"Encumbrance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been compelled to abandon his basket of food, which became a perilous encumbrance on the glacier, and had now no means of refreshing himself but by breaking off and eating some of the pieces of ice. This, however, relieved his thirst; an hour's repose recruited his hardy frame, and with the indomitable spirit of avarice, he ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... houses, their offices, their washing-ground, and the mews at the back. She had never seen him look so grave; she had never seen that soft, sad look on his face before. She wondered now that she could ever have regarded that face as a mere encumbrance and accessory to be taken with a coronet and twenty ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... upon my head with such weight as nearly to beat the breath out of my body and sink me to the deck; it was the frenzy excited in me by the tremendous obligation of despatch and my retardment by the washing seas, the violent motions of the brig, the encumbrance of gear and deck furniture adrift and sweeping here and there, and the sense that the vessel might be grinding her bows against the iceberg before I should be able to reach the bowsprit. All this it was that filled me with a kind of madness, by the sheer force of which alone I was enabled to reach ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... leaving Fairy Knowe. At a late hour in the forenoon Lady Emily entered the apartment of Edith with a peculiar gravity of manner. Having received and paid the compliments of the day, she observed it would be a sad one for her, though it would relieve Miss Bellenden of an encumbrance: "My brother leaves ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... without its walls. The bell ceased its monotonous and mournful note, and the tall, gaunt form of the divine moved through the narrow aisle to its usual post, with the air of one who had already more than half rejected the burthen of bodily encumbrance. A searching and stern glance was thrown around, as if he possessed an instinctive power to detect all delinquents; and then seating himself, the deep stillness, that always preceded the exercises, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... immersion in the water is to be undergone. But for convenience in working the ropes and sails I was content to use the less bulky life-belt. It is conveniently arranged, and you soon forget it as an encumbrance. Indeed on one occasion I walked up to a house without recollecting that my life-belt ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... Roger never cared for them, and little by little I had dropped the attempt to keep one, since he objected to exercising them in town, did not care to bother with them in the country, and absolutely refused to endure the encumbrance of one while travelling. Not that he was ever cruel or careless: when thrown into necessary relations with animals he was far more just and thoughtful of them than many a sentimental animal lover of my acquaintance! Strangely enough, I have never seen a dog or cat that would not go to him ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... to get invited, or commanded, to attend on the bridal accordingly, at which there were but few persons present; for James, on such occasions, preferred a snug privacy, which gave him liberty to lay aside the encumbrance, as he felt it to be, of his regal dignity. The company was very small, and indeed there were at least two persons absent whose presence might have been expected. The first of these was the Lady Dalgarno, the state of whose health, as ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... for she had no mother, So that, her father being at sea, she was Free as a married woman, or such other Female, as where she likes may freely pass, Without even the encumbrance of a brother, The freest she that ever gazed on glass: I speak of Christian lands in this comparison, Where wives, at least, are ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... be signally unjust to lay upon you alone the reproaches that every being brought under the yoke (conjugium) has the right to heap upon that necessary, sacred, useful, eminently conservative institution,—one, however, that is often somewhat of an encumbrance, and tight about the joints, though sometimes it is also too ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... they cannot do so without abandoning the means of earning a livelihood. They of necessity possess boxes of tools and instruments of labour, whatever their errant trade may be. Those of whom we speak were dragging their baggage with them, often an encumbrance. ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... the Strand was yet attended by certain disadvantages. Ill-fortune would probably have closely united the artists; prosperity seems to have divided them—to have engendered among them jealousies and dissensions. The proceeds of the exhibition soon proved a source of encumbrance and difficulty to the exhibitors. Their original intention had been to apply their profits to the relief of distressed painters. But now among a certain party a strong feeling was manifested in favour of devoting the money to the advancement of art. Finally ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... arm for ships' tops, but from the confined space and elevation rather an encumbrance than ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... enormous burden, under a tropical sun, the heat of which he required to endure through forty miles of wilderness, and no chance of relief or refreshment by the way. Yet this serio-comic spectacle is not singular. Multitudes seem to have gone to the diggings with every species of encumbrance, and in a totally unsuitable garb. Splendid dress-coats and waistcoats, boots and pantaloons, but no working-clothes, nor implements for camping, and in many instances not even a cloak: everything suitable for the enjoyment of their golden ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... in calculating the distance from the palace to the fortress, and she came to the conclusion that a body of persons moving with some encumbrance might easily reach the stronghold in half a day. Her plan was a simple one, and easy of execution; though there was no limit to the evil results its success might have upon ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... by no means put certainly to loss everything which the language has dismissed, any more than everything to gain which it has acquired. It is no real wealth in a language to have needless and superfluous forms. They are often an embarrassment and an encumbrance to it rather than a help. The Finnish language has fourteen cases. Without pretending to know exactly what it is able to effect, I yet feel confident that it cannot effect more, nor indeed so much, with its fourteen as the Greek is able to do with its five. It therefore seems to ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... well loaded," he replied, "when I go to the woods, I find it an encumbrance. In addition to my other traps, I find forty weight of pemican as much as ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... service of one of her suite, and would have cared little for his suffering for it personally, except so far as it concerned her own dignity, which she understood much better than she had done in Scotland, where she was only one of 'the lassies,' an encumbrance to ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... home for working girls the waifs, the foundlings, came at all sorts of tender years, came from God only knows where—I could never find out exactly—some of them, perhaps, from city asylums, some from the families upon which they had been left as an encumbrance. They came as little children, and they went away as grown women. For them the home was practically a prison. Locked in here from morning till night, week in, week out, year after year, they were prisoners at all save certain ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... down. Such airships as were available in the early part of the war had not the necessary power and range. To build a vessel which should be able to carry seaplanes or aeroplanes for work with the fleet was not a simple matter. Such a vessel would be an encumbrance unless it could keep station with the Grand Fleet or with the Battle Cruiser Squadron, that is, unless it could steam up to thirty knots for a period of many hours together. Further, a stationary ship at sea is exposed to attack by submarines, so that it was desirable, ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... enabling them to surmount the one, and to conquer the other. The scriptural representations of the state of the Christian on earth, by the images of "a race," and "a warfare;" of its being necessary to rid himself of every encumbrance which might retard him in the one, and to furnish himself with the whole armour of God for being victorious in the other, are, so far as these nominal Christians are concerned, figures of no propriety or meaning. As little ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... easy; for I had found a prodigious vessel on the shore, able to carry me on the sea, which he had given orders to fit up with my own assistance and direction; and he hoped, in a few weeks, both empires would be freed from so insupportable an encumbrance. ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... holding his sandals in his hand, that he may run with greater ease, illustrates a custom, still common in Egypt, among the Arabs and peasants of the country, who find the power of the foot greater when freed from the encumbrance of a shoe. ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... letter, and started for L——; went there the same day, some forty miles; found sleigh and harness safe, with no encumbrance. The landlord informed him that, a few nights before, at twelve o'clock, a man calling himself John Cotton came to his house, calling for horse-baiting and supper; would not stay till morning, but wished to leave the sleigh and harness for ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... road. Evidently a bear had been caught there, perhaps two or three days before we came. He had dragged the trap and the chained clog down into the thicket. There he had stayed, tearing up things generally in his efforts to escape from his encumbrance, and resting quietly in the intervals of his fury. My approach had startled him and he had made the first crash that I heard. Then he lay low and listened. My second inconsiderate shout of "Hallo, Teddy!" had put such an enormous ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... have afflicted notable men of the world, and even to this day are there not apprehensive monarchs whose precautions are similar to those of the age-worn savage? He imagines that he is regarded as a useless encumbrance, and that his fellows would gladly hasten his departure to that country on the bourne of which he painfully lingers. Suspicious of plots to rob him of the poor vestiges of life, he is ever on his guard against poison, his special dread. ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... and reach. But, glad as was the schemer, his delight and sense of freedom were much inferior to those of his misguided and unlucky partner. Michael breathed as a man relieved from nightmare. The encumbrance which had for years prevented him from rising, that had so lately threatened his existence, was gone, could no longer hang upon him, haunt and oppress him. What a deliverance!—Yet, what a price had he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... sooner freed from the encumbrance that remained upon him, than he came secretly into the town that night, and robbed Mr. Rawlin's house, a pawnbroker in Drury Lane. Here he got a very large booty, and amongst other things a very handsome black ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... it. I said I was willing to do so if she wished it. You have been taking pains to convince me that Maude's love was not mine, that she was only forced into the marriage with me. Should this have been the case, I must be distasteful to her still; an encumbrance she may wish to get ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... not of dearth Nor lie for their fruit's sake fallow Laugh large in the depth of their mirth But inshore here in the shallow, Embroiled with encumbrance of earth, Their skirts are ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... few steps, she suddenly stopped—with a blind apprehension, as it seemed, of something in front of her. She lifted her little walking-cane, and moved it slowly backwards and forwards in the empty air, with the action of some one who is clearing away an encumbrance to a free advance—say the action of a person walking in a thick wood, and pushing aside the lower twigs and branches that ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... is of an army on its march: then consider that they carry more than a fortnight's provision, and whatever else they may want; that they carry the burden of the stakes,[34] for as to shield, sword, or helmet, they look on them as no more encumbrance than their own limbs, for they say that arms are the limbs of a soldier, and those, indeed, they carry so commodiously that, when there is occasion, they throw down their burdens, and use their arms as readily as their ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... organisation of the armies was very largely the work of the civilian authorities, and the advice of the soldiers was very generally disregarded. The results, it need hardly be said, were deplorable. The Northern wiseacres considered cavalry an encumbrance and a staff a mere ornamental appendage. McClellan, in consequence, was always in difficulties for the want of mounted regiments; and while many regular officers were retained in the command of batteries and companies, the important ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... coloured highly, but not inflamed, which looked out from a rich profusion of short chestnut-curls; and although his armour was of a massive and simple form, he moved under it with such elasticity and ease, that it seemed a graceful attire, not a burden or encumbrance. A furred mantle had not sat on him with more easy grace than the heavy hauberk, which complied with every gesture of his noble form. Yet his countenance was so juvenile, that only the down on the upper lip announced decisively the approach to manhood. ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... is a Concomitant of a pompous Felicity, but a Mediocrity is safe; this was always my Study, not to make any Advantage to myself from the Disadvantages of other People. I embraced as much as I could, that which the Greeks call Freedom from the Encumbrance of Business. I intermeddled with no one's Affairs; but especially I kept myself clear from those that could not be meddled with without gaining the ill Will of a great many. If a Friend wants my Assistance, ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... than the buff jerkin, Cromwell's course had ended on the spot. But, fearful of such attempts, the General wore under his military dress a shirt of the finest mail, made of rings of the best steel, and so light and flexible that it was little or no encumbrance to the motions of the wearer. It proved his safety on this occasion, for the rapier sprung in shivers; while the owner, now held back by Everard and Holdenough, flung the hilt with passion on the ground, exclaiming, ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... there was no risk of our limbs becoming cramped by being long immersed in it; nor were we likely to suffer in any other way. Really, for the sake of protection from the cold, garments were altogether unnecessary; and it is not surprising that the dark-skinned natives should consider them an encumbrance, and ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... slow-moving tide of mental indifference, into the rapid current of ambition. When a man does that, her intuition prompted her to know that it is more than likely that he brings a woman with him. It is always possible for a woman to recognize—apart from her own identity—that her sex is an encumbrance to most men which they cannot easily shake off. Witness the generous criticism of a woman upon any husband but her own. Combine with this intuitive knowledge the fact—hitherto unrecorded, even by Traill to Sally—that ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... the Home and caught a glimpse of her grandmother. She could not explain why she did it, and firmly maintained that she could not endure her. The old woman's unreasonable complaint that she was an encumbrance to her had eaten deeply into the child's mind. During the last year she had been a waitress for some time at a sailors' tavern down in Nyhavn with an innkeeper Elleby, the confidence-man who had fleeced Pelle on his first arrival in ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... and concealed his head. It was a very ordinary circumstance for a man with a bundle of straw on his shoulders and overhanging his head, to go down the High Street. Edward saw him cross the bridge which divided the town from the country, place his shaggy encumbrance by the side of the ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... silence through the apartment, was thought to convey a mysterious lesson. A martial ghost, wearing upon his head a triple crown, like the vision of Macbeth, yet bravely supporting himself under the three-fold encumbrance, seemed the Courier of Wall Street. The pageant passed, but Roseton seemed unsatisfied; and it soon occurred to him that the deep draughts of secession news, which he had been accustomed to receive each morning ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... my letter of credit isn't an encumbrance? Do you have to deposit the whole amount it calls for? If that is so, it is an encumbrance, and we must withdraw it and take the money out of soak. I have never made drafts upon it except when compelled, because I thought you deposited nothing ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... most earnest remonstrances, to make preparations for flight by providing themselves with every conceivable comfort for their exile. In vain did their friends assure them that they could purchase any thing they desired in any part of Europe; that such quantities of luggage would be only an encumbrance; that it was dangerous, under the eyes of their vigilant enemies, to be making such extensive preparations. Neither the king nor queen would heed such monitions. The queen persisted in her resolution to send ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... the signal of departure, the camp was almost instantly broke up, and the troops fell into their ranks without delay or confusion. Besides their arms, which the legendaries scarcely considered as an encumbrance, they were laden with their kitchen furniture, the instruments of fortification, and the provision of many days. [62] Under this weight, which would oppress the delicacy of a modern soldier, they were ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... pressure here? Miss Batch was a superior girl; she would grace any station in life. He had always been rather in awe of her. It was a fine thing to be suddenly loved by her, to be in a position to over-rule her every whim. Plighting his troth, he had feared she would be an encumbrance, only to find she was a lever. But—was he deeply in love with her? How was it that he could not at this moment recall her features, or the tone of her voice, while of deplorable Miss Dobson, every lineament, every accent, so vividly haunted ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... be agreeable, at our Lady's next feast. I have partly fixed upon most delectable rooms, which look out (when you stand a tip-toe) over the Thames and Surrey Hills, at the upper end of King's Bench walks in the Temple. There I shall have all the privacy of a house without the encumbrance, and shall be able to lock my friends out as often as I desire to hold free converse with my immortal mind; for my present lodgings resemble a minister's levee, I have so increased my acquaintance (as they call 'em), since I have resided in town. Like the ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... who are not accustomed to the Sol-fa notation it appears at first sight a useless encumbrance. Excellent arguments are produced for this view. Many musical people can scarcely remember when they could not sing at sight and write melodies from dictation. They picked up this knowledge instinctively, ...
— Music As A Language - Lectures to Music Students • Ethel Home
... the languages to the Lady, his daughter. If upon the death of Mr. Weckerlyn the Councell shall think that I shall need any assistance in the performance of my place (though for my part I find no encumbrance of that which belongs to me, except it be in point of attendance at Conferences with Ambassadors, which I must confess in my condition I am not fit for) it would be hard for them to find a man so fit every way for that purpose as this gentleman: one who, I believe, in a short time would be able ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... this Irish-like explanation, but he was glad that Terry had left the gun on shore. It was safely hidden until he should wish to get it again, while its presence in the canoe would be the worst kind of encumbrance. The new owner was so charmed with his prize that he would think more of saving that than of saving the boat. It was clear that the task of Terry in fighting off the rushing timber would be almost as difficult as that of guiding it across the ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... supposed by certain soldiers," says a well-informed military critic (Colonel A'Court Repington, at page 276 of his "Vestigia"), "that the war against Germany would be decided by the fighting of some seven great battles en rase campagne, where heavies would be a positive encumbrance." ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane
... was placed on the property, and in the title is recorded "no encumbrance except a small wooden house in which Mrs. Margaret Beall now lives, in which ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... an unmarried woman—no, not if she were Queen Elizabeth herself though I do know that they are sometimes found very useful in the dairy or the spinning-room. As for an old bachelor, I have never seen the spot on earth—and I've lived to a great age—where he wasn't an encumbrance. They really ought to be taught some useful occupation, such as skimming milk or carding wool." "I hardly think either of those pursuits would be to my taste," protested Christopher, "but I give you leave to try your hand on Uncle Tucker." "Tucker has been a hero, my son," rejoined the old ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... encumbrance was usually expected of Laura and Mrs. Madison, but to their surprise Cora offered a sprightly rejoinder and presently dropped behind them with Mr. Trumble. Mr. Trumble was also surprised and, ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... with all his faults, Has manly instincts, in his pride revolts, Dashes from off him, midst the glad world's cheers, The hideous nightmare of his dream of years, And lifts, self-prompted, with his own right hand, The vile encumbrance from his glorious land! ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the rope he had made of his clothes, let himself down into the yard of the prison. There he found a long piece of timber, which he dragged to the wall, clambered up thereon, and sprang over into the street. His shoes and hat he had left in the prison, as a useless encumbrance without his clothes, all which he had converted into the means of escape, so that he was now literally stark naked. He stood a moment to reflect:—"Here am I, said he, freed from my local prison indeed, but in the midst of an enemy's country, without a friend, without ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... thought of a husband; who joyed in boys' games, and sentimentalized over such things as adventure; who was healthy and normal and wholesome, and who was so immature that a husband stood for nothing more than an encumbrance in her cherished ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... fears of jelly-fish will simplify his personal appearance to a really alarming extent. It would appear, therefore, that this great body of ours and all its natural instincts, of which we are proud, and justly proud, is rather an encumbrance at the moment when we attempt to appreciate things as they should be appreciated. We do actually go through a process of mental asceticism, a castration of the entire being, when we wish to feel the abounding good in all things. ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... subtle form, that blinds the eyes of many professing Christians to any good in those who differ from them in doctrine, forms of worship or methods of government. They murder love to protect what they often blindly call truth. What is truth without love? A dead thing, an encumbrance, the ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... travellers did well to advance as far in a day as we now do in an hour. To make a country tour, required then the same precautions, as to supplies, as it now does to make the grand tour of Europe. To have carried coin would have been a great encumbrance, as well as risk from robbers. How accurately Bunyan knew the mode used in such cases to secure supplies, and with what ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... been pleasanter for you," replied Verheyst, smiling, "but we get nothing for nothing; and if the old lady has chosen you to be her instrument of revenge, why you cannot do less than accept the encumbrance." ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... the high-road and never claim it again? You're a fool, I tell you! This man who brought you to me was by his look and bearing some fine gentleman or other who had just the one idea in his head—to get rid of an encumbrance. And so he ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... must give us some idea of the cost of maintaining a standing army of two or three hundred thousand men even in times of peace. This has done a great deal to retard the progress of Europe; and that we, as a nation, have heretofore been free from this encumbrance, is doubtless one of the reasons why we have made such rapid strides in so much that makes a nation great and happy. But standing armies imply war, and the international wars of Europe have done much to exhaust her resources and paralyze her prosperity. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... they want me to run for State Senator. Then along comes a committee of hay-tossers from up around St. Johns and says, polite, that they are waitin' my pleasure in the matter of framin' up their ticket for senatorial candidate from this mesa country. They say that the present encumbrance in the senatorial chair is such a dog-gone thief that he steals from hisself just to keep in practice. I don't say so. 'Course, if I can get to a chair that looks big and easy, without stompin' on anybody—why, I'm like to set down. But if I ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... through his back. Thence through his breast its bloody passage tore; Flat falls he thundering on the marble floor, And his crush'd forehead marks the stone with gore. He left his javelin in the dead, for fear The long encumbrance of the weighty spear To the fierce foe advantage might afford, To rash between and use the shorten'd sword. With speedy ardour to his sire he flies, And, "Arm, great father! arm (in haste he cries). Lo, hence I run ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... Lampedosa could be procured from the King of Naples, it should serve as a naval station for the English in lieu of Malta, which should then be left to the natives on the basis of independence. At the same time Holland was to be evacuated by the French troops, while Switzerland was to be freed from all encumbrance. His Britannic majesty promised to recognize the Spanish prince who had been made King of Etruria, as well as the Cisalpine and Ligurian republics; in return for which France was required to cede some valuable territory ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... so close as to display the person—a habit forbidden by the sumptuary laws of the canton—nor so loose as to be an encumbrance in walking or climbing, covered a close tunic of a different colour, and came down beneath the middle of the leg, but suffered the ancle, in all its fine proportions, to be completely visible. The foot was defended by a sandal, the point of which was turned upwards, and the crossings ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 371, May 23, 1829 • Various
... with a quiet smile; and he sighed faintly, as though he wished it were permissible to rid himself thus easily of his golden encumbrance. ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... causing Waymarsh's tension to relax. Something might possibly be extracted for the latter from the idea of his success with that lady, whose quick apprehension of what might amuse her had given Strether a free hand. What had she meant if not to ask whether she couldn't help him with his splendid encumbrance, and mightn't the sacred rage at any rate be kept a little in abeyance by thus creating for his comrade's mind even in a world of irrelevance the possibility of a relation? What was it but a relation to be ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... float on a smooth flowing sea, That our helm and our anchors are cast to the shore, We think them a burden and wish to be free, From every encumbrance that can ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... Ansell had been sitting in the Grand Cafe, and Carlier had slipped in to warn him that the police had arrested Bonnemain and the rest, and had already been to his lodgings. Two hours later, without baggage or any encumbrance, he had reached Melun in a hired motor-car, and had thence left it at midnight for Lyons, after which he doubled his tracks and travelled by way of Cherbourg across to Southampton, while Carlier had, on that same ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... will not be there for long, but she was an encumbrance upon it when Mr. Willets Starkweather came with his ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... unbridled and unbroken horse, and turned the animal loose, driving it off at its utmost speed, with shouts, delighted at witnessing its mode of managing with its living burden. The horse unable to shake off this new and strange encumbrance, made for the thickest covert of the woods and brambles, with the speed of the winds. It is easy to conjecture the position and suffering of the victim. The terrified animal exhausted itself in fruitless efforts to shake off its burden, ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... answer—sometimes a sermon by way of answer. But he saw every item that we removed from the common packs, and sternly reproved us when we tried to exceed what he considered reasonable. At that he based our probable requirements on what would have been surfeit of encumbrance for himself. ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... dreadful unknown influence insidiously possessing him and winning him away. And he may have grown fearful of it too, for he made a sharp movement, raising his shoulders as though striving to throw off some weight, some encumbrance. ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... desperate effort for raising the necessary sum to pay off the mortgage, and, by acquiring the small estate, benefit both himself and his staunch old friends, the brothers Billing. The latter agreed to let him have 'Bachelors' Hall' with its seven acres, on condition of discharging the encumbrance, and allowing them a very small sum for the remaining few years of their lives, which they intended spending with some relatives in a neighbouring village. The offer was a very favourable one, and the more so as freehold property was extremely scarce at Helpston, ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... because it would be more encumbrance than help in the showdown. He checked, shoelaces, and strapped on the cleats he had made for what they were worth. He vetoed the bag of sand and salt he kept for minor difficulties—far too slow. He got out of ...
— A Matter of Proportion • Anne Walker
... hesitates in view of all these conditions to advise any young man to invest in real estate for a home beyond a sum which he can afford to lose if need arises to move. These changes carry a need for mobilization of its army of workers. The encumbrance of family Lares and Penates cannot be tolerated. Only a small per cent of young men are to-day sure of remaining in the city in which they begin business. What folly to encumber themselves with real estate which, sold at a sacrifice, brings barely half its price! Moral exhorters ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... he returned to die on the banks of the Tweed, and to be laid at rest in Dreyburg Abbey. He had paid one hundred thousand pounds of the debt, and the publishers of his works had sufficient confidence in their sale to advance the remaining fifty thousand pounds, the estate thus being left free of encumbrance. ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... way, and for the same purpose, the work bench has temporary holding cleats at the end and a shelf in front, which are particularly desirable, because either a saw or a square is an encumbrance on a work bench while the work is being assembled, and tools of this kind should not be laid flat on a working surface, nor should they be stood in a leaning position against ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... was a very great blunder, as fully 100,000 regulars and mobiles might have been spared to advantage for service in the provinces. Of course the National Guards themselves could not be sent away from the city, though they were often an encumbrance rather than a help, and could not possibly have carried on the work of defence had they been ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... cover a multitude of sins. The only drawback to her perfect content in these early days was the presence of her uncle Charles, whom she could not bear, and who, for his part, looked upon her as a mere encumbrance, and her being with them at all as a piece of fatuity on the part of his brother-in-law. There were constant skirmishes between them while they were together; but even these ceased after a time, ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... surrounded by medical men, who treat him with very little respect. One insists on his fee, because Hill has never been acknowledged as one of themselves; and another, to his plea of want of money, responds, "Sell your sword, it is only an encumbrance."] ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... were much lighter men than the whites, and carried less additional weight. Their horses, therefore, could travel as fast and as far as those of their pursuers. The sheep would, it is true, be an encumbrance; the cattle could scarcely be termed so; and it was probable that the first day they would make a journey of fifty or sixty miles, travelling at a moderate pace only, as they would know that no instant pursuit could take place. Indeed, ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... this idea. Captain Paget had felt himself more kindly disposed towards his only child from the moment in which she ceased to be an encumbrance upon him. Her sudden departure from Foretdechene had been taken in very good part ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... of this sort of which the person himself may be considered as almost sole proprietor and patentee is an estate for life, free from all encumbrance of wit, thought, or study, you live upon it as a settled income; and others might as well think to eject you out of a capital freehold house and estate as think to drive you out of it into the wide world of common sense and argument. Every man's house is ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... an acre. They were paying this back at the rate of 4% on the purchase money, a rate that included both interest and sinking fund, so that at the end of forty years they would own the small estates free from encumbrance. The huge population of Birmingham is close to the properties. The men turned their attention mostly to strawberries, to which many acres were devoted. Costermongers would come out from Birmingham and buy fruit on the spot, selling part of it to the villas on the way back, and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Dick? doesn't this tempt your ambition? The whole wealth of Fudge, that renowned man of pith. All brought to the hammer, for Church competition,— Sole encumbrance, Miss Fudge to be taken therewith. Think, my boy, for a Curate how glorious a catch! While, instead of the thousands of souls you now watch, To save Biddy Fudge's is all you need do; And her purse will meanwhile ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... amongst modern psychologists, who have many of them expressed an extreme impatience at the apparent sluggishness of these veterans in philosophy. We remember the time when we shared the same feeling of impatience, and thought it a most useless encumbrance to maintain this perception amongst the simple elements of the human mind: we now think otherwise, and see reason to acquiesce in the sound judgment, which took up the only safe, though unostentatious position, which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... rhyme, marvelled at the fluency of her tongue and thanked her, praising her grace and passing seductiveness; and the damsel, delighted at his praise, arose without stay or delay and doffing that was upon her of outer dress and trinkets till she was free of all encumbrance sat down on his knees and kissed him between the eyes and on his cheek-mole. Then she gave him all she had put off.—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... all there; what had given way was the paint; and gleaming up at her from the bottom of the bath tub, like a full moon through the clouds, was a bright and shining circle of the tin, free from all encumbrance in the shape ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy
... sky. This settled, he put on his belt and boots and prepared to descend. Some consideration was necessary to decide whether or not to leave his rifle there. On the return, carrying the girl and a pack, it would be added encumbrance; and after debating the matter he left the rifle leaning against the bench. As he went straight down the slope he halted every few rods to look up at his mark on the rim. It changed, but he fixed each change in his memory. When he reached ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... another at the lower edges of the cases, tarring everything as I proceeded, including myself; but as the weather was hot a pair of old pants cut off at the knee, and a ragged shirt, were my only encumbrance in the way of clothing. Now I proceeded to cut down the partitions between the various sections for a depth of six inches. I then carefully caulked the tiny crack between each of these bulkheads, and turning the surplus tin over, nailed it to the wood. Over ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... are circumstances in which I am forced to put my confidence in quarantine." (Meneval, tome i. p. 123). For any one who has had to manage an office it is pleasant to find that even Napoleon was much dependent on a good secretary. In an illness of his secretary he said, showing the encumbrance of his desk, "with Meneval I should soon clear off all that." (Meneval, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... interposition on their parts would have ill become them to make, or her to bear: that even while she was a private person, and exposed to much danger from the malice of her enemies, she had always declined that engagement, as an encumbrance; much more at present must she persevere in that sentiment, when the charge of a great kingdom was committed to her, and her life ought to be devoted to its interests: that as England was her husband, wedded to her by this pledge (and here she exhibited her finger with ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... it was time for Mr. Pickwick to issue forth on his delicate errand. Resisting Sam's tender of his greatcoat, in order that he might have no encumbrance in scaling the wall, he set forth, followed ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... nature of their situation, and to propose that all should unstrip their upper clothing, when the higher parts of the rock were laid under water,—that the seamen should remove every unnecessary weight and encumbrance from the boats, and a specified number of men should go into each boat, and that the remainder should hang by the gunwales, while the boats were to be rowed gently towards the 'Smeaton,' as the course of the 'Pharos' or floating-light lay rather to windward of the rock. But, when he attempted ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton
... for thy dog? To take Fleetfoot is to endanger thy life unnecessarily. Shouldst thou take him, even if thou didst win safely through, which is a very doubtful thing, thou wouldst find him but an unwelcome encumbrance to Lord De Aldithely. Leave the dog, therefore, with me, and ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... am: I see no difficulty in the enterprise," replied Christy. "I have had a good deal of experience in sailboats myself, and I do not believe I should be an encumbrance to Mr. Gilfleur; and I may be ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... Lazarus in those former years. Then he became vicar of St. Ewold's, in East Barsetshire, and had not yet got himself settled there when he married the Widow Bold, a widow with belongings in land and funded money, and with but one small baby as an encumbrance. Nor had he even yet married her, had only engaged himself so to do, when they made him Dean of Barchester—all which may be read in the diocesan and county chronicles. And now that he was wealthy, the new dean did ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... must go to market without the latter encumbrance," replied the lady; "The gentleman must find the ten thousand a-year, and I must bring ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... a small one; and such a situation as this had never come within range of his experience. In utter panic he lashed out with his powerful tail and darted forward, carrying the octopus with him. But the weight upon his head, the crushing encumbrance about his body, were too much for him, and bore him slowly downward. Suddenly two tentacles, which had been trailing for an anchorage, got grip upon the bottom—and the dolphin's frantic flight came to a stop abruptly. He lashed, plunged, whirled ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... by a body of only 4000 fugitives, had crossed the Euphrates at Thapsacus. Before he had set out from Babylon the whole forces of the empire had been summoned; but he had not thought it worth while to wait for what he deemed a merely useless encumbrance; and the more distant levies, which comprised some of the best troops of the empire, were still hastening towards Babylon. In a short time, therefore, he would be at the head of a still more numerous host than that which had fought at Issus; yet he thought ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... thus drawn bodily out of its carriage, and Corinne sat heavily upon the ground, her new acquaintance sprawling in her lap. Notwithstanding that she bore the brunt of the fall upon the gravel, Corinne uttered no cry; but, disengaging herself from her encumbrance, she rose to her feet. The other baby imitated her, and Corinne, taking her by the hand, led her to the bench where ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... mysterious way drawn his hat very far over his forehead, and had buttoned his shooting-coat up round his chin. Harry had recommended to him a great-coat, in order that he might the better conceal his face; but Frank had found that the great-coat was an encumbrance to his arm. He put it on, and when thus clothed he had tried the whip, he found that he cut the air with much less potency than in the lighter garment. He contented himself, therefore, with looking down on the pavement as he ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... sort of chap I despises," remarks Tom, pointing to a steady-looking man, without encumbrance, who had just entered the yard, evidently a coachman to a pious family; "see him handle a hoss. Smear—smear—like bees-waxing a table. Nothing varminty about him—nothing of this sort of thing (spreading himself out ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 12, 1841 • Various
... if only because of the immense parcel of books with which he burdened himself. That part of the journeying public which loves to see some new thing puzzled itself mightily over the gentleman of full habit, who in addition to his not inconsiderable encumbrance of flesh and luggage, chose to carry about a shawl-strap loaded to utmost capacity with a composite mass of books, magazines, and newspapers. It was enormously heavy, and the way in which its component parts adhered was but a degree short of the miraculous. ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... Christ mocked at the 'whited sepulchre' of respectability, and fixed that phrase for ever. He treated worldly success as a thing absolutely to be despised. He saw nothing in it at all. He looked on wealth as an encumbrance to a man. He would not hear of life being sacrificed to any system of thought or morals. He pointed out that forms and ceremonies were made for man, not man for forms and ceremonies. He took sabbatarianism as a type of the things that should be set at nought. ...
— De Profundis • Oscar Wilde
... would be an encumbrance to them in the forest, they were sold to the last party of Northmen they encountered before entering it, and they pursued their way on foot. The greatest caution was observed; every sound was marked, and at the call of a human voice, the low of cattle, or the ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... these Saxon dogs whom I have safe in kennel.—Ho! Giles jailor, let them bring Cedric of Rotherwood before me, and the other churl, his companion—him I mean of Coningsburgh—Athelstane there, or what call they him? Their very names are an encumbrance to a Norman knight's mouth, and have, as it were, a flavour of bacon—Give me a stoup of wine, as jolly Prince John said, that I may wash away the relish—place it in the armoury, and ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... make a proper appearance. I could not present you to my friends here, nor be happy, if you did not, Colambre. Now the way is clear before you: you have birth and title, here is fortune ready made; you will have a noble estate of your own when old Quin dies, and you will not be any encumbrance or inconvenience to your father or anybody. Marrying an heiress accomplishes all this at once; and the young lady is everything we could wish, besides—you will meet again at the gala. Indeed, between ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... occasion, however, the lobster was rendered bold and pugnacious by her burden of young, and managed in some way to close her forceps on one of the monkey's thumbs. He squalled out, and hammered the lobster on the bars of his cage in a vain endeavor to rid himself of his painful encumbrance. I finally loosened her grasp, but not until the flesh on the thumb had been cut to the bone. The wounded hand became inflamed, erysipelas set in, and the poor animal became very sick indeed. He eventually recovered, and ever afterward was exceedingly ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir |
