"Competent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... observing that I believe myself at present competent to edit any book in Mandchou, if that be what is wanted, and beg leave to remain, dear Sir, ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... answered Lady Isabel, in perhaps the most displeased tone she had ever used to Miss Carlyle. "I am a competent judge of what is necessary ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... "is amiable, though unfortunate. But your merit is too great not to deserve to be informed. Knowledge, my lovely maiden, is always regarded as a desirable acquisition by the prudent and the judicious. To what purpose was a mind so capacious, competent to the greatest improvements, and formed to comprehend subjects of the most extensive compass, or the sublimest reach, bestowed upon us, if it be not employed in the pursuits of science and experience? ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... simple and easy reasonings by means of which geometers are accustomed to reach the conclusions of their most difficult demonstrations, had led me to imagine that all things to the knowledge of which man is competent are mutually connected in the same way, and that there is nothing so far removed from us as to be beyond our reach, or so hidden that we cannot discover it, provided only we abstain from accepting the false for the true, and always preserve in our thoughts ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... influence upon the literature of the day as Potgieter and Bakhuizen did forty years before. The columns of the Nieuwe Gids were only opened to the very best of Dutch authors, and any works not coming up to the editors' high ideas of literary excellence were unmercifully 'slated' by these competent critics. Independence was the prominent characteristic of the authors of the period. They shook themselves free from the old thoughts and similes, and created new paths, in which their minds found freer expression. The new thoughts demanded new words, hence came about the practice of word-combination, ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... generous-minded friend, who had his interest deeply at heart. All his views in regard to business were freely communicated; and he rested upon the suggestions of Dalton with the confidence of one who believed that he had met a friend, not only fully competent to advise aright, but thoroughly unselfish in ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur
... fallen into a business which required no up-building, being already in its stride, most successful, he left a good many of the details to his compradore, and bragged about him a good deal, saying that indeed he had inherited from his uncle a most wonderful and competent man of affairs. Therefore he was greatly astonished one day, about two years after his accession, when Li asked for ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... woman make her will without her husband's consent in writing, it is of no use. It is as just and proper that a woman should dispose of her own property to her own satisfaction as that a man should dispose of his. In many cases she is as competent, and sadly to be pitied if not in many cases more so. And even with her husband's consent she can not bequeath to him her real estate. She can sell it with his consent, but the deeds must pass and be recorded, and then, if the husband ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... insuppressible active temperaments who have a word for every emergency, and who carry the controlled force of ten men at their disposal, are the fruits of this same spirit. Emerson knew not tears, but he and the hundred other beaming and competent characters which New England has produced make us almost envy their state. They give us again the ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... prospects of promotion. I soon found that he thoroughly understood my music, which, he assured me, gave him the only pleasure he had in his hard life. As regards his power of poetical composition, I could only gather from Gasperini and other competent judges that he could, at any rate, turn out very good verse. I had already thought of him as a translator for Tannhauser, and now that the only obstacle to his doing the work, his ignorance of the German language, was removed by Lindau's ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... science had made her industries perhaps the most competent industries in the world, and the label, "Made in Germany," was a guarantee of good workmanship and of sound material. She had access to all the markets of the world, and every other man who traded in those markets feared Germany because ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... Geraldine protested. (She seemed so young and interesting and bright and precious, and so competent, as she sat there, behind the teapot, between her mature visitors in their black and their grey: this was what Henry thought.) 'No, Aunt Annie; I ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... course Mrs. Anson "passed away"—no one died in the Anson vocabulary—and Paulina became more than ever the foremost figure of the commemorative group. Laura and Phoebe, content to leave their father's glory in more competent hands, placidly lapsed into needlework and fiction, and their niece stepped into immediate prominence as the chief "authority" on the great man. Historians who were "getting up" the period wrote to consult her and ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... himself a high place in contemporary letters, but it is more probable that that place is due rather to the excellence and individuality of his writing than to the originality of the opinions he holds. It may be said, indeed, of Mr. G. K. Chesterton, as an exceedingly competent critic has said of Mr. Shaw, that it is his manner of expressing his philosophy rather than his philosophy itself that will be valued by posterity. And as Mr. Shaw has expressed most of his views in his plays and prefaces rather ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... further transpired, the feeling uppermost with the people was unbounded derision at that impotent fiasco, and a loathing contempt for the cowering Johannesburg rabble who betrayed and sacrificed the insensate doctor. It was loudly asserted that the combined forces of the two Republics were competent to resist an invasion a hundred times stronger than the one so foolishly attempted; but, with cooler counsels, it was resolved to adopt the appealing attitude of the deeply injured party who miraculously and providentially ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... importance, considerable numbers having been gathered by the crew of the Dolphin at their leisure time, the aggregate value of which, I am told, is between 500 and 600 pounds; besides pearls, one of which has been valued by competent persons at 25 pounds. The limits of the bed are as yet undefined, but there is good reason to believe, from the position of it, that with proper apparatus ships could ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... commerce with the Indians living within our boundaries without being subject to any control from our government. In vain is it said that if that clause had not been inserted we would have found it to our interest to effect it by our own laws. Of this we are alone competent judges; if that condition is harmless at present it is not possible to foresee whether, under future circumstances, it will not prove highly injurious; and whether harmless or not, it is not less a permanent and new condition imposed upon us. But the fact is, that by the introduction ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... difference is well illustrated by Esperanto. The whole foundation of the language, vocabulary, grammar, and everything else, is contained in one small book of a few pages, called Fundamento de Esperanto. No change can be made in this except by a competent elected international authority. Of course, no text-books or grammars will be authorized for the use of any nation that are not in accordance with the Fundamento. People will make mistakes, of course, just as they make mistakes in any foreign ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... and laboured and learned disquisitions, would have defeated the very object of her lively sketches, which was to make them, not only faithful and exact, but popular. Of her success in this design, the following testimony from a competent authority, the Calcutta Literary Gazette, is distinct and decisive; and with this extract we may fitly close our melancholy office: "Nothing can be more minute and faithful than her pictures of external life and manners. She does not, indeed, go much beneath the surface, nor does she take ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... coming Easter. Such a convocation—neither convened in a place of safe access, nor consisting of the proper persons to represent Christendom, nor under free conditions[1004]—could not be recognized by the Huguenots of France as a competent tribunal to act in the final adjudication of their cause. They must refuse to appear either at Trent or at the assembly of French prelates, to be held as a preliminary to their proceeding to the universal council, in accordance with the resolutions of ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... went up and down the stairs sodden with scrub water which never by any possible chance left them scrubbed, nobody spoke to him. Nobody in the street saw him walking to and fro in his young loneliness. There were men passing there with faces like Mr. Dassonville's, keen and competent, and lovely ladies in soft becoming wraps and bright winged hats—such hats! Peter would like to have hailed some of these as one immeasurably behind but still in the way, seized of that precious inward quality which manifests itself in ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... I looked at his sturdy form and intelligent face, which impressed me so favourably that I sent his name to the Secretary, and the next day he was at work as a twelve-hundred-dollar clerk. I was not mistaken. He was an excellent clerk, competent, faithful, willing. ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... facts, Haeckel, for instance, in his "Natural History of Creation" and in his "Anthropogeny," represents by engravings the embryos of different vertebrates and also of man; representations which—although, according to the judgment of competent scientists, unfortunately not exact, but modified, after the manner of stencil plates, in favor of {79} greater similarity—yet make it quite clear that the similarity of the different embryos must ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... Africa Company to dig and scrape in the ancient buildings of the country for gold or whatever else of value may be there discoverable, an enterprise which, though it may accelerate the progress of archaeological inquiry, obviously requires to be conducted with great care and by competent persons. So far as I could observe, all due care was being used by the gentleman in charge of the work at Dhlodhlo; but considering how easy it is to obliterate the distinctive features of a ruin and leave it in a condition unfavourable to future examination, it seems desirable that the company ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... extremely fortunate that the fine subject indicated in the title should have fallen into such competent hands."—Pittsburgh Chronicle-Telegraph. ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... island by establishing a friendly correspondence with the native princes, the viceroy Don Jerome de Azevedo sent thither, in 1613, a caravel from Goa commanded by Paul Rodrigues de Costa, accompanied by two Jesuits, some interpreters, and a competent number of soldiers. This island is about 260 leagues in length and 600 in circumference[1], its greatest extent being from N.N.E. to S.S.W. It is 80 leagues from E. to W. where widest, but considerably ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... been done that could not be undone, since Homo sapiens cannot ever be competent to guide and ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... question, obviously, was put in such a manner that it provided the answer in advance. Besides, had the people been allowed to reply in all liberty, their response was in any case not of much value since France was scarcely more competent than I was; the combined ignorance of ten millions is not the equivalent of one man's wisdom. A people may be consulted and, in an extreme case, may declare what form of government it would like best, but not that which it most needs. Nothing but ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... have a very odd way of dealing with people. If I, the Professor, will only give in to the Muggletonian doctrine, there shall be no question through all that persuasion that I am competent to judge of that doctrine; nay, I shall be quoted as evidence of its truth, while I live, and cited, after I am dead, as testimony in its behalf. But if I utter any ever so slight Anti-Muggletonian sentiment, then I become incompetent to form any ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Arabic who reads "THE NIGHTS" with this version, will not only be competent to join in any conversation, to peruse the popular books and newspapers, and to write letters to his friends, he will also find in the notes a repertoire of those Arabian Manners and Customs, Beliefs and Practices, which are not ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... from those who are competent to judge; and if Martin Hess praises it to you, that may give you the more confidence. You might also inquire from some of your friends who have seen it; they will tell you how it is done. And if you do not like the picture when you see it, I will keep ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... members into this illustrious society. In this Chamber of Fame there are to be three tables, but of different lengths; the first is to contain exactly twelve persons; the second, twenty; the third, an hundred. This is reckoned to be the full number of those who have any competent share of fame. At the first of these tables are to be placed in their order the twelve most famous persons in the world, not with regard to the things they are famous for, but according to the degree of their fame, whether ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... assured and know, in regard to the mode of redress of the country, we are only children, and Their High Mightinesses are entirely competent, we nevertheless pray that they overlook our presumption and pardon us if we make some suggestions according to our slight understanding thereof, in addition to what we have considered necessary in our petition to ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... which, as we know from the Letters, Mr Arnold prided himself. Yet the handling of the piece seems to me prolix and uncertain, and the drift either very obscure or somewhat unimportant. But about the Shakespeare sonnet which follows there can be no controversy among the competent. "Almost adequate" is in such a case the highest praise; and it must ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... call for the evening, Mr. R. B. Sheridan, with delicacy, but much earnestness, expressed his fear that the nurse in attendance on his father, might not be so competent as myself to the requisite attentions, and his hope that I would consent to remain in the room for a few of the first hours of the night; as he himself, having been travelling the preceding night, required some short repose. I complied with his request, and remained at the father's bed-side ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... excursion of an indefinite nature, which led her from my sight. Thus, the others making off to cards indoors and what not, I was left to the perusal of the eighteenth century facade of the chateau, one of the most competent restorations in that part of France, and of the liveliest interest to the student or ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... step toward salvation, it had removed him to a greater distance from God than any Gentile, and cast him into a deeper condemnation. How, then, could it profit the Gentiles to be placed in this position? In obtaining the righteousness in which he was now rejoicing he had done nothing which was not competent to any human being. ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... upon. This was soon to make a great alteration in the situation of my affairs, a presage of which I could read in the melancholy countenance of my young hostess. She endeavoured to express herself in very earnest terms to me, but I had not yet acquired a competent knowledge of the Indian ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... about them the possessions which, by the fact of ownership, have become almost a part of their personality. Sundered from her belongings, no woman is tranquil, her heart is not truly at ease, however her mind may function, so that under the broad sky or in the house of another she is not the competent, precise individual which she becomes when she sees again her household in order and her domestic requirements at ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... Ancient Empire especially those found at Saqqarah. The work of M. Edouard Naville on the Per-em-hru lately published, although it refers more especially to the Theban period, is of great value in this investigation, and when it has been translated into a modern language by a thoroughly competent scholar, will be a key to open many of the now hidden but elevated ideas in the religious philosophy ...
— Scarabs • Isaac Myer
... greater part of his life, but they brought him comparatively small recognition and many disappointments. His happiest associations were literary, his pleasantest acquaintanceships those which arose through his fame as the author of one book. The story of his life is one of honest and competent effort, of sincere purpose, of many thwarted hopes. The traditions of his family forced him into a profession for which he was intellectually but not temperamentally fitted: he should have been a scholar, teacher, and author; instead ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... for the College have been secured in the heart of Mayfair and a competent staff of instructors has already been appointed, who, with the aid of gramophones, will be able to train the students to perfection in the requisite command of the most explosive gutturals, labials and sibilants. Doctor Prtnkeivitchsvtnshchitzky will be the director of the College; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 11, 1920 • Various
... always admired Smith. He is not only competent in practical affairs. He has nerve and coolness of a very high order. He found himself in a difficult position when Donovan's bell sounded. He knew that the King had landed, knew that he was with Donovan and Gorman on the balcony. In Smith's ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... little opportunity for active external supervision, it has been deemed necessary to select for heads of the staffs, officers particularly qualified to assist the commander in devising strategical plans, organizing, and moving troops, etc.; competent to oversee and direct the proceedings of the various staff departments; untrammelled with any exclusive routine of duty, and able in any emergency, when the commander may be absent, to give necessary orders. For these reasons, although the innovation has not been sanctioned ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... more serious in my life. Suppose I tell you I think of her all the time?" He looked at her keenly, then broke into a laugh as he read her delight in the speech. "Don't you think I am competent to attend to my own affairs, even if Louise Caldwell is the soft and unsophisticated creature you would make her? I am glad you did not feel it necessary to caution me about her husband?" His eyes ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... prepared and printed a small pamphlet entitled Practical Principles of Medical Electricity, designed more particularly, as the present work also is, as a Hand-Book to assist the memory of those who have taken a regular course of LECTURES from himself, or from some other competent instructor in the same general system of Practice. The edition of that work was exhausted somewhat more than a year ago. Still, the book has continued to be frequently called for. The author has, therefore, prepared, and now offers to the Profession, the ...
— A Newly Discovered System of Electrical Medication • Daniel Clark
... passed, still in secret session:—"Resolved, that the Senators of this State in the Congress of the United States be instructed, and the Representatives be requested, to use their best efforts for the obtaining from the General Government a competent portion of territory in the State of Louisiana, to be appropriated to the residence of such people of color as have been or shall be emancipated, or hereafter may become dangerous to the public safety," etc. But of all these ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... be asked, was the claim of Augustenburg valid? No positive answer can be given, for it has never been tried by a competent court of law. It may, however, I think, be said that although there were objections, which might invalidate his right to at least a part of the Duchies, it is almost certain that a quite impartial ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... be felt by those who think with me upon this occasion that I have been writing on behalf of a social condition which no one who is competent to judge of it will be willing to subvert, and that I have been endeavouring to support moral sentiments and intellectual pleasures of a high order against an enmity which seems growing more and more formidable every ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... with a sharpness that queerly chilled her blood, that Jack was abdicating the lover's role more decisively than even before. Verbal definiteness left hazes of possibility compared to this dreadfully competent reticence. It was more than evasion, more than reticence, more than abdication that she felt in Jack; it was a deep hostility, it was the steady burning of that flame that she had seen in his eye that morning ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... dissertations, and wanted only to hear what the candidates were prepared to do for elementary education, sanitation, schools, roads, etc. So the Bengal elections too resulted in the return, often by relatively large bodies of voters, of members pledged and competent to co-operate with Government. The Khilafat agitation, accompanied in Bengal as everywhere else by aggressive religious intimidation, affected the polling in some of the Mahomedan constituencies. But during ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... title of one of Thackeray's novels, deemed by the most competent critics his best, and the name of its hero, a chivalrous cavalier of the time of Queen Anne. "Esmond" is pronounced by Prof. Saintsbury to be "among the very summits of English prose fiction, exquisitely written in a marvellous ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... that it might be a graceful act on his part to mention the old Doctor's daughter, who had gone in for nursing as a profession. She had already served nearly a year in a great London hospital, and was no doubt competent to undertake the duties required. It would be a compliment to her and her father to try and get her for the occasion, and there would be a certain eclat in her coming to the help of her native town in its need. Dr. ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... some thirty families, was encamped out of town resting and fitting up for the renewal of the march, and he had come into Leavenworth to secure a competent guide, the one who had been acting as such having been taken ...
— Beadle's Boy's Library of Sport, Story and Adventure, Vol. I, No. 1. - Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boyhood to Manhood • Prentiss Ingraham
... original idea undoubtedly pertains to Mr. Coleridge, whose poem has been composed above fourteen years. Let me conclude by a hope that he will not longer delay the publication of a production, of which I can only add my mite of approbation to the applause of far more competent judges. ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... granted, you will be prepared with a sure and competent agent who will give effect to the decree of the Council; failing such a one, the duty will devolve on ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... gone. Whether those responsible for the complete demolition of the ancient structure when it threatened to fall and become a heap of ruins were right or wrong in their decision is a technical question on which very few persons are now competent to give an opinion. The plan of the church is a Greek cross, and, like St. Mark's and St. Sophia's, it has five domes; but the building has, nevertheless, a feature of its own which makes it one of the most original of churches. ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... interests were nearly all educational. Even here, he held himself in reserve—placed in more competent hands the power they could wield better than he. Still, he was personally known and gratefully regarded by many young men and women who were struggling—as he once had struggled—for what to them was dearer ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... gaining more. Scotland is now called upon to rally in defence of the sources of her national improvement, and the means of increasing it; upon which, as none are so much concerned in the subject, none can be such competent judges ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... "very few"], which is in the said brief, signified no more than two or three; and that the words inepti ad administrationem populorum [i.e., "not fit for the charge of those peoples"] meant unfitness of the intellect; and they endeavored to prove that they were competent and capable for the offices that the province had. The religious of Espana opposed this, evidence, saying that such was not the signification of those words; for paucisimi was understood with respect to the offices, and inepti ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... never raised heartier laughter than in an action some years ago where the issue was whether the plaintiff, who had been engaged by the defendant to sing in "potted opera" at a music-hall, was competent to ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... to counties and great unrepresented towns. All these motions were defeated by larger or smaller majorities, but no one doubted that parliamentary reform was inevitable, and few can have imagined that Wellington was either willing or competent to ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... enunciation, his voice was sonorous and manly, and his gesture noble, and full of dignity. —D. Silanus, another of my cotemporaries, and your father-in-law, was not a man of much application, but he had a very competent share of discernment, and elocution.—Q. Pompeius, the son of Aulus, who had the title of Bithynicus, and was about two years older than myself, was, to my own knowledge, remarkably fond of the study of Eloquence, had an uncommon stock of learning, ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... circumstances which fall entirely within the scale of rational possibility, and draw for no more than an ordinary and indifferent testimony of history, to command the mind's assent. The mere relation of any historian, living near enough to the time supposed to guarantee the probability of his competent information on the subject, would have been entitled to our acquiescence. We could have no reason to deny or to doubt what such an historian could have had no motive to feign or to exaggerate. The proof, even ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... expression of faith of a discredited 'Christian-Gnostic' sect, the essential groundwork upon which it is elaborated belongs to a period anterior to Christianity, and that the Ode in honour of Attis quoted above not only forms part of the original source, but is, in the opinion of competent critics, earlier ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... before he begins with the law, he will be able to make better progress in one week, than he could now, without a miracle, in six. Early and short clerkships, and a premature rushing into practice, without a competent knowledge in the theory of law, have blasted the hopes, and ruined the expectations, formed by the parents of most of the students in the profession, who have fallen within my observation for these ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... public attention: if, however, they are so intruded, the persons affected by them have a right to refute injurious charges. Mr. Moore has promulgated his own impressions of private events in which I was most nearly concerned, as if he possessed a competent knowledge of the subject. Having survived Lord Byron, I feel increased reluctance to advert to any circumstances connected with the period of my marriage; nor is it now my intention to disclose them, further than may be indispensably ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... formation of the second Coalition Government—and the third—is again tactfully presented. It would be unreasonable to suppose that all of Mr. SPENDER'S verdicts and estimates will be unchallenged by historians. But it is unlikely that the PREMIER will find a more competent hagiographer. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various
... and his wife were sad, though it was Christmas Eve. Sad, though they were in the prime of life, blessed with good health, devoted to each other and to their children, with competent means, a comfortable house on a little freehold property of their own, and, one might say, everything that heart could desire. Sad, though they were good people, whose peace of mind had a firmer foundation than their earthly goods alone; contented people, too, ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... is almost certain to disappoint on first acquaintance. In fact it may be described as mean and shabby! Other and competent judges have felt the charm of this old Seagate and one—Algernon Charles Swinburne—has immortalized it in his glowing ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... was fat and he was conceited and he had been foolishly lax. But he was a competent commander in the German navy, which means that he was a brave and resourceful man. He allowed his body to relax in the negro's clutch. His foot sought for and found a tiny button below the chess table. He ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... thorough-going Americans not to abdicate before the young. They did not saunter self-consciously away and make any opportunity for Jack and Jinny, as sympathetic European chaperons might have done; they sat matter-of-factedly upon the rocks while their competent young people betook themselves to ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... intimately with them; and unhappily, up to the present time, all the books which have been published concerning them have been written by those who have introduced themselves into their society for a few hours, and from what they have seen or heard consider themselves competent to give the world an idea of the manners and customs of the mysterious Rommany: thus, because they have been known to beg the carcass of a hog which they themselves have poisoned, it has been asserted that they prefer carrion which has perished of sickness to ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... much as eight ordinary octavos. It was first published in another shape by Mr. Charles Knight, under the title of Political Dictionary, at L1 16s. The Compiler, MR. GEORGE LONG, is one of the most competent ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... they occur in the Apology. But in this connexion the question is not what was said or not said at Socrates's trial. The decisive point is that we possess two quite independent and unambiguous depositions by two fully competent witnesses of the beginning of the fourth century which both treat of the charge of atheism as something which is neither strange nor surprising at their time. It is therefore permissible to conclude that in Athens at ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... produced a work as carefully executed as it is original in its character; one which can only be exceeded in interest by the Musical Illustrations of Shakspeare's Plays, which we are glad to see promised from the same competent authority. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 64, January 18, 1851 • Various
... reasons which 'induce the Government to believe in the necessity of the measure.' Mr. O'Connell and his followers had already announced their intention of opposing the first reading of the bill, an allowable but very unusual course. It is competent to the House of Commons to refuse a first reading to any bill sent down to it; but the journals afford few examples of the exercise of such a privilege. A member of the House of Lords may lay on the table, as a matter ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... perseverance and energy of Captain Cook that, although his education had been so defective that he only began to study Euclid and Astronomy at the age of thirty-one, he was nevertheless competent to conduct, without the aid of a scientific man, the astronomical ...
— The Cannibal Islands - Captain Cook's Adventure in the South Seas • R.M. Ballantyne
... the success or failure of Cowan Bridge School; and the working of it was for many years the great object and interest of his life. But he was apparently unacquainted with the prime element in good administration—seeking out thoroughly competent persons to fill each department, and then making them responsible for, and judging them by, the result, without ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... feel quite competent to manage the bread question. We'll call that settled then. When I next cast an appraising eye over my beloved valley, I shan't select the choicest spot in it for Peter Morrison to write a book in; and I want to warn you people when ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... diversion was found in my future brother-in-law, William Adolphus, of Alt-Gronenstahl. He was, in himself, a thoroughly heavy fellow, although admirably good-natured and, I believe, a practical and competent soldier. He was tall, dark, and even at this time inclining to stoutness; he became afterward exceedingly corpulent. He did not at first promise amusement, but a rather malicious humour found much in him, owing to the circumstance that the poor fellow was acquainted with the negotiations touching ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... definite thing he does suggest is that, as the process of natural evolution goes on, men will be competent to decide what they want; and if they do not want any particular thing, they will not have it. This is all very harmless; but it is so commonplace a truism that it is hardly worth while to get ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... maturer scholars, as bringing together much scattered information illustrative of the Academica, which was before difficult of access. The present work will, I hope, prepare the way for an exhaustive edition either from my own or some more competent hand. It must be regarded as an experiment, for no English scholar of recent times has treated any portion of Cicero's philosophical works with quite the purpose which I have kept in view and have explained above. Should this attempt meet ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... changed, and Joel was no longer the diffident youth, but a man, competent and energetic. He took the direction of every thing; nothing was overlooked. Of course the relatives were sent for. It was the old story: they had paid great respect to their rich cousin, but they did not seem to care much for the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... before observed, at Sulzburgh in Germany, in the Hospital of St. Stephen's in 1541: and that his death was chiefly occasioned by the singular and desolate mode of life, which he had for a long time pursued. When a competent knowledge of the economy of the human frame is wanting, to enable a man to discriminate between internal and external causes and effects, it will be impossible to ascertain, or to counteract, the different causes by which our health is deranged. ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... that the Jewish colony of the Russian metropolis, consisting of big merchants and university graduates, who, by virtue of the laws of 1859 and 1861, enjoyed the right of residence outside the Pale, did not yet contain a sufficient number of competent public workers. For during the first decade of the Society its Executive Committee included, apart from its Jewish founders—Baron Guenzburg, Leon Rosenthal, Rabbi Neuman—, two apostates, Professor Daniel Chwolson and the ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... transportation and the long delays in completing the evacuations should not be charged to actual hospital days. Again it was necessary, under the conditions and owing to the fact that the hospital was dependent upon patients for its existence, that men be selected who were competent to have charge of certain work. A most efficient mess sergeant and competent cooks were selected. The men to have charge of the heating system and boilers were chosen. Good interpreters were held. And many cases in which a competent man entered ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... as an economic power, China has a lead in the absorption of technology, the rising prominence in world trade, and the alleviation of poverty; India has one important advantage in its relative mastery of the English language, but the number of competent Chinese English-speakers ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... impartiall judge of such an action; so would I wish to speake to such as had tried what I speake of: but knowing how far such an amitie is from the common use, and how seld scene and rarely found, I looke not to finde a competent judge. For, even the discourses, which sterne antiquitie hath left us concerning this subject, seeme to me but faint and forcelesse in respect of the feeling I have of it; And in that point the effects exceed the very ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... The school of life embodies a compulsory education that no man escapes. If politics, then, be in the main a conflict of material interests broadly affecting masses of men, the people, both individually and as a body, may well be more competent to deal with the matter in hand intelligently than those who, though highly educated, are usually somewhat removed from the pressure of things, and feel results and also conditions, even widely prevalent, ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... When the ethnologist has acquired a competent knowledge of his facts, and deduced from them a clear conception of the mental states of the peoples he is studying, he has not finished his labors. Institutions and arts in some degree reflect the mental conditions of a people, in some degree bring them about; but the underlying source ...
— An Ethnologist's View of History • Daniel G. Brinton
... canton, as a rule, within thirty days after the enactment of the measure upon which it is proposed that a vote be taken. The number of signers required to make the petition effective varies from 500 in Zug to 6,000 in St. Gall. Likewise, the proportion of voters which is competent to reject a measure is variable. In some cantons a majority of all enfranchised citizens is required; in others, a simple majority of those actually voting upon the proposition in hand. In the event of popular rejection of a measure which the cantonal legislature ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... as it would have been beyond anybody's patience, that had not a strong motive to back it. They never discovered that Mr. Carleton was in a hurry, as indeed he was not. They bargained for fruit with any number of people, upon all sorts of inducements, and to an extent of which they had no competent notion; but Hugh had his mother's purse, and Fleda was skilfully commissioned to purchase what she pleased for Mrs. Carleton. Verily the two children that morning bought pleasure, not peaches. Fancy and Benevolence held the purse-strings, and Economy did ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... on the Arles type of a very competent judge perfectly acquainted with the whole of Provence:—"It can be affirmed without contradiction that Greek beauty exists at Arles, and exists only among the women. The men are clumsy, small and vulgar, rude in form and rough in vocal intonation. The women, on the contrary, ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... shall survive and supplant the variations, is a matter which depends entirely on those conditions which give rise to the struggle for existence. If the surrounding conditions are such that the parent form is more competent to deal with them and flourish in them, than the derived forms, then, in the struggle for existence, the parent form will maintain itself and the derived forms will be exterminated. But if, on the contrary, the conditions ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley
... which have passed between Mr. Hickman and myself, I have determined that he shall no longer act in the capacity of my agent. The situation is therefore open, and, until a competent person shall be appointed, I authorize you to discharge its duties, and receive from him a correct statement of all accounts between us, together with all deeds, leases, books, papers, &c, in his possession; you first having procured me adequate security, the amount of which will be ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... major topic of the evening was then taken up. Inasmuch as it is our intention, and we believe that of the Society, to reproduce faithfully in pamphlet form the graphic, interesting and detailed word-pictures of the ever memorable events of the 31st December, 1775, as given by the learned and competent gentlemen who addressed the meeting, it suffices to say in the present brief notice of the proceedings that Colonel Strange exhaustively treated that portion which referred to the attack and defence at Pres-de-Ville—the place in the vicinity of which now stands the extensive wharves of ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... and if we do not keep the Sabbath we do not love God. Jesus says, "If ye love me keep my commandments." We are repeatedly told that the Sabbath was changed or forever abolished, at the crucifixion of our Lord; and it is stated by the most competent authorities that John wrote this epistle about sixty years afterwards, and that about six years after this our blessed Lord revealed to him the state of the Church down to the judgment of the great day. In the xiv ch. Rev. 6-11, he saw ...
— The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign - 1847 edition • Joseph Bates
... hand fell in his. He looked down at the small, firm, sunbrowned fist. That hand was, as Browning has written, a woman in itself, but it was a woman competent, unafraid, trained hard as nails. She would go through with whatever ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... and furnish him with means for their vindication." Of the introduction of this measure, he said it would be done "in view of the adoption of the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. I have never doubted that, on the adoption of that amendment, it would be competent for Congress to protect every person in the United States in all the rights of person and property belonging to a free citizen; and to secure these rights is the object of the bill which I propose to introduce. I think it important that action should ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... larger than I remembered, when I went through it to-day," went on Roberts again. "It'll take considerable help to keep it up and some one will have to be about constantly to direct. I have the help in mind right now, competent too—I meet a lot of people in various ways and I've had the thing on my mind; but the supervision—it's simply out of the question with me at the present." He faced the other, looked at him straight. "Would you and Mrs. Randall ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... of the laws governing the effective interpretation of instrumental music exist. Some of them, by acknowledged and competent authorities, have thrown valuable light on a most important element of musical art. Had I not believed that a similar need existed in connection with singing, this addition to vocal literature would not have ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... to present their compliments, and to say that they could not think of charging for any additional risk at all; feeling convinced that I would place the gas (which they considered to be the only danger) under the charge of one competent man. I then explained to him how carefully and systematically that was all arranged, and we parted with drums beating and colours flying on ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... child ever born. There were moments when this fact appeared to her more vividly than at others. One had been the other night when Kerr's eyes had looked through and through her; and here she was again, when she was going to a girls' luncheon, and most wanted to feel competent, stared out of countenance by the wonderful eye ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... at his word. The Morwick section of the American nation organized itself on the spot. The sovereign people met in committee, made speeches, elected competent persons to represent the public interests, and began the search the next day. The whole proceeding, ridiculously informal from a legal point of view, was carried on by these extraordinary people with as stern and strict a sense of duty as if ...
— The Dead Alive • Wilkie Collins
... interpose again. He protested that the printed advertisement was sufficient notice to the defendant, whenever it came to her knowledge, or even if it never came to her knowledge, and that her plea of failure to receive it in time was not a competent excuse. This might be alleged in any case, and any delay of travel might be brought forward to account for non-appearance as plausibly as this trumped-up accident in which nobody was hurt. He did his best, which was also his worst, and the ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... made it a misdemeanor for a married man to make an offer of marriage. The laws for support of wife and children continue, and there were laws passed giving alimony to the wife, even in case the divorce were for her fault. One State made both husband and wife competent witnesses against each other in either civil or criminal cases. One found it necessary to declare that a woman might practise medicine, and another that she might be a guardian; the statute in both cases would seem to have been unnecessary. Two States ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... and another between the second and first, which also had a door that opened upon the passage. Rinkitink's room was the largest, so it was here that an excellent dinner was spread by some of the nome servants, who, in spite of their crooked shapes, proved to be well trained and competent. ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... on the part of Victor Emmanuel, the disbandment of the foreign troops which the Papal Government had got together under the command of General Lamoriciere. The demand was refused. This refusal the Papal Government was quite competent to give, but whether its policy in upholding its temporal power by the aid of foreign mercenaries was wise or not was another matter. It was hardly to be expected that Italians, any more than Frenchmen, Germans, or English, would endure such a state of things if they could prevent ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... coaches again till dinner; and after dinner reads in his rooms till midnight. He seems to have perfect bodily health and vigour, and he has never been known to neglect or to defer anything that he undertakes. In fact, he is a perfectly useful, competent, admirable man. ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... idea came to Paul. He had long intended to obtain a teacher of drawing for Jimmy. It would be a charity to employ this poor artist if he were competent. ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... I should have known they'd get somebody like you in to sell the collection for them. Humphrey Goode isn't competent to handle that. What we were all afraid of was a ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... sales, grants, and exchanges of the crown lands was to be looked into; the impropriation of benefices was to cease, and decency to be restored to the parish churches, where the grooms and gamekeepers should give way to competent ministers; economy, order, justice, and reverence were to heal the canker of profligate profanity which had eaten too long into the moral life ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... they would go down like nine-pins, provided only that our men could be trained to charge in any kind of line, and we made up our minds to devote our time to this. Dismounted work with the rifle we already felt thoroughly competent to perform. ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... general rule. There is some favourite maid or phoenix of a footman in each family, who is supposed to be unlike all other servants, and, therefore, qualified for the education of children. But, if their qualifications were scrupulously examined, it is to be feared they would not be found competent to the trust that is reposed in them. They may, nevertheless, be excellent servants, much attached to their masters and mistresses, and sincerely desirous to obey their orders in the management of their pupils; but this is not sufficient. ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... pressure against them of which we have any knowledge was from the Iroquois of the north. This testimony is further strengthened by the linguistic evidence, as it has been ascertained that the language of this tribe belongs to the Iroquoian stock. Mr. Horatio Hale, a competent authority on this subject, in an article on Indian migrations published in the American Antiquarian, [Footnote: Am. Antiquarian, vol. 5, 1883, p. 26] ...
— The Problem of Ohio Mounds • Cyrus Thomas
... leave, until he had hold of the refugee. The latter was finally found, and taken from the sacristy, and surrendered to the commander of artillery, in order that he might proceed with the trial as his competent judge; and he, either carried away by flattery, or in obedience to the commands of the governor, proceeded so hastily that in a very short time he ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... in a vault of a church belonging to St. Mary Aldermanbury. He never experienced any of the vicissitudes of fortune, which have been so frequently the portion of his inspired brethren, for a person born in the same county with him, and who owed particular obligations to his family, left him a competent provision: besides, he had always enjoyed good places. He was for some years auditor-general of the city and Bridge accounts, and, to the time of his decease, auditor of the accounts of St. Paul's Cathedral, and St. Thomas's Hospital. Though, in reality, Ozell was a man of very little genius, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... be out of place and even impossible for me, at present to give you any figures relating to the crops and harvests of the North-West. Suffice, to say that for two summers, at Frog Lake, in my husband's district, we raised wheat that was pronounced by competent judges to equal the best that ever ...
— Two months in the camp of Big Bear • Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney
... or injustice in the manner of the attack; but when the Chief Executive Magistrate is, by one of the most important branches of the Government in its official capacity, in a public manner, and by its recorded sentence, but without precedent, competent authority, or just cause, declared guilty of a breach of the laws and Constitution, it is due to his station, to public opinion, and to a proper self-respect that the officer thus denounced should promptly expose the wrong ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... on what would seem to have been the business of a big store-keeper, applied for a right to bear arms towards the century's close, and made certain claims on behalf of ancestors. But the opinion of competent critics is that John Shakespeare was as capable of drawing the long-bow as he was of selling general stores, and that he was closely connected, from a mental standpoint, with the successful tradesmen of our day who, ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... They make ideal house dogs, perhaps more winning and affectionate in their manner than others, never wandering off, and I believe the license fee is the same as for a male. Great care must be taken that the operation is thoroughly performed by a competent veterinary, and it is usually best done when the pup is six months old. My first experience may be of value and interest. I had a little "Buster" bitch that I felt assured to my sorrow was to small to whelp successfully, ...
— The Boston Terrier and All About It - A Practical, Scientific, and Up to Date Guide to the Breeding of the American Dog • Edward Axtell
... as we may call him, was not a man of any conspicuous ability. He belonged to that class of competent, capable, trustworthy Englishmen who discharge satisfactorily the duties of any office to which they are called in the ordinary course of their lives. Such a man as Townshend would have made a respectable Lord Mayor or a satisfactory Chairman ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... astonishment. But Fortune does yet more evidently manifest the share she has in all things of this kind, by the graces and elegances we find in them, not only beyond the intention, but even without the knowledge of the workman: a competent reader often discovers in other men's writings other perfections than the author himself either intended or perceived, a richer sense and more ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... to advise with Mrs. Brook"—Mitchy undertook to complete her question—"as to the highest use to make of it? But see," he immediately added, "how perfectly competent to instruct her our friend now looks." Their hostess had advanced to Lady Fanny with an outstretched hand but with an eagerness of greeting merged a little in the sweet predominance of wonder as well as in the habit, at such moments most perceptible, of the languid ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... because, though I have not given Mr. Powell the least encouragement to do so, he may sound you as to your disposition to undertake the publication. I have myself nothing further to do with it than I have stated. Had the thing been suggested to me by any number of competent persons twenty years ago, I would have undertaken the editorship and done much more myself, and endeavoured to improve the several contributions where they seemed to require it. But that is now out ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... Although it belongs to those alone who are in authority to direct and judge other men, yet every man is competent to direct and judge his own actions, as Dionysius ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... expansive moods, he already begins to totter, at seven years of age, in sour, decrepit eld. To pounce upon him at the psychological moment, to discover in whose cool and cobwebby cellar he is dreaming out his golden summer of manhood—that is what a foreigner can never, never hope to achieve, without competent local aid. ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... valuable property may be destroyed by placing incompetent men in such places. Wagon-masters, it seems to me, should not be allowed, under any circumstances, to have or take charge of a train of animals of any kind until they are thoroughly competent to handle, harness, and drive ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley
... HISTORY of BRITAIN, from the earliest period. Vol. I, extending to the Norman Conquest. "Sir Robert Inglis remarked, that this work had been pronounced, by one of our most competent collegiate authorities, to be the finest work published in Europe."—Proceedings ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 26. Saturday, April 27, 1850 • Various
... the country has many pleasant features peculiar to itself. Chief among these is its lack of formality, and city guests are always pleasurably entertained at the country dinner table. A good cook and a competent waitress ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke |
