"Encumber" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... exists Luh Tan Fah Pao Tan King (Roku-so-ho-bo-dan-kyo), a collection of his sermons. It is full of bold statements of Zen in its purest form, and is entirely free from ambiguous and enigmatical words that encumber later Zen books. In consequence it is widely read by non-Buddhist scholars in China and Japan. Both Hwui Chung (E-chu), a famous disciple of the Sixth Patriarch, and Do-gen, the founder of the Soto Sect in Japan, deny the authority of the book, and declare it to be misleading, because of errors and ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... justification. But without believing the half of his fine protestations, we felt very happy in having overtaken him; for it is most certain they had had no intention of encumbering themselves with our unfortunate family. I say encumber, for it is evident that four children, one of whom was yet at the breast, were very indifferent beings to people who were actuated by a selfishness without all parallel. When we were seated in the long-boat, my father dismissed the sailors ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... near to North Wilkesboro', where he proposed to make a first essay in railway journeying, Zeke seated himself under the shade of a grove of persimmon-trees by the wayside, there painfully to encumber his feet with the new shoes. As he laced these, he indulged in soliloquy, after a fashion bred of his lonely life, on a subject born of his ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... description of the fabulous cortege which he has in preparation. Lackeys innumerable, a legion of pages and gentlemen, fiocches and carriages, emblazoned with gold, a suite with which in the present day a sovereign would not encumber himself, and which ate up the remainder of her fortune, all these marvels by means of which it was proposed to win over the admiration of the Spaniards to the new dynasty, were not unserviceable also in gaining over the young Duchess of Burgundy, and the details of them were welcomed by an ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... entertaining place For travel-worn and weary fellows Who landed where Caleb S. Bellows, Out on "the Point" his habitation Built in a pleasant situation, Before the days when piles of lumber Did first fair nature's face encumber; Quite near the spot where first with skill John Perkins built his little mill, Where Philip Thompson many a year Ago, commenced his bright career, And took the ebbing of the tide, Which into golden waves did glide; ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... spirit of Eastern isolation, to close the gates of intercourse on the great highways of the world, and justify the act by the pretension that these avenues of trade and travel belong to them and that they choose to shut them, or, what is almost equivalent, to encumber them with such unjust relations as would prevent ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... will not encumber herself with too many tools; but she will not shirk the expense of necessary implements, the simplest by preference, and the best that ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... father for these generous offers, but told him that she would on no account encumber herself with a husband. However, being urged by the King again and again, she said, "Not to show myself ungrateful for so much love I am willing to comply with your wish, provided I have such a husband that he has no like in ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... cutting up his red sacerdotal vestments, and making crosses of them, to be sewn on the shoulders of the people. An exhortation from the Pope was read to the multitude, granting remission of their sins to all who should join the Crusade, and directing that no man on that holy pilgrimage should encumber himself with heavy baggage and vain superfluities, and that the nobles should not travel with dogs or falcons, to lead them from the direct road, as had happened to so many during ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... digging, great care should be taken to remove the small as well as the full-grown; for those not taken from the ground will remain fresh and sound during the winter, and send up in the spring new plants, which, in turn, will increase so rapidly, as to encumber the ground, and become troublesome. In localities where the crop has once been cultivated, though no plants be allowed to grow for the production of fresh tubers, yet the young shoots will continue to make their appearance from time ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... heavy battle-axe; and the younger, a great, two-handed sword, which he wielded in one hand like a feather. We had just time to get clear of the tower, embrace and say good-bye, and part to some little distance, that we might not encumber each other's motions, ere the triple giant-brotherhood drew near to attack us. They were about twice our height, and armed to the teeth. Through the visors of their helmets their monstrous eyes shone with a horrible ferocity. I was in the middle position, and the middle ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... door in Arden whispered to us by day and by night the sweet secret of the happiness in the Forest, where no man strives to outshine his neighbour or to encumber the free and joyous play of his life with those luxuries which are only another name for care. Our modest little home sheltered but did not enslave us; it held a door open for all the sweet ministries of affection, but it ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... fashion of converting the ancient leather girdle, meant to support the waist, into a kind of heavy padded band, studded with gilded ornaments and precious stones, and apparently invented expressly to encumber the person wearing it. Other contemporary writers, and amongst these Pope Urban V. and King Charles V. (Fig. 422), inveigh against the poulaines, which had more than ever come into favour, and which ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... should in some measure be disappointed, is only what might naturally be anticipated of all very sanguine expectation. Cheap editions are expensive editions to the publisher; and historical societies, from a necessity which appears to encumber all corporate English action, rarely fail to do their work expensively and infelicitously. Yet, after all allowances and deductions, we cannot reconcile ourselves to the mortification of having found but one volume in the ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... corruptions of Christianity, as years rolled on, have ever been to assimilate it to the other religions of the earth; to abate its spirituality; to relax its austere code of morals; to commute its proper claims for external observances; to encumber its ritual with an infinity of ceremonies; and, above all, to uncover the future and invisible, on which it left a veil, and add a purgatory into the bargain! Thus, whether contrasted with other religions or with its corrupted self, Christianity does not seem a religion ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... hold, but the delusions of an over-heated fancy, they do not now influence me; I speak the language of the natural, of the visible world.—You love not me, Annot—you love Menteith—by him you are beloved again, and Allan is no more to you than one of the corpses which encumber yonder heath." ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... the World; for those will but spoil it: and, should you permit such a murdering Hand to be laid upon it, to gloss and tinge it over with superfluous and needless Decorations, which, like too much Drapery in Sculpture and Statuary, will but encumber it; it may disguise the Facts, mar the Reflections, and unnaturalize the Incidents, so as to be lost in a Multiplicity of fine idle Words and Phrases, and reduce our Sterling Substance into an empty Shadow, or rather frenchify our English ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... a free port, and, in my opinion, ought never to be otherwise than free. Let its harbour be a refuge for the shipping of all nations, and its stores will then be filled with their goods. I would not encumber the commerce of this Island with one single dollar of charges: no port-charges ought for a moment to be thought of; and, as for import and export duties, the most moderate charges of this kind would ruin the place. What brought Singapore forward ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... out here to be great boys, didn't we? I am sure you look a dozen years younger than when I last saw you, Mrs. Grandmother. By-the-by, it was a bold stroke to encumber yourself with that brat; what's become ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... quick'nest, strength'nest, to the smoother and more regular forms, quickenst, strengthenst. It is true that these are rough words, in any form you can give them; but let us remember, that needless apostrophes are as rough to the eye, as needless st's to the ear. Our common grammarians are disposed to encumber the language with as many of both as they can find any excuse for, and vastly more than can be sustained by any good argument. In words that are well understood to be contracted in pronunciation, the apostrophe is now less frequently ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... missionaries, would lay to heart the words of a missionary Bishop![20] "Ihave for years thought," writes Bishop Patteson, "that we seek in our missions a great deal too much to make English Christians..... Evidently the heathen man is not treated fairly, if we encumber our message with unnecessary requirements. The ancient Church had its 'selection of fundamentals.' .... Any one can see what mistakes we have made in India.... Few men think themselves into the state of the Eastern mind.... We ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... and no starting-point; he has nothing but the desolate nakedness of the walls and the roof of an immense building. The walls are round and smooth, but all is dark within.... The bee does not understand useless regrets, or if he does, he does not encumber himself with them. Far from being discouraged by the conditions which now confront him, he is more determined than ever. The hive is no sooner set up in its proper place than the disorder of the crowd begins to ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... to talk about it. You are very kind, but it will not do to encumber you with a lone ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... disappear before the light of the gospel. He saw, too, that the arguments urged for circumcision could also be employed in behalf of all the Levitical arrangements, [79:2] and that the tendency of the teaching of these "men which came down from Judea" was to encumber the disciples with the weight of a superannuated ritual. Nor was this all. The apostle was well aware that the spirit which animated those Judaising zealots was a spirit of self-righteousness. When they "taught the brethren and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... is a very characteristic right-about-face of the crowd, who one moment were saying, 'Hold your tongue and do not disturb Him,' and the next moment were all eager to encumber him with help, and to say, 'Rise up, be of good cheer; He calleth thee.' No thanks to them that He did. And what did the man do? Sprang to his feet—as the word rightly rendered would be—and flung away the frowsy rags that he had wrapped round him for warmth and softness ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... Glory shall come in." Nothing that we read is useful unless it calls up living things in the soul. To read a mystic book truly is to invoke the powers. If they do not rise up plumed and radiant, the apparitions of spiritual things, then is our labor barren. We only encumber the mind with useless symbols. They knew better ways long ago. "Master of the Green-waving Planisphere,... Lord of the Azure Expanse,... it is thus we invoke," cried the ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... Let no traveller encumber himself or herself with a trunk on the Continent. A valise or a carpet bag that can be carried in the hand, will hold enough. Four or five changes of linen, and one dress, besides the travelling costume, are all sufficient. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... was straddling up and down the room, a pent volcano ready to explode. He knew Whaley's advice was good. It would be suicide to encumber himself with this girl in his flight. But he had never disciplined his desires. He wanted her. He meant to take her. Passion, the lust for revenge, the bully streak in him that gloated at the sight of some one young and fine trembling ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... bereaved bride, so touching in Chaucer, there comes in, provoked by that unlucky repentance, an expatiating and arguing review of the now extinct quarrel, showing a liberty and vigour of thought that agree ill with the threatening cloud of dissolution, and somewhat overlay and encumber the proper business to which the dying man has now turned himself—made imperative by the occasion—the formal and energetic eulogy on Palamon. The praise, however, is bestowed at ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... noise, with tin pans and kettles, when the bees are swarming. It may have originated in some ancient superstition, or it may have been the signal to call aid from the fields, to assist in the hiving. If harmless it is unnecessary; and everything that tends to encumber the management of bees ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various
... original definition of the terms. If the same method were made use of in reasoning on other subjects, they would approach to the mathematics in simplicity and in truth, and the science of medicine in particular would be stripped of the heaps of learned rubbish which now encumber it, and would appear in true and native simplicity. Such is the method I propose to follow: I am certain of the rectitude of the plan; of the success of the reasoning it does not become ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... board his ship a young man named Omai, a native of Ulietea; where he had had some property, of which he had been dispossessed by the people of Bolabola. I at first rather wondered that Captain Furneaux would encumber himself with this man, who, in my opinion, was not a proper sample of the inhabitants of these happy islands, not having any advantage of birth, or acquired rank; nor being eminent in shape, figure, or complexion: ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... sandbanks which abound on the outside of the bay, continue to encumber the navigation after it is entered, and the fleet was in consequence compelled to anchor every night. This proceeding unavoidably occasioned much delay. The first day's sail carried us only to the ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... of air was stirring, they decided not to encumber the small boat with mast or sail, but to row leisurely across with just as much energy as suited their holiday humour. The channel was on the whole free from currents, and, as Roger knew the landing-places as well as the oldest sailor in the place, any precaution ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... branched on each side, and of such slight and feathery frame as shows them never to have encountered blight or frost or tempest. The mountains stand up in fantastic pinnacles; there is on them no trace of torrent, no scathe of lightning; no fallen fragments encumber their foundations, no worn ravines divide their flanks; the seas are always waveless, the skies always calm, crossed only by fair, horizontal, ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... biscuit to keep us alive for a couple of days," replied Abel. "Let us chance getting out, and not stop to encumber ourselves with ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... "must a man die that a dog may live? Must a mother's gray hairs be brought in sorrow to the grave; must the heart of a wife be crushed within a bloody hand and children never know a father's loving care, that such a thing as thou may'st yet encumber this fair earth? Precious indeed must be that life, purchased ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... perpetually upon our notice. He had no verbiage. We do not merely mean by this that he never used a superfluous word (which, in fact, he rarely did), but that he kept quite clear of the hazy, half-relevant ideas which encumber meaning and are the chief source of prolixity. He threw away every idea that did not decidedly help on his argument, and expressed the others in the fewest words that would make them clear. He began at ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... pikes about five feet long, with broad bronze or copper points, occasionally of flails, axes, daggers, short curved swords, and spears; the trumpeters were armed with daggers only, and the officers did not as a rule encumber themselves with either buckler or pike, but bore and axe and dagger, an ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... is in our power to take care of one thing, and apply ourselves to it, we choose rather to encumber ourselves with many—body, property, brother, friend, child, slave—and thus we are burdened and weighed down. When the weather happens not to be fair for sailing, we sit screwing ourselves and perpetually looking out for the way ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... succeeded by a dissertation on the high probability of a southern continent existing, and that this supposed continent must be another Indies. Both of these fancies being now sufficiently overthrown by the investigations of our immortal Cook, and other modern navigators, it were useless to encumber our pages with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... in defence of the Christian faith against the Turk. One condition was attached to the bequest. The legatees were to erect a statue to Colleoni on the Piazza of St. Mark. This, however, involved some difficulty; for the proud republic had never accorded a similar honor, nor did they choose to encumber their splendid square with a monument. They evaded the condition by assigning the Campo in front of the Scuola di S. Marco, where also stands the Church of S. Zanipolo, to the purpose. Here accordingly the finest bronze equestrian statue in Italy, if we ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... necessary; much as so many people assume the relation of Church and State in England to be the typical and normal condition of the Church, which should be everywhere reproduced. Evidently the heathen man is not treated fairly if we encumber ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... now add a blue shirt, sometimes with the tails tucked in, sometimes flowing gracefully. Some wear cast-off coats, or jackets, or trousers, of Europeans; but few of the common people have more than one of these garments on at a time, and still fewer ever encumber themselves with shoes and stockings. The women had on generally long blue chemises, or gowns and bonnets of every variety of colour and shape, and put on in all sorts of ways—some placing them hind part before; indeed, they had apparently exercised their ingenuity to make them as unbecoming as ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... unpleasing themes, where, still expressing disapproval, one may do it with some grace, one of the few limitations to Mr. Hardy's great charm as a writer lies in his tendency to encumber his page with detail. At a supremely romantic moment one of his people sits down to contemplate a tribe of ants, and watches them through two whole printed pages. In another case a man in imminent deadly peril surveys ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... in the mosses Underneath a tree that tosses Flakes of sunshine, and embosses Its green shadow with the snow— Drowsy-eyed, I sink in slumber Born of fancies without number— Tangled fancies that encumber Me with ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... countries enough in which to grow trees for the mere purposes of timber? Are there not soils and situations even in England, where none but timber-trees can grow? And is not the timber of many fruit-trees as useful as the timber of many of the lumber-trees which now encumber our soil? It is true, that, when wood constituted the fuel of the country, the growth of lumber-tree was essential to the comforts of the inhabitants; but that is no longer our condition. I conceive, therefore, that a wise and provident ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... breeze. In the morning he put off to sea in chase of the vessel, which he was unable to get up with till towards evening close to the land; after a brave defence, as the ship had many men, she at length yielded; and not chusing to encumber himself with so many prisoners, he landed a part of her company, and made the rest prisoners in irons in his own ship. Learning that this was one of the three ships belonging to Calicut of which he was in search, he put ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... me, which resisted his urgency. But I was averse to noting down, because I was conscious that it did better for me to keep the things in my head, if they suited my purpose; and if they did not, they would only encumber me. I knew that, when I wrote down, I put the thing out of my care, out of my head; and that, though it might be put by very safe, I should not know where to look for it; that the labour of looking over a note-book would never do when I was in the warmth and pleasure ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... irresistible. In a few moments the walls were scaled, the streets flooded with the foe, the pavements covered with the dead, and the city on fire in an hundred places. The conquerors did not wish to encumber themselves with captives. All were slain. Laden with booty and crimsoned with the blood of their foes, the victors dispersed in every direction, burning and destroying, but encountering no resistance. During the month they took fourteen cities, slaying ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... lethargy, let us turn in good time and fly. The interpretation of literature, like the interpretation of Nature, is no mere record of facts; it is no catalogue of the items which make up a book— such catalogues and analyses of contents encumber our histories of literature with some of their dreariest pages. The interpretation of literature exhibits no series of dead items, but rather the life and power of one mind at play upon another mind duly qualified to receive and manifest these. Hence, one who would interpret the work of a master ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... eagerness to assist, and anxious to enter on my duties; but the skipper motioned me aside, saying that he'd put me into a watch and give me regular work to do as soon as we had got fairly to sea, for he "didn't want any idlers hanging round them to encumber the men." So, acting on the principle that "a nod was as good as a wink to a blind horse," I sheered over to the other side of the deck. Here, Sam Pengelly was standing by the taffrail, and from this coign of vantage we both watched with much interest ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... income, but he can, with equal ease, pay a greater proportion. To double the income of a labourer may be to raise him from starvation to comfort. To double the income of a millionaire may simply be to encumber him with wealth by which he is unable to increase his own pleasure. There is a limit beyond which it is exceedingly difficult to find ways of spending money on one's own enjoyment—though I have never been ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... which always reigns among a ship's company preparatory to going ashore, to confer together and complete our arrangements. As our object was to effect as rapid a flight as possible to the mountains, we determined not to encumber ourselves with any superfluous apparel; and accordingly, while the rest were rigging themselves out with some idea of making a display, we were content to put on new stout duck trousers, serviceable ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... covetousness, pride, lust, or whatever else thy heart may be inclining unto, which may hinder thee in this heavenly race. Men that run for a wager, if they intend to win as well as run, they do not use to encumber themselves, or carry those things about them that may be a hindrance to them in their running. "Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things"; that is, he layeth aside everything that would be ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... not observe; the equinox he knows as little; and the whole bright calendar of the year is without a dial in his mind. His notebooks impair his memory; his libraries overload his wit; the insurance office increases the number of accidents; and it may be a question whether machinery does not encumber; whether we have not lost by refinement some energy, by a Christianity intrenched in establishments and forms, some vigor of wild virtue. For every Stoic was a Stoic; but in ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... overwhelming the sufferers with caresses. I will not stand by and see my fellow-man drowning, without stretching out a hand to help him, till he has, by his own efforts and presence of mind, reached the shore in safety, and then encumber him with aid. With suffering Greece, now is the crisis of her fate—her great, it may be her last struggle. Sir, while we sit here deliberating, her destiny may be decided. The Greeks, contending with ruthless oppressors, turn their eyes to us, and invoke us, by their ancestors, by their slaughtered ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... that met his ravished sight; Soft tapestries from far countries brought, Rare cabinets with gems inwrought, White vases of the finest mould, And mirrors set in burnished gold. Upon a couch a grayhound slumbered; And a small table was encumber'd With paintings, and an ivory lute, And sweetmeats, and delicious fruit. Sir Rudolph lost not time in praising; For he, I should have said was gazing, In attitude extremely tragic, Upon a sight of stranger ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... the brave resistance of the Belgae. The leaders accordingly resolved, now that their numbers were thus swelled, to enter in all earnest on the expedition to Italy which they had several times contemplated. In order not to encumber themselves with the spoil which they had heretofore collected, they left it behind under the protection of a division of 6000 men, which after many wanderings subsequently gave rise to the tribe of the Aduatuci on the Sambre. But, whether from the difficulty of finding ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Paulinus objected, saying they ought to wait, and not immediately after a journey engage men who would have been standing in their arms and arranging themselves for battle at their leisure, whilst they were making a long march with all their beasts of burden and their camp followers to encumber them. As the generals were arguing about this matter, a Numidian courier came from Otho with orders to lose no time, but give battle. Accordingly they consented, and moved. As soon as Caecina had notice, he was much surprised, and quitted his post on the river to hasten ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... once," interrupted George; "the third dog has turned tail, like a craven, luckily for us. Now slip the bight of the lanyard over your neck, and follow me. Leave the cane-knives; they will only encumber us, and perhaps throw us down the face of the precipice. Now, look out, ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... Christian subjects, which had become blasphemous under the treatment of men like the Caracci. Gods without power, satyrs without rusticity, nymphs without innocence, men without humanity, gather into idiot groups upon the polluted canvas, and scenic affectations encumber the streets with preposterous marble. Lower and lower declines the level of abused intellect; the base school of landscape [Footnote: Appendix II, "Renaissance Landscape."] gradually usurps the place of the historical painting, which had sunk into prurient pedantry,—the ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... should not encumber our pupils with accurate demonstration. The application of mathematics to mechanics is undoubtedly of the highest use, and has opened a source of ingenious and important inquiry. Archimedes, the greatest name amongst ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... is born of the time and the need, and not a burden to encumber us on our way. It is not of material nature; cannot be packed and stored away for some occasion that may arise, but is proportioned and adapted to the kind and quality of ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... pathetic a uselessness of obedient genius? It was yours to have directed, yours to have raised and rejoiced in, the skill, the modesty, the patience of this entirely gentle and industrious race;—copyists with their heart. The common painter-copyists who encumber our European galleries with their easels and pots, are, almost without exception, persons too stupid to be painters, and too lazy to be engravers. The real copyists—the men who can put their soul into another's work—are employed at home, in their narrow rooms, ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... at the man. The one thing he really wanted to do was to give Alvin the rock treatment. One little zap would do it, and Alvin Sherdlap would encumber the Earth no more. And it wasn't as if Alvin would be missed, Forrester told himself. It was clear from one look at the lout that no one, anywhere, for any reason, would miss Alvin if he were ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... perpetuated by the one possible means—if it withdraws all solicitude about the handicap this entails to women as a whole, introducing a spirit of laissez-faire competition between men and women, the women with sense enough to see the point will not encumber themselves with children. For each one of these who has no children, some other woman must have six instead of three. And some people encourage this in ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... (Which, by the way, the old Bore's best is), Has lain so very long on hand, That I despair of all demand; I've advertised, but see my books, Or only watch my Shopman's looks;— 30 Still Ivan, Ina,[78] and such lumber, My back-shop glut, my shelves encumber. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... in its popularity, for it has enduring qualities which belong to all ages and generations. The text is simply and clearly opened—critical explanations are given only when they are required—so as not to encumber, but to elucidate; and the practical applications are such as to suit all classes of ...
— The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth Edition • Anonymous
... spelt, his endless iterations, lists, catalogues, categories, things not clearly visualised or even remotely perceived, but swept relentlessly in, like the debris of some store-room, all these are ugly mannerisms which simply blur and encumber the pages. The question is not whether they offend a critical and cultured mind, but whether they produce an inspiring effect ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... session, to lean favorably to the old pioneers and early settlers of an exposed frontier, which has suffered severely from Indian wars, and other causes of depression. With the exception of divorce cases, there were really no bad laws passed; and no disposition manifested to excessive legislation, or to encumber the statute book with new schemes. Local and specific acts absorbed the chief ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... sultan arose with the dawn, and prepared to execute his design, hiding his upper garment, which might encumber him; he then proceeded to the Palace of Tears. He found it lighted up with an infinite number of flambeaux of white wax, and perfumed by a delicious scent issuing from several censers of fine gold of admirable workmanship. As soon as he perceived the bed where the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... "Yes," he said in a sorrowful tone, "dis Massa Leo's." I recognised it indeed as the one Leo had with him. Fatigue alone could have made him throw it aside; and perhaps, hoping soon to reach the Europeans of whom he had heard, he would no longer encumber himself with it. Securing it to the ox's back, we went on still more eagerly, looking carefully about on every side. I expected every moment to overtake Leo. We went on for another mile or more, when to my dismay we ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... lumber Useful bookshelves so encumber? I will tell thee; for thy question Of wonders brings me to the best one. There's a future wonder, may be— Sure a present magic baby; (Patience, friend, I know your looks— What has that to do with books?) ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... in the armoury, where 'tis right they should be; for men of peace, as these most surely are, encumber not themselves ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... his own riding, and a pony for his baggage, together with blankets and other necessaries for the journey. His mining outfit he decided to get at Sacramento, as, although the cost would be considerable, he did not wish to encumber himself with it on his journey across the plains. The rifle and revolver had been presented him by Mr. Willcox, and he determined to practise steadily with both on his voyage up the river, as his life might depend on his ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... one of my schoolfellows is going to be married," she said. "He has a pretty bachelor cottage in the neighbourhood of the Regent's Park—and he wants to sell it, with the furniture, just as it is. I don't know whether you care to encumber yourself with a little house of your own. His sister has asked me to distribute some of his cards, with the address and the particulars. It might be worth your while, perhaps, to look at the cottage when ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... room for inquiry if one have the real feeling of life itself. Poetry is that which gleans most by keeping nearest to life. Books and firesides avail but little. Secretaries for the baggage of erudition do not enhance poetic values, they encumber them. Poetry is not declamation, it is not propaganda, it is breathing natural breaths. There is nothing mechanical about poetry excepting the affectation of forms. Poetry is the world's, it is everybody's. You ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... 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 have not carefully considered this side of the question in their arguments for house-owning and family-rearing as anchors to ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... her dripping clothes dried of themselves, so as not to encumber her movements. By some happy chance her feet were well shod, and now, gathering her wits as she went, she put on the shawl—not the bonnet, her head burned so, and felt so wild Just then, far into the darkness, she heard wheels rolling and rolling. It was Mrs. Dugdale driving ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... brought into optional connection with the principal movement; a hemmer is a valuable attachment of a sewing-machine. An extension, as of a railroad or of a franchise, carries out further something already existing. We add an appendix to a book, to contain names, dates, lists, etc., which would encumber the text; we add a supplement to supply omissions, as, for instance, to bring it up to date. An appendix may be called an addendum; but addendum may be used of a brief note, which would not be dignified by the name of appendix; ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... us to look for concrete formulae, and the necessity of being precise, which requires us to adopt detailed formulae. Formulae which are too short make science vague and illusory, formulae which are too long encumber it and make it useless. This dilemma can only be evaded by a perpetual compromise, the principle of which is to compress the facts by omitting all that is not necessary for the purpose of representing them to ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... a glacier—a pallid, weeping sentinel which stands guard for the great ice-caps beyond. Winter snows, summer fogs and rains have washed the hillsides clean; they are leached out and they present a lifeless, forbidding front to travelers. In many places the granite fragments which still encumber them lie piled one above another in such titanic chaos as to discourage man's puny efforts to climb over them. Nevertheless, men have done so, and by the thousands, by the tens of thousands. On this particular morning an unending procession of human ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... Freedom's columns all star-plumb! Yours was a watery grave, but Martyrdom And, hence, your resurrection with the number, Whose greatness greatens, as the Ages come To know why their pathway, no wrecks encumber. ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... wonder Hath drawn from the skies, Till they glance thro' the shade, and Come down to your brow Like—eyes of the maiden Who calls on you now— Arise! from your dreaming In violet bowers, To duty beseeming These star-litten hours— And shake from your tresses Encumber'd with dew The breath of those kisses That cumber them too— (O! how, without you, Love! Could angels be blest?) Those kisses of true love That lull'd ye to rest! Up!—shake from your wing Each hindering thing: The dew of the night— It would weigh down your ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... of the correctness and fidelity of the narrative. I use the word fidelity with reference to the substance of reflections and sentiments, which the young man conveyed in the most graceful language. Here, then, is his story, which in its progress I shall not encumber with a single observation that was not ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... is no appeal but to the future. He is superstitious, as we have seen, but his gods are few and traditional. He determines to make a stand somewhere; and it is necessary for him to do so, if he would not encumber his literary Olympus with a Hindoo-like pantheon of millions. But how voracious is this general reader in regard to the effusions of his own day! What will become of the myriads of books that have passed through our own unworthy hands? How many of them will survive to the next generation? How many ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... quiver full of arrows, Hover'd about the enemy, and mark'd The road he took; then hasted to my friends; Whom, with a troop of fifty chosen men, I met advancing. The pursuit I led, Till we o'ertook the spoil encumber'd foe. We fought—and conquer'd. Ere a sword was drawn, An arrow, from my bow, had pierc'd their chief, Who wore, that day, the arms which now I wear. Returning home in triumph, I disdain'd The shepherd's slothful life: and having heard That our good king had summon'd his bold ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... whether it be two or three hundred miles. I propose to send all our provisions, furniture, and clothes to my wife's father, who approves of the scheme, and to reserve nothing but a few necessary articles of covering; trusting to the furs of the chase for our future apparel. Were we imprudently to encumber ourselves too much with baggage, we should never reach to the waters of—-, which is the most dangerous as well as the most difficult part of our journey; and yet but a trifle in point of distance. I intend to say to my negroes—In the name of God, be free, my honest lads, I thank you for your ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... it flowed naturally from his primary qualities. In speaking it was effective, and to us pleasing, because there was some new modulation, some addition in the manner, just as the sea never sets up one wave exactly like the last or the next. But in his books it did somewhere encumber his thoughts, and the reader's progress and profit. It did not arise, as in many lesser men, from his having said his say—from his having no more in him; much less did it arise from conceit, either of his ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... surprising having regard to their size. The moment having arrived to think about winter, the Voles spread themselves about the steppe. Each hollows little pits around the roots he wishes to extract. After having bared them he cleans them while still in position, so as not to encumber his storehouses with useless earth. This preparatory labour having been completed, he divides the root into slices of a weight proportioned to his strength, and carries away the fragments one by one. Seizing ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... of twenty-five, and to this he superadded the active imagination of a newspaper man. A plot to rob the bank? These mysterious absences, that luggage which he doubted not was empty and intended for spoil! But why encumber herself with the two children? Here his common sense and instinct of the ludicrous returned ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... the old assumption that every woman should be a wife, habitually deprive them of the pecuniary and educational advantages of men, exclude them absolutely from very many of the employments in which they might earn a subsistence, encumber their course in others by a heartless ridicule or by a steady disapprobation, and consign, in consequence, many thousands to the most extreme and agonizing poverty, and perhaps a still larger number ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... true he had taken a step most people would call very imprudent, thus to encumber himself with a young wife at the very outset of his career; certainly, he had never intended any such thing. He had always resolved to be patient, and have a little store of money by him, before ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... with the happy homes of England, just as the New Year bonbons played havoc with the homes of France. Perhaps, of the two countries, France suffered less. The candy soon disappeared, leaving only impaired digestions in its wake. The books remained to encumber shelves, and bore ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... redemption, is monstrous. There is no proof that Abel know anything about it. The probabilities lean all the other way. It is a pity those self-satisfied theorizers have not something else to do, than to encumber religion and perplex good people ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... Jessie,—a man I think much of, too,—who is very much drawn to one of those ladies. He has confessed as much to me. What advice shall I give him? He is a man that can please himself; he has abundant means, and no ties to encumber him." ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... the hours I number, And, rising, seek the house of God, while slumber Lies heavy on men's eyes, and dreams encumber Their souls in ...
— Hebrew Literature
... a useless encumbrance: no old sportsman or traveller cares to encumber himself with one; but a butcher's knife, carried in a sheath, is excellent, both from its efficient shape, the soft quality of The steel, its lightness, and the strong way in which the blade is ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... node is:— What takes M'Adam where a road is, To hammer little pebbles less? His organ of Destructiveness. What makes great Joseph so encumber Debate? a lumping lump of Number: Or Malthas rail at babies so? The smallness of his Philopro— What severs man and wife? a simple Defect of the Adhesive pimple: Or makes weak women go astray? Their bumps are ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... crowd—here, on the contrary, the simplicity of this primitive cult is touching and respectable in the extreme. These Copts who install themselves in their church, as round their firesides, who make their home there and encumber the place with their fretful little ones, have, in their own way, well understood the word of Him who said: "Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... not and could not say all that was in his mind, we can read between the lines that he had no use for the theories of ministers, and would obviously have liked to have said in brutal English, "Here I am, gentlemen, do not encumber me with your departmental jargon of palpable nothings. You continue to trust in Providence; give me your untrammelled instructions as to what you wish me to do, and leave the rest to me." Here is another letter from Lord Radstock: "No official news have been ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... the art, Great be the manners, of the bard. He shall not his brain encumber With the coil of rhythm and number; But, leaving rule and pale forethought, He shall aye climb For his rhyme. 'Pass in, pass in,' the angels say, 'In to the upper doors, Nor count compartments of the floors, But mount to paradise By the stairway ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... which truly resist the toil of men, and conspire against their fame; which are cunning to consume, and {112} prolific to encumber; and of whose perverse and unwelcome sowing we know, and can say assuredly, "An enemy ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... circumstances and natural formation continue to have, chiefly a mixed population of Chinese and other coolies, whom it is assuredly not to our interest to take into our family. I suppose it is a proper rule that we should not encumber ourselves with territory which by reason of unchangeable natural causes will repel our farmers and artisans, and which, therefore, will not become in time Americanized. If this is true, we ought not to annex ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... to lay out money in order that money might be returned ten-fold, a hundred-fold—would be to them to cease to be aristocrats. The struggles made by the Gracchi, by Livius Drusus, by others whose names would only encumber us here, by this Cornelius, were the expiring efforts of those who really desired an honest Republic. Such were the struggles made by Cicero himself; though there was present always to him an idea, with which, in truth, ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... neither eat nor drink with you," replied M'Brair. "I am come upon my Master's errand! woe be upon me if I should anyways mince the same. Hall Haddo, I summon you to quit this kirk which you encumber." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is practically flat with the ground, for incendiaries have destroyed hundreds and hundreds of houses, and the Chinese commanders are favouring low-lying barricades, which are hard to pick out from the enormous mass of partially burned ruins which encumber the ground. Just as in South Africa we were reading only the other day, before this plight overtook us, that the hardest thing to see is a live Boer on the battlefield, so here it is the merest chance to make out the soldiery that is attacking us. Sometimes dozens ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... depth as far as it extended, and displayed in its precincts, at a little distance from the course of the stream, the towering and lordly castle to which it gave the name. The mist which continued to encumber the valley with its fleecy clouds, showed imperfectly the rude fortifications which served to defend the small town of Douglas, which was strong enough to repel a desultory attack, but not to withstand ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... ditch Detain'd perforce; there many a royal car With broken pole th' unharness'd horses left. On, shouting to the Greeks, Patroclus press'd The flying Trojans; they, with panic cries, Dispers'd, the roads encumber'd; high uprose The storms of dust, as from the tents and ships Back to the city stretch'd the flying steeds; And ever where the densest throng appear'd With furious threats Patroclus urg'd his course; His glowing axle ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... it also proceeds in some measure from a natural dislike in the preacher to match himself with the magnificence of the rostrum, lest the sermon should not be thought worthy of the place. Yet this will rather hold of the colossal sculptures, and pyramids of fantastic tracery which encumber the pulpits of Flemish and German churches, than of the delicate mosaics and ivory-like carving of the Romanesque basilicas, for when the form is kept simple, much loveliness of color and costliness of work may be introduced, and yet the speaker not be thrown into ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... of that convenient size which would admit of its being squeezed into any odd corner, but Dick the hostler got it in somehow, and Mr Chuzzlewit helped him. It was all on Mr Pinch's side, and Mr Chuzzlewit said he was very much afraid it would encumber him; to which Tom said, 'Not at all;' though it forced him into such an awkward position, that he had much ado to see anything but his own knees. But it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good; and the wisdom of the saying was verified in this instance; for the cold air came from Mr Pinch's side ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... on the subject. I cannot stop to take up the old proofs from causation, from statistics, from the certainty with which we can foretell one another's conduct, from the fixity of character, and all the rest. But there are two words which usually encumber these classical arguments, {149} and which we must immediately dispose of if we are to make any progress. One is the eulogistic word freedom, and the other is the opprobrious word chance. The word 'chance' I wish to keep, but I wish to get rid of the ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... chosen by Chopin in preference. Even when he treats the larger forms of the concerto or the sonata this concentrated, not to say pointed, character of Chopin's style becomes obvious. The more extended dimensions seem to encumber the freedom of his movements. The concerto for pianoforte with accompaniment of the orchestra in E may be instanced. Here the adagio takes the form of a romance, and in the final rondo the rhythm of a Polish dance ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various |
