, so small, yet in so sweet a note, It seemed the music melted ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... grand naval review held in 1897 in honour of Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee, one of the most noteworthy sights was the little Turbinia of 44-1/2 tons burthen, which darted about among the floating forts at a speed much surpassing that of the fastest "destroyer." Inside the nimble little craft were engines developing 2,000 horse power, without any of the clank and vibration which usually reigns in the engine-room of a high-speed vessel. The Turbinia ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... what innocence he has out-liv'd. He is the Christian's example, and the old man's relapse: the one imitates his pureness, and the other falls into his simplicity. Could he put off his body with his little coat, he had got Eternity without a burthen, and exchang'd ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... that kind; a lament for the dead of very great power: 'Return, oh! return my beloved, came back—come home!' that was the burthen of it. And there was a passage which said: 'Oh that each tear had a voice and could join with me in calling thee!" And how she sang it, father! I do not think I ever in my life heard anything like it. Ask mother. Even Dada's eyes were ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... each other dangerous snares. The Church of Rome, as if she had an evil conscience for allowing her priest to hold such close and secret converse with a woman, on such delicate subjects, keeps, as it were, a watchful eye on him while the poor misguided woman is pouring in his ear the filthy burthen of her soul; and as soon as she is off, questions the priest as to the purity of his motives, the honesty of his intentions in putting the requisite questions. Have you not, she asks him immediately, under the pretence of helping that woman in her confession, put to her ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... and rising she followed him up the stairs, carrying the lamp. At the door of Lizzie's old room she expected him to stop and hand the sleeping child over to her, but, apparently without remembering what room it was, he walked straight in, and very tenderly laid his burthen on the bed. Then, with a glance at the rose-bush on the sill, he crept softly out ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... represent the camels of the Old World, where the latter are to-day exclusively found. When South America was discovered by the Spaniards, llamas were the only beasts of burthen found there, and, indeed, the only cattle of any kind then and there existing; although horses had formerly abounded and had become extinct in South America at ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... credit and my situation, I no longer contented myself with windfalls, but assisted nature in her labours, and greatly lightened the burthen of many a loaded fruit-tree; by these means, I not only gratified the avarice of my mistress at her own expense, but also laid by a store for my own use. On my restoration to office, I had an ample fund in my exchequer to answer all present demands; and by a provident and industrious ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... be seen that the objects contemplated by the assembly are no less than relieving Your Majesty's government permanently from the burthen of the whole civil list of the province, a subject which the assembly humbly conceive to be of great advantage to the parent state, and only requiring that the revenues, from whatever source or sources derived in ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay
... dispatching this facile undertaking with too much expedition, that they were longer in hauling on't half the length of the church, than a couple of lusty porters, I am certain, would have been carrying it to Paddington, without resting of their burthen. ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... Chasse-Marees are small decked vessels, rigged as luggers; they are generally from twenty to thirty-five tons burthen, and are used almost exclusively for the coasting trade of France. Though there is no doubt that, during the summer months, a vessel of this description might succeed in making the voyage to America; yet if we take into consideration ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... of restraint upon the arrival of his kinsman, though even then his darling habits would break out. But when they had seen each other a certain number of times, and it was sufficiently evident that the society of either would be a burthen rather than a pleasure to the other, they consented, by a sort of silent compact, that each should be at liberty to follow his own inclination. Mr. Falkland was, in a sense, the greatest gainer by this. He returned to the habits of his choice, ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... authorities are satisfied with them. It is at any rate the only serious war of which there is any manifest probability. Western Europe is now a network of railways, tramways, high roads, wires of all sorts; its chief beasts of burthen are the railway train and the motor car and the bicycle; towns and hypertrophied villages are often practically continuous over large areas; there is abundant water and food, and the commonest form of cover is the house. But the Legion of Frontiersmen ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... tied up far from any village, in a desolate reach of the river—he thought that he had never heard till now any music at the same time so pitiless and so sad, so cruel, and yet, at moments, so full of a rough and artless yearning. It seemed heavy with the burthen of fate, of that from which a man cannot escape, though he strive with all his powers and cry out of the very depths of ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... horses' heads round, and left us alone with our dying friend, not deigning further to notice our appeals to them for assistance. No, they must set to work again, digging and washing, and we might thank ourselves that their coming up had saved our lives; this was the burthen of their reply. In their eager pursuit of gold, they had not a moment to spare for the commonest offices of Christian charity. At length," said Don Luis, "in answer to my passionate expostulations, backed by the offer of any reward they might demand—which offer alone gave force ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... wild cost. Thus 'tis: among glad ages many,—one— In garlands lies, bleeding and bound. Times past, And times to come, on ours, as on an altar— Have laid down their griefs, and unto us Is given the burthen of ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... to look at the "Challenge." She is an immense vessel, 243 feet long, with 43 feet beam, and over 2,000 tons burthen, but so beautifully proportioned as not to appear above 1,200. Her spars are immense, and she spreads a cloud of canvas. Depend upon it, she will not belie her name, but with any kind of a chance, is destined to make ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... for her, but was it not selfish in Henrietta thus to leave her alone to bear her burthen? Yes, selfish it was; for Henrietta had heard the last report of Frederick since their return, and knew that her presence in his room was quite useless; and it was only for the gratification of her own feelings that she hurried thither ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was broad daylight, and where we could see a tonsured priest walking about as if expecting someone to come to him; and ere long there comes a buxom matron, with a fair maid in her wake, bending their knees before him to confess their sins. "My spiritual father," said the good wife, "I have a burthen too heavy to bear unless I obtain your mercy to lighten it: I married a member of the Church of England!" "What!" cried the shorn-pate, "married a heretic! wedded to an enemy? forgiveness can never ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... (although we have all seen many a Scriptural personage so transmuted under far less colourable pretenses or advantages), still it is evident that the mediaeval schoolmen did practically treat Socrates as something of that sort—as a mythical, symbolic, or representative man. Socrates is the eternal burthen of their quillets, quodlibets, problems, syllogisms; for them he is the Ulysses of the Odyssey, that much-suffering man; or, to speak more adequately, for them he is the John Doe and the Richard Roe of ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... 10. A better burthen no man bears on the way than much good sense; that is thought better than riches in a strange place; such is ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... fear from religion: 'She moveth no sedition, she abideth in her place; let her temple-worshippers but alone, and she will be as if she were not in the world'; 'neither she nor her Jesus are for doing them any hurt.' 'God's armour is no burthen to the body, nor clog to the mind, and it being only spiritual, the slaughter must needs be spiritual also.' 'All her privileges are soul concerns, they make no infringement upon any man's liberties. Let ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Campanians brought to the relief of their allies rather a name than strength, enervated as they were by luxury, they were beaten in the Sidicinian territory by men who were inured to the use of arms, and then brought on themselves the entire burthen of the war. For the Samnites, taking no further notice of the Sidicinians, having attacked the Campanians as being the chief of the neighbouring states, from whom the victory might be equally easy, and a greater share of spoil and glory, after they had secured Tifata, a ridge of hills hanging ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... house, or else get outside the bay of Boston, away from the land: this I was afforded frequent opportunities of doing, in a very pretty schooner-yacht called the Sylph, which Mr. F——s had down here. She was about eighty tons burthen, capitally appointed, and with rare qualities as a sea-boat; in her I had the happiness to pass many days, when the poor people on shore were pitiably grilled, cruising for codfish, and dishing them up into a sort of soup called chowder; this formed, in fact, the one great object of my ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... ground to the earth with imposts, with fines, with quit-rents, with mortmains, import and export duties, rents, tithes, tolls, statute-labour, and bankruptcies; cudgelled with a cudgel called a sceptre; gasping, sweating, groaning, always marching, crowned, but on their knees, rather a beast of burthen than a nation,—the French people suddenly stood upright, determined to be men, and resolved to demand an account of Providence, and to liquidate those eight centuries of misery. ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... from end of Lone Pine's shadow ... sunset ... to my pard ... Benito Wind—" His voice broke, but his eyes watched Brannan's movements as the latter wrote. Dying hands grasped paper, pencil ... signed a scrawling signature, "Joe Burthen." Then the head dropped back, rolled for a moment ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... clerical power was already beginning to decline. It was not the corruption of the Church, but its enormous wealth which engendered the hatred, with which it was by many regarded. Temporal princes and haughty barons began to dispute the right of ecclesiastics to enjoy vast estates, while refusing the burthen of taxation, and unable to draw a sword for the common defence. At this period, the Counts of Flanders, of Holland, and other Netherland sovereigns, issued decrees, forbidding clerical institutions from acquiring property, by devise, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the bay are about 120 tons burthen, 100 feet long, with an extreme beam, far aft, of twenty-five feet. The bow is long, and curves into a lofty stem, like that of a Roman galley, finished with a beak head, to secure the forestay of the mast. This beak is furnished with two large, goggle eyes. The mast is a ponderous spar, ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... in the attire of men familiar with the road, accompanied by a menial, and followed by a porter staggering under the burthen of their luggage, were fast approaching the water-gate, as if conscious the least delay might cause their being left. This party was led by one considerably past the meridian of life, and who evidently was enabled to maintain his post more ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... which, disposed as it were in a tesselated pavement, shall set forth a story which may be easily understood; which will move and teach, and be consolatory to him who looks upon it. I say, consolatory: and let not the Reader shrink from the word. I am well aware of the burthen which is to be supported, of the discountenance from recent calamity under which every thing, which speaks of hope for the Spanish people, and through them for mankind, will be received. But this, far from deterring, ought to be an encouragement; it makes the duty more imperious. Nevertheless, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... Lord Shrewsbury had obtained an absolute promise from Elizabeth that she would at all events relieve him from his onerous and expensive charge. Thus there was general cheerfulness, as the baggage was bestowed in carts and on beasts of burthen, and Mary, as she stood finishing her inscription on the window, smiled sweetly and graciously on Mistress Talbot, and gave her joy of the arrival of her towardly and hopeful son, adding, "We surprised him at the well! May his Cis, who is yet to be found, I trow, reward ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the English constitution, as anciently recognized by national and parliamentary usage. The home-secretary was bound to act immediately on this report, and to relieve all such places from the burthen of sending members to parliament in future, while he filled up the vacancies by towns which had been hitherto unrepresented. Another part of his plan was to revive the custom of paying wages to members for their attendance in parliament; a provision which ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... so the divine alone may grow. I saw so many other things relating to the vine that a book as large as the Bible could not contain them. One day, when I was suffering acute pain in my chest, I besought our Lord with groans not to give me a burthen above my strength to bear; and then my Heavenly Spouse appeared, and said to me, ... "I have laid thee on my nuptial couch, which is a couch of suffering; I have given thee suffering and expiation for thy bridal garments and jewels. Thou must suffer, but I will not forsake thee; thou art fastened ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... spoke the poor animal, feeling from the habit of instinct that the hour of! milking had arrived, turned round and uttered once or twice that affectionate lowing with which she usually called upon the departed to come and relieve her of her fragrant burthen. This was more than the heart-broken man could bear, he walked back, and entering the wake-house, in a burst of vehement sorrow—"Oh, Bridget, my wife, my wife—is it any wondher we should feel your loss, when your favorite, Bracky, is callin' for you; but you won't come to her—that ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... known to every one in Upper Canada at the time. They imposed a double burthen upon those who had the courage (or, it might be said, audacity) to question the righteousness of claims, which—not to speak of the invaluable services and inviolable loyalty of the claimants themselves in the crisis ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... locally of Joanna was full of profound suggestions to a heart that listened for the stealthy steps of change and fear that too surely were in motion. But if the place were grand, the times, the burthen of the times, was far more so. The air overhead in its upper chambers were hurtling with the obscure sound; was dark with sullen fermenting of storms that had been gathering for a hundred and ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... A burthen'd conscience Will never need a hang-man: hadst thou dar'd To have deni'd it, then this Sword of mine Should on thy head have prov'd thy ...
— The Laws of Candy - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... arrayed like one of these." All things seem to acquire fresh sweetness, and to be clothed with fresh beauty in their sight. They tasted as it were for themselves and us, of all that there ever was pure in human bliss. "In them the burthen of the mystery, the heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelligible world, is lightened." They stood awhile perfect, but they afterwards fell, and were driven out of Paradise, tasting the first fruits of bitterness as they had done of ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... lofty tree Which holds her nest about to be o'erthrown, Before the feathers of her young are grown, She will not leave them, nor she cannot stay, But bears them boldly on her wings away; So fled the dame, and o'er the ocean bore Her princely burthen to the Gallic shore. 40 Born in the storms of war, this royal fair, Produced like lightning in tempestuous air, Though now she flies her native isle (less kind, Less safe for her than either sea or wind!) Shall, when the ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... number of colored people, compared with the great body of the inhabitants, in the following strong but indisputable language: 'It is with pain and regret that your committee, in conclusion, feel bound to recur to the great additional burthen thrown upon the District, as well as the undeserved stigma cast upon the general character of its population, whether native or immigrant British, by the late great influx of colored people of the worst ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... rapidly to and from the ship;—the yards are manned; the ambassador's flag flies at the main; and as the smoke from the salute cleared away, the shore, with its precious and weeping burthen, was seen fast receding from the sight. The Actaeon had actually sailed; and the white handkerchiefs, with the ivory arms that waved them, gradually became lost to the view, till distance mingled the entire scene into one ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... I?" thought I, apostrophising the vessel. "Have you found out at last, that while you swim you've nought to encounter but difficulty and danger? That you enter your haven but to renew your tasks, and again become a beast of burthen; that when empty you must bow to the slightest breeze, and when laden must groan and labour for the ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... than he did himself, and felt the diminution of his credit, exhorted him to make way for another who should have the grace and zeal of novelty. For his part he sincerely desired repose, and he pressed the King to allow him to take it, but all in vain. He was obliged to bear his burthen to the very end. Even the infirmities and the decrepitude that afflicted could not deliver him. Decaying legs, memory extinguished, judgment collapsed, all his faculties confused, strange inconveniences for a confessor—nothing could disgust the King, and he persisted in having this ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... the Runnymede, of 507 tons burthen, commanded by Captain William Clement Doutty, an experienced seaman, and the property of Messrs. Hall & Co. and Ingram of Riches-court, Lime-street, London, being a remarkably staunch river-built vessel of the A 1 or first class, left Gravesend on the 20th of June, 1844, bound for Calcutta. She had ...
— The Wreck on the Andamans • Joseph Darvall
... a young gentleman now, for I am only a poor boy, and poorer than other poor boys, for they can earn their own living, while I should have been starved to death had not you given me half of the bread you work so hard for. But I will not be a burthen to you any longer, but learn to work and get my own ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... stop him otherwise than by obstructing the passage. This sight pleased me so much, that I wished it to be repeated, and to try their strength, directed a full-grown negro to mount the smallest, and two others the largest. This burthen did not seem at all disproportionate to their strength. At first they went at a tolerably sharp trot, but when they became heated a little, they expanded their wings as though to catch the wind, and moved with ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... mast, a tall and stately pine Beneath Norwegian skies, Sang to my sighs. Thou, thou wert built for me, Strong lily of the sea! Thou cans't not choose, The calling of my low voice to refuse; And if Death Were the sole, sad, wailing burthen of my breath, Thy timbers at my call, Would shudder in their thrall, Thy sails outburst to touch my stormy lip; Like a giant quick in a grave, Thy anchor heave, And close upon my thunder-pulsing breast, O ship, Thou would'st tremble, nor repine, That being mine, Thy spars, ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... is thy return, and how Thy slender pasterns could thee bear, when now Thy observations with thy brain ingendred, Have stufft thy massy and volumnious head With Mountains, Abbeys, Churches, Synagogues, Preputial Offals, and Dutch Dialogues: A burthen far more grievous than the weight Of Wine or Sleep, more vexing then the freight Of Fruit and Oysters, which lade many a pate, And send folks crying home from Billings-gate. No more shall man with Mortar on his head Set forward towards Rome: no, ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... was also a transient phenomenon in the eternal pageant of Destiny. In the days when he hoped to marry Elizabeth, he sought to impress and charm her, and at the same time to take off something of his burthen of forty years, by wearing the last fancy of the contemporary buck, a costume of elastic material with distensible warts and horns, changing in colour as he walked, by an ingenious arrangement of versatile chromatophores. And no doubt, if Elizabeth's affection had not been already ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... have not been wanting to hasten an answer to these letters, and render them favorable. The constant language of the Count de Vergennes is, that our demands are excessive, that we throw the burthen of the war upon our ally, that the support of it in different parts of the world has cost France exertions and expenses, which fully employ her means, that the public credit, however well established, has its limits, to exceed which would be fatal to it. He adds, at the ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... night he would lie awake for hours; realising then in the quiet, when there was no stir to attract his thoughts, how utterly lonely he was in the world, and his lips would send out his one sad burthen: ...
— Wilton School - or, Harry Campbell's Revenge • Fred E. Weatherly
... young, both innocent, lit by the sunset and guided by the stars; and then remember that it has all ended in this, and that this is success, glory, fame, or whatever be the proper title to baptize the bubble, the burthen of existence ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... they studied the image, the greater was their astonishment. Nor did these children of the forest mistake the structure on the back of the elephant for a part of the animal. They were familiar with horses and oxen, and had seen towers in the Canadas, and found nothing surprising in creatures of burthen. Still, by a very natural association, they supposed the carving meant to represent that the animal they saw was of a strength sufficient to carry a fort on its back; a circumstance that in ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... the Spinners would be very young, and of little strength, and consequently to imploy one foot all the time they Spin, will be very tiresome; nay, the strongest body cannot do it, without easing the same, neither can they imply both hands so freely, as when they are discharged of that burthen, or incumbrance. ...
— Proposals For Building, In Every County, A Working-Alms-House or Hospital • Richard Haines
... necessaries, of life. By this system the man who contents himself to live upon the products of his own country pays nothing at all. And surely that country is extensive enough, and its products abundant and varied enough, to answer all the real wants of its people. In short, by this system the burthen of revenue falls almost entirely on the wealthy and luxurious few, while the substantial and laboring many who live at home, and upon home products, go entirely free. By the direct-tax system none can escape. However strictly the citizen may exclude from his premises ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... dear Father Cock, you could tell us something really amusing if you would be so kind," said the second common hen, who was standing near him. "Those two make one's life a burthen, with their everlasting wrangling ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... proper occasion, call it into operation. I have never seen the president's memorial to the Legislature, but am told it is an abstract from the 'Pamphlet of Sketches.' From the statements in that I take the burthen of his complaint to be, that the Trustees have not given him a due and proper share of power and influence in the concerns of the college, and that they have improperly used their own power and influence in patronizing and propagating in the college ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... is a fine vessel of its class, five hundred tons burthen, and 160-horse power. It was handsomely fitted up, and the vases of flowers upon the chimney-piece in the principal saloon, and other ornaments scattered about, gave to the whole a gay appearance, as if the party assembled had been wholly bent upon pleasure. The ladies' cabin was divided by a ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... said that it, is possible that we should continue to exist in some mode totally inconceivable to us at present. This is a most unreasonable presumption. It casts on the adherents of annihilation the burthen of proving the negative of a question, the affirmative of which is not supported by a single argument, and which, by its very nature, lies beyond the experience of the human understanding. It is sufficiently easy, ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... attention of his brethren ought to have been made three hundred years ago; and the obstinate refusal of the Council of Trent to make such reforms in conformity with Scripture and Antiquity, throws the whole burthen of the sin of schism upon Rome, and not upon our Reformers. The value of such admissions must, of course, depend in a great measure upon the learning, the character, the position, and the influence of the author from whom they proceed. The writer ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various
... three arguments out of four, through the whole of what he had said, and yet have enough left for his position. As to the Creoles, they would undoubtedly increase. They differed in this entirely from the imported slaves, who were both a burthen and a curse to themselves and others. The measure now proposed would operate like a charm; and, besides stopping all the miseries in Africa and the passage, would produce even more benefit in the West Indies than ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... you not learned how to quiet a pig" demanded the imperial traveller, tartly. "Noa," replied the ingenuous peasant, ignorant of the quality of his interrogator;—"noa; and I should very much like to know how to do it," changing the position of his burthen, and giving his load a surreptitious pinch of the ear, which immediately altered the tone and volume ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... was at that time firmly persuaded that he had already committed a murder, and had forfeited his life to the law. As he concluded therefore that his only safety lay in flight, he thought the possessing himself of this poor woman's money and ring would make him amends for the additional burthen he was ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... was peace which had occasioned the fall in the value of all agricultural produce? Or could any man venture to assert that the difficulties and sufferings of the manufacturing classes had any other cause than a prodigious and enormous burthen of taxation? He was much gratified at seeing the royal Dukes so active in promoting a generous and laudable undertaking, and he hoped he should not be understood as treating them with disrespect when he repeated that the resolution was founded ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... reprehensible and unjust.—It is the words of Frank that are the cause: on them my mind dwells, and painfully repeats them, as if in a delirium: like a singing in the ear, the tolling of death-bells, or the burthen of some tragic ditty, which memory, in its own despite, harps upon, and mutters to itself!—'He is certain that I act from mistaken principles!—To the end of time he shall persist in thinking ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... Quite what, but ground whereon to stand, And plead more plainly for her hand! And so I raved, and cast in hope A superstitious horoscope! And still, though something in her face Portended 'No!' with such a grace It burthen'd me with thankfulness, Nothing was credible but 'Yes.' Therefore, through time's close pressure bold, I praised myself, and boastful told My deeds at Acre; strain'd the chance I had of honour and advance In war to come; ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... from precipitous rocks or hidden sandbanks. Having got a little clear of these, but with great difficulty, the tide turning and flowing in the same direction as that in which the wind blew, they were unable to ride at anchor or bale out the water that broke in upon them; horses, beasts of burthen, baggage, even arms were thrown overboard to lighten the holds of the ships, which took in water at their sides, and from the waves, too, running over them. Around were either shores inhabited by enemies, ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... low wooded hills, and presents every appearance of unhealthiness. Huge square-sided ships, English, Dutch, and Austrian, were swallowing up rafts of pine which kept arriving from the shore. The water on this coast is shallow, and, though our steamer was not of more than 150 tons burthen, we were obliged to anchor nearly two ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... a form, and his text into divisions; and the next day betook himself to consult the Fathers, and so commit his meditations to his memory, which was excellent. But upon Saturday he usually gave himself and his mind a rest from the weary burthen of his week's meditations, and usually spent that day in visitation of friends, or some other diversions of his thoughts; and would say, "that he gave both his body and mind that refreshment, that he might be enabled to do the work of ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... however of English commerce far outstripped as yet that of its manufactures. We must not judge of it by any modern standard; for the whole population of the country can hardly have exceeded five or six millions, and the burthen of all the vessels engaged in ordinary commerce was estimated at little more than fifty thousand tons. The size of the vessels employed in it would nowadays seem insignificant; a modern collier brig is probably as large as the biggest merchant vessel which then sailed from the port of London. ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... possibility of it," continued Georgiana, "let the attempt be made, at whatever risk. Danger is nothing to me; for life—while this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and disgust—life is a burthen which I would fling down with joy. Either remove this dreadful Hand, or take my wretched life! You have deep science! All the world bears witness of it. You have achieved great wonders! Cannot you remove this little, little mark, which ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... barren of wits, while a rival age has brought forth her dozens. Mirth is, no doubt, very good. We would see more, not less, of it in this unmirthful land. We would fain imagine the shrunken-cheeked factory-girl singing to herself a happy burthen, as she shifts the loom,—the burthen of her life, and fain believe that the voice was innocent as the sky-lark's. But if it be not so—and we know it is not so—shall we quarrel with any one who tries to give the poor care-worn, money-singing public a little laughter ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... rear-guard, half-a-dozen smart, sunburned hussars, with carbine on thigh; one of whom sang, in a mellow tenor voice, and with considerable taste, the well-known soldier's song out of La Dame Blanche. In their turn they disappeared behind a bend of the road; but the spirited burthen of the ditty still reached my ears after they were lost ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... Michael taken prisoner.] The 10. of June 1586. we departed from Plimouth with two Pinases, the one named the Serpent, of the burden of 35. Tunnes and the other the Mary Sparke of Plimouth of the burthen of 50. Tuns, both of them belonging to sir Walter Raleigh knight; and directing our course towards the coast of Spaine, and from thence towards the Isles of the Azores, we tooke a small barke laden with Sumacke and other commodities, wherein ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... should be taken care of, and he went to the Alcazar and took the Moor with him; and when they came to Doa Ximena the Moor humbled himself before her and her daughters, and would have kissed her hand, but she would not give it him. Then he commanded that the camels and other beasts of burthen should be unloaded in their presence, and he began to open the packages and display the noble things which were contained therein. And he laid before them great store of gold and of money, which came in leathern bags, each having its lock; and wrought silver in dishes and trenchers ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... thou shalt to-day provide Let me as a child receive; What to-morrow may betide Calmly to thy wisdom leave. 'Tis enough that thou wilt care: Why should I the burthen bear? ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... better," said her husband: "a constant correspondence is always a great burthen, and moreover, sometimes a great evil, between young ladies especially—I hate the sight of ladies' ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... extirpate the bloody Papists, as Joshua had done the idolatrous Canaanites. On his return, he trusted he should lay the sword on the mercy-seat, that is, beside the mace of the Speaker, to whom he would on his knees give up all his employments, and apply himself to the care of his own soul, which was a burthen great enough for any man. And he trusted the Lord would give peace to Israel, and build up the desolate places of Zion, to which purpose he would put up a prayer, wherein he required Lord ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... at which he cried out with tears (that they heard him at some distance) saying, "God armed is coming against me to beat out my brains; I would die; I dare not die; I would live; I dare not live; O what a burthen is the hand of an angry God! Oh! what shall I do! Is there no hope of mercy?" In this agony he lay for some time. Some said, The minister would kill him,—Others, He would make him despair. But he bore with them, and went ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... succeeded, after a vigorous reign of seven years, withdrew from the splendid cares of a crown, and passed the long remainder of his life—thirty years—in the habit of a monk at Armagh. The heavy burthen which he had cheerfully laid down, was taken up by a Prince, who combined the twofold character of poet and hero. HUGH V. (surnamed Allan), the son of FEARGAL, of whom we have just spoken, was the very opposite of his father, in his veneration for the privileges ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... admit him aux honneurs de la feance." [To the honours of the fitting.] This disposition to jest with their misfortunes is, however, not so common as it was formerly. A bon mot may alleviate the loss of a battle, and a lampoon on the court solace under the burthen of a new impost; but the most thoughtless or improvident can find nothing very facetious in the prospect of absolute want—and those who have been used to laugh under a circumscription of their political ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... Low,—ye Vulgar and ye Peers! Ye youthful Dames, and you of riper Years! Ye longing Maids, who heave the midnight sigh Beneath the burthen of Virginity! Or you, ye stray'd ones, who, unblushing, boast Your Virtue sullied, and your Honour lost! Ye Pidgeons, who hold forth the Golden Plume For Knaves to pluck, and Harlots to consume! Ye wedded Fair, who, splenetic at home, Think it the duty of a Wife ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe
... until the groans of those who lie about, tortured with probe and knife, are piled up, a weight of horror on his ears that he cannot throw off, cannot forget, and until the stench of festering wounds and anaesthetic drugs has filled the air with its loathsome burthen, at last goes into the open field, what a world he sees! How beautiful the sky; how bright the sunshine; what "floods of delirious music" pour from the throats of birds; how sweet the fragrance of earth and tree, and blossom! The first hour of convalescent ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... in that latitude would fill an unportable volume; and rather confound than improve those that would accomplish themselves with it. I shall therefore confine what I have to communicate within the limits of practicalness and usefulness, and so within the compass of a manual, that shall neither burthen the hands to hold, the eyes in reading, nor the ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... enterprise of REPRINT & Co., who, to give Mr Blackwood more time to attend to the getting up of each successive number of his work, thus undertake to relieve him of any share in seeing to the supply of the Continent of Europe. In this benevolent effort to take the burthen from the proprietors of the genuine Ebony, it is fair that the French coadjutor should have his share of the honour. His name is given as HECTOR BOSSANGE; and his shop, if I rightly remember, adorns the Quai Voltaire. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... climbing the hill, but many were owing to the pure efforts of time, the horse, and the showers. As inland trade was small, prior to the fifteenth century, the use of the wagon, that great destroyer of the road, was but little known. The horse was the chief conveyor of burthen among the Britons, and for centuries after: if we, therefore, consider the great length of time it would take for the rains to form these deep ravages, we must place the origin of Birmingham, at a very ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... yet awhile, Father and God! O! spare us yet awhile! 130 Oh! let not English women drag their flight Fainting beneath the burthen of their babes, Of the sweet infants, that but yesterday Laughed at the breast! Sons, brothers, husbands, all Who ever gazed with fondness on the forms 135 Which grew up with you round the same fire-side, And all who ever heard the sabbath-bells Without the infidel's scorn, make yourselves pure! ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the waves—saw Tom swim towards it—seize it—he had caught the girl in his arms. The couple on the lawn could neither move nor cry out; but stood in breathless expectation, and watched him support his burthen with one arm, while with the other he swam towards the skiff, which the tide was bearing in towards the shore. It was a long pull; they could see that he began to falter after his exertions in rowing; a deathly fear crept over both those hearts, ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... house of this young family, and successively in those of my grandfather and father, an oil painting of a ship of many tons burthen. Doubtless the brothers had an interest in the vessel; I was told she had belonged to them outright; and the picture was preserved through years of hardship, and remains to this day in the possession of the family, ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... refreshes, nor at night, When heavy dews are laden with disease, And blindness waits not there for lingering age. Ere morning dawned behind him, he arrived At those rich meadows where young Tamar fed The royal flocks entrusted to his care. "Now," said he to himself, "will I repose At least this burthen on a brother's breast." His brother stood before him. He, amazed, Reared suddenly his head, and thus began: "Is it thou, brother! Tamar, is it thou! Why, standing on the valley's utmost verge, Lookest thou on that dull and dreary shore Where many ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... Hall, and through the wood, and down to the seashore. And when he came to the shore he saw a boat drawn up with a man therein. Sigmund came near to him and saw that the man was old and strangely tall. "I will take thy burthen from thee," ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... M. Duminy's we come upon an antiquated, decrepit-looking timber house, with its ancient gable bulging over as though the tough oak brackets on which it rests were at last grown weary of supporting their unwieldy burthen. Judging from the quaint carved devices, this house was doubtless the residence of an individual of some importance in the days when the principal European potentates had their commissioners installed at Ay to secure them the finest vintages. Continuing our walk along the same narrow ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly |
