"Competent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the chain of circumstances to establish the guilt of the accused, must be distinctly proved by competent legal evidence, and if the jury have reasonable doubt as to any material fact, necessary to be proved in order to support the hypothesis of the prisoner's guilt, to the exclusion of every other reasonable hypothesis, they ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... it is not going well. There are too many parts which I do not know by sight. If I were a more competent electronicist I would have had the parts assembled now and would be sending a beacon signal clear across this sector. The pressure hasn't been any help. It doesn't get greater, but it has become more insisting—more demanding. I seem to feel that it wants something, that its direction has become ...
— The Issahar Artifacts • Jesse Franklin Bone
... intention to attempt any scientific or technical review of the works which a very natural curiosity tempted me to examine; partly because I confess myself little competent to the task and partly because, were the contrary the case, I am inclined to believe that such a review would not prove very interesting to the public in general. Enough is done if I endeavour to impress my reader with as many of the feelings which I ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... of Milton's method of teaching from any competent pupil. Edward Phillips was an amiable and upright man, who earned his living respectably by tuition and the compilation of books. He held his uncle's memory in great veneration. But when he comes to describe the education he received at his uncle's hands, the only characteristic on which he dwells ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... library was not founded until 1627, its history cannot be traced before that year, [Footnote: Der Italicum von D. Friedrich Blume. Band II, 81. Halle, 1827.] Its chirography, however, in the opinion of some competent persons who have examined it, indicates that it was written in the middle of the sixteenth century. There is, therefore, nothing in the history or character of the publication in Ramusio or the manuscript, to ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... During the canvass he met Stephen A. Douglas in debate at Springfield, where he exploded the theory of 'Squatter Sovereignty' in one sentence, namely: "I admit that the emigrant to Kansas and Nebraska is competent to govern himself, but I deny his right to govern any other person without ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... mountain, with long, level or undulating stretches of intermingled woods, grain, grass, &c., &c. I trust the picture I have attempted to give of out-door life in Western Europe, the workers in its fields and the clusters in its streets, will be recognized by competent judges as ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... I have not a cent in the world except what Mrs. Murray gives me. I shall have to make my bread by my own work just as soon as you think me competent to teach; and notwithstanding, she thinks I ought to visit and associate as she does with these people, who tolerate me now, simply because they know that while I am under her roof she will exact it of them. To-night, during the dance, I heard two of her fashionable friends ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... F. Madden "and three years' labor" well invested);—should certainly, and will one day, be read to the bottom, and cleared of their darknesses, extrinsic and intrinsic (which are considerable) by somebody competent.] ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle
... to 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
... art by pursuing a branch of it which he held to be inferior, he still, by conscientious work, by putting the best of himself into it, raised it to a very high plane; for many of his portraits are now held by competent critics to rank high in the annals of art, by some being placed on a level ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... genuine form of Mysticism, and his difficulty would be solved. The natural objects which stirred his emotions would be acknowledged as part and parcel of the ultimate Ground itself, and therefore competent to act, not as substitutes for something else not really present, but in their own right, and of their own sovereign prerogative. Nature, in short, is not a mere stimulus for a roving fancy or teeming imagination: it is a power to be experienced, ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... the contrary, they are for many reasons much less competent, as experience has repeatedly shown. All students of social science know, indeed all close observers know, that those who do the routine work in any vocation seldom form comprehensive views of it, and those who manage the details of a business are very rarely indeed able ...
— If Not Silver, What? • John W. Bookwalter
... to the dignified office which he of all men was most competent to fill. On February 9th, 1720, he was appointed Astronomer Royal in succession to Flamsteed. He found things at the Royal Observatory in a most unsatisfactory state. Indeed, there were no instruments, nor anything ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... into the main highway. Far ahead the red sardonic eye in the rear of the limousine leered as if mocking their hopes of keeping it in sight. Jules, however, proved unresentful; and he was marvellously competent. ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... the best company at the table. What Mr. Gladstone carried away in his memory was a sage lesson of Lyndhurst's, by which the two men of genius at his table were in time to show themselves extremely competent to profit,—'Never defend yourself before a popular assemblage, except with and by retorting the attack; the hearers, in the pleasure which the assault gives them, will forget the previous charge.' As Disraeli himself put it afterwards, ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... not always easy to find a competent authority to perform the ceremony. A justice in McLean County lived by the bank of a river, and his services were sometimes required by impatient lovers on the other bank when the waters were too torrential to cross. In such cases, ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... patriarchal. The head of the family governed the tribe. (b) On the death of the patriarch it was necessary that a successor should be appointed. Sometimes he was the son of the patriarch or his nearest descendant. Sometimes he was chosen by the tribe as the strongest and bravest man and most competent to lead them against their enemies. Often tribes combined for mutual protection. Thus nations were formed, and the government passed from the patriarchal to the monarchical form. The head was called the king, which literally ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... seduction. Conrad, Bishop of Wurzburg, in 1521, accused his priests of habitual "gluttony, drunkenness, gambling, quarrelling, and lust." Erasmus warned his clergy against concubinage. The Abbot of St. Pilazo de Antealtarin was proved by competent witnesses to have no less than seventy concubines. The old and wealthy Abbey of St. Albans was little more than a den of prostitutes, with whom the monks lived openly and avowedly. The Duke of Nuremburg, in 1522, was concerned with the clerical ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... quilt patching, sheet making, or other plain sewing that the good women of Harvey have to give out. I know certain worthy women with families, who need this work. Also wood-sawing orders promptly filled by competent men out of work. I will bring work and the workers together. H. Fenn, care Brotherton Book & Stationery Co., ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... white employes of the Southern mills led the opposition. They objected to seeing the negroes placed on an equality, and it was further argued that once a colored man obtained a standing in the association, there was nothing to prevent his coming North. President Shaffer urged that all men who are competent workers should be members of the association." Now for next year it is up to President Shaffer, and those of like mind! On this question, of comradeship between black and white laborers, there is a call to the leaders of labor organizations to lead right. These ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... doctrine to the pending dispute because it does not embody any principle of international law which "is founded on the general consent of nations," and that "no statesman, however eminent, and no nation, however powerful, are competent to insert into the code of international law a novel principle which was never recognized before and which has not since been accepted by the government of any ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... one you'd rather have to count on, at a pinch, than another, the one you'd swear to for doing the straight thing and holding his tongue about it—then give him five feet eleven and a half inches and blue eyes and you've Roger. This is rather a poor dodge at character drawing: I know a competent author would never throw himself on your ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... was no room for gesticulation or grace in the delivery of his reply, for the mountain was steep and slippery; and, although the Frenchman had an eye of uncommon magnitude on either side of his face, they did not seem to be half competent to forewarn him of the impediments of bushes, twigs, and fallen trees, that were momentarily crossing his path. With one hand employed in averting these dangers, and the other grasping his bridle to check an ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... swells them up to an enormous size, and renders them buoyant. The body of this man was thrown overboard just as decomposition was in progress: the shot made fast to the feet were sufficient to sink it at the time; but in a few hours after were not competent to keep it at the bottom, and it came up to the surface in that perpendicular position which I have described. The current in the bay being at the time either slack or irregular, it floated at the spot whence it had been launched ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... 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 ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... procures; as, in like manner, she who undertakes the cleansing of a careless bachelor's apartment will be liable to more abuse for the dust she raises than commendation for the clearance she effects. Let it not be imagined, however, that I consider myself competent to reform the errors and abuses of society, but only that I would fain contribute my humble quota towards so good an aim; and if I can gain the public ear at all, I would rather whisper a few wholesome truths therein than ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... persuaded of your both being perfectly competent in your art; have the goodness without ado to take the case in hand, and devise some effectual means for the restoration ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... account of the sea-fight of Navarino, it must have been finished after his return to America. The book was hastily written, and hastily published. To judge from appearances it was hurried through the press without being revised either by its author or a competent proofreader; but it is a vigorous, spirited narrative, and the best chronicle of that period in English. Would there were more such histories, even if the writing be not always grammatical. Doctor Howe does not sentimentalize ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... narrate. Poor fellows, they had been so thoroughly accustomed to the rough ways of the roughest of seamen, that I suspect they had lost all taste for a more refined style of life. So I say to my young readers, whatever you do, fix upon a profession, and try to make yourself thoroughly competent to fill it. Do not rest or flag till you have done so; and never for a moment suppose that you will have any permanent ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... comprising those formerly presented by George II., George III., and Mr. Cracherode, is believed to surpass that of any other National Library, except the King's Library at Paris, of which Van Praet justly speaks with pride, and all foreign competent and intelligent judges with envy and admiration. Injustice to the Grenville Library, the list of all its vellum books ought here to be inserted. As this cannot be done, some only of the most remarkable shall be mentioned. These are—the Greek Anthology of 1494; the Book of Hawking, of Juliana Berners, ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... already determined, if the unfortunate heir of Red Hall could be traced, and if his disappearance could, be brought home to the baronet, to take such public or rather legal proceedings as they might be advised to by competent professional advice. Our readers may already guess, however, that the stranger was influenced by motives sufficiently strong and decisive to prevent him, above all men, from appearing, publicly or at all, in any proceedings that might be ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... sitting up and soon to be able to "see her friends,"—with what smiling significance did Mrs. Brent so assure him!—what should Stuyvesant's general do but select Stuyvesant himself to go on a voyage of discovery to Iloilo and beyond. The commanding general wanted a competent officer who spoke Spanish to make a certain line of investigation. He consulted Vinton. Vinton thought another voyage the very thing for Stuyvesant, and ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... La Vie du Grand Conde, written in French, by Lord Mahon, not published, only a hundred copies struck off, and he has honoured me with a present of a copy. Of the style and correctness of the French I am not so presumptuous as to pretend to be a competent judge, but I can say that in reading it I quite forgot it was by an Englishman, and never stopped to consider this or that expression, and I wish, dear Margaret, that you had the satisfaction of reading ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... have any doubts concerning the meaning of a word, or the sense of a sentence, you must not be discouraged, but persevere, either by studying my explanations, or by asking some person competent to inform you, till you obtain a clear conception of it, and till all doubts are removed. By carefully examining, and frequently reviewing, the following lectures, you will soon be able to discern the grammatical construction of our language, and fix in your mind ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... good qualities of the man before him; at a late hour on the night before he held a communication with Don Gregorio, who has recommended him. The haciendado had reported what Crozier said, that Harry Blew was an able seaman, thoroughly trustworthy, and competent to take charge of a ship, either as first or ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... I have said about these two trades can be applied with equal force to the trades followed by women. Take the matter of millinery. There is no good reason why there should not be, in each principal city in the South, at least three or four competent coloured women in charge of millinery establishments. But ...
— The Future of the American Negro • Booker T. Washington
... That experienced sealer sent for his mate, and soon gave him to understand that he was yet his commander. Loose and neighbourly as is usually the discipline of one of these partnership vessels, there is commonly a man on board who is every way competent to assert the authority given him by the laws, as well as by his contract. Macy was sent for, rebuked, and menaced with degradation from his station, should he again presume to violate his orders. As commonly happens in cases of this nature, regrets ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... Lupe struggled back up to the site where Nolan waited. Jil-Lee was there to make competent examination of the ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... faces: and it is no wonder, for they are ourselves, and our affection makes their looks our own. This noble affection falls not on vulgar and common constitutions; but on such as are marked for virtue. He that can love his friend with this noble ardour will in a competent degree effect all. Now, if we can bring our affections to look beyond the body, and cast an eye upon the soul, we have found out the true object, not only of friendship, but charity: and the greatest happi- ness that we can bequeath the ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... Dr. Josiah Royce, in the handsome as well as handy American Commonwealths series, is commonly regarded as the best short history of California ever written, and particularly so as to the early mining era. Dr. Royce knew his state, and a more competent writer could hardly have been selected. Reviewing, in his history, almost everything accessible, worthy of consideration, in connection with mining-camps, it is noteworthy that the Doctor has much to say concerning the Shirley Letters. ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... which I obtained the most exquisite polish and figure for the speculum. Sir John was in the highest degree cognisant of the importance of these details, as contributing to the final excellent result. It was therefore with great pleasure that I could exhibit these practical details before so competent a judge. ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... we can ascertain by diligent inquiry and reading, no competent authority has answered these questions satisfactorily. We have been deluged with generalities and opinions which contradict themselves, but when we search for a categorical answer to a simple question, experts hide under a shower of meaningless phrases. ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... Chicago's "electrical king," was himself president of his father's Lake City Electrical Company. He was good looking, quiet, competent and totally lacking in the bumptiousness that Patience found so offensive in other Chicago youths. Toward him Patience had been compelled to modify her usual attitude of open aversion to mere cold reserve. She did not quite comprehend him and until ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... being so confident that there could be no reasonable fault found with the Prince, he was pronounced competent to enter upon the Monks' service. Peter they knew a great deal about before—indeed a glance at his face was enough to satisfy any one of his goodness; for he did look more like one of the boy angels in the altar-piece than anything else. So after a few questions, ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... do no harm. Often, well-meaning but untrained persons worsen the injury or illness in their attempts to help. Get competent medical assistance, if possible. Do not assume responsibility for a patient if you can get the help of a doctor, nurse, or experienced first-aid worker. But if no one better qualified is ...
— In Time Of Emergency - A Citizen's Handbook On Nuclear Attack, Natural Disasters (1968) • Department of Defense
... for their defense. He asks that, until the affairs of the islands are in better condition, the Audiencia of Manila may be discontinued, as the auditors embarrass and hinder his efforts, and are not competent to fulfil their duties. The religious also make the governor's duties a burden; and their exactions from the Indians prevent the latter from serving the crown. The Dutch know betters how to deal with the natives; they exempt the latter from tributes, personal ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... They are almost all good servants, skilled, competent. But what are they besides? For anything I know my fourth sub-chef may be an agent of some European Government. For anything I know my invaluable Miss Spencer may be in the pay of a court dressmaker or a Frankfort banker. Even Rocco ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... chaplain-general[3] should be to visit the naval posts, and to go on board the Queen's ships, (especially before they are despatched on foreign service,) for the purpose of reporting and advising. He should look out for and recommend competent chaplains,—consult with admirals and captains on the best mode of securing the regular performance of the sacred offices,—make inquiry into the state of the ship-libraries, keep them well supplied with ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... school in the neighborhood, some small and reluctant progress into the mysteries of reading, writing, and arithmetic; whereupon his father took personal charge of the matter, and conducted his further education at home, along with that of other children, being aided in the task by the very competent help of a brother, the Rev. Patrick Henry, rector of St. Paul's parish, in Hanover, and apparently a good Scotch classicist. In this way our Patrick acquired some knowledge of Latin and Greek, and rather more knowledge of mathematics,—the ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... 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 requisite for the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... also become, by this time, the managing housekeeper of the establishment, and it was certain that Aunt Jane looked upon her eldest and most competent niece with ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... discoveries, but gradually other observers found themselves seeing both the lines and their doublings. We have in this a good example of a curious circumstance in astronomical observation, namely, the fact that when fine detail has once been noted by a competent observer, it is not long before other observers see the ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... Philadelphia itself, with the avowed purpose of massacring there a small body of civilized Christian Indians, who had fled thither for safety under the charge of their Moravian missionary, and against whom not a complaint could be made. Panic reigned in the City of Brotherly Love, little competent to cope with imminent violence. In the crisis citizens and governor could conceive no more hopeful scheme than an appeal to Franklin, which was made at once and urgently. The governor himself actually took up his residence in Franklin's house, and ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... hints another thing. The A.M.A. teacher must frequently be a doctor, too. One lady teacher in Alabama opened her chest of medicine and showed me a small drug store curtained off from the sitting-room of her home. She had made materia medica, a special study, and was a competent physician in common diseases. Her house was a public dispensary, visited frequently by her afflicted colored neighbors. What cannot these teachers accomplish going out into these dark, diseased and sin-smitten ...
— American Missionary, August, 1888, (Vol. XLII, No. 8) • Various
... several volumes, or the index appended to the last, will show how wide is the range of topics. The events described have been of vital, and often of transcendant, importance to this country and Europe. The writers will be found interesting as authorities, and are often supremely competent, alike as authorities and writers. The work is believed to present American history in a form that will appeal to readers for its authenticity ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... man is competent to be a priest is by reason of the soul, which is the subject of the character of order: hence a man does not lose his priestly order by death, and much less does Christ, who is the fount of the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... given appears to me to be all the more redoubtable, as he is the sort of a man I have been advising you to be. I know the Chevalier; nobody is more competent than he to carry a seduction to a successful conclusion. I am willing to wager anything that his heart has never been touched. He makes advances to the Countess in cold blood. You are lost. A lover as passionate as ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... fact was the leadership of Chi. The Chinese boy, like the Chinese man is a genuine democrat and is ready to follow the one who knows what he is about and is competent to take the lead, with little regard to social position. It is the civil service idea of a genuine democracy ingrained ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... was generally allotted a fee of from twenty-five to forty pounds for his pains—a sum drawn from the common stock or "purchase" subsequently taken by the adventurers. For the surgeon "and his chest of medicaments" they provided a "competent salary" of from fifty to sixty pounds. Boys received half-a-share, "by reason that, when they take a better vessel than their own, it is the duty of the boys to set fire to the ship or boat wherein they are, and then retire ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... three weeks," answered Col. Pepperrell, "and we will send out a person competent to make full inquiries; the matter shall ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... in the twelfth century, and I have seen a specimen with letters so cut in relief that they might be separated to form movable type. The goldsmiths were certainly among the greatest artists of the early ages, and were competent to execute forms or moulds of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... world here. Still, one learned to read chiefly "to learn some orthodox Catechism," "to read fluently in the New Testament," and to know the will of God, or, as stated in the law of the Connecticut Colony (R. 193), "in some competent measure to understand the main grounds and principles of Christian religion necessary to salvation." The teacher was still carefully looked after as to his "soundness in the faith" (R. 238 a); he was required "to catechise his scholars in the principles of ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... perhaps the thing that the ordinary type of public schoolboy was most in need of. But there was another province too, the province of mental appreciation, and it was in this field that Hugh felt himself competent to labour. It seemed to him that there were many young men at the university, capable of intellectual pleasure, who had been starved by the at once diffuse and dignified curriculum of classical education. Hugh felt that he himself had been endowed with an excess of the imaginative ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... is the highest number there should be in a class for elementary instruction. There should be an assistant appointed, if there be forty in number; and if fifty, there should be two competent teachers. Rava says, "If there be two teachers in a place, one teaching the children more than the other, the one that teaches less is not to be dismissed, because if so, the other is liable to lapse into negligence also." ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... looked at the bright, flushed face, and thought how little the dear child knew about all these matters, and how little patience poor Ester, who was so competent herself, would have with Sadie's ignorance, and said, slowly and hesitatingly, but ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... should immediately offer an immense reward for the invention of a telescope of sufficient power to detect crime whenever and wherever committed within the city limits. This instrument should be placed on the summit of the dome of the New County Court House, and a competent scientific person appointed to be continually on the look-out, and his observations noted down ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II. No. 38, Saturday, December 17, 1870. • Various
... opposite. And then Dunn would read to them; not sermons, but passages from Shakspeare, and Byron, and Longfellow. "He reads much better than Mr. Beckard," Susan had said one night. "Of course you're a competent judge!" had been Hetta's retort. "I mean that I like it better," said Susan. "It's well that all people don't ...
— The Courtship of Susan Bell • Anthony Trollope
... Invincible Armada, last seen by the departing English midway between the coasts of Scotland and Denmark, the blackness of night seemed suddenly to descend. A mystery hung for a long time over their fate. Damaged, leaking, without pilots, without a competent commander, the great fleet entered that furious storm, and was whirled along the iron crags of Norway and between the savage rocks of Faroe and the Hebrides. In those regions of tempest the insulted North wreaked its full vengeance on the insolent Spaniards. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of 'the act of Providence,' a well-known legal phrase. In all matters connected with events in which the weather is a possible factor, the Weather Bureau observer has a place and a part, and the United States Supreme Court, as long as thirty-five years ago, ruled that weather records were competent evidence." ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... Pleas as to Freddy's character, and the moral obligation on him to earn his own living, were lost on Higgins. He denied that Freddy had any character, and declared that if he tried to do any useful work some competent person would have the trouble of undoing it: a procedure involving a net loss to the community, and great unhappiness to Freddy himself, who was obviously intended by Nature for such light work as amusing Eliza, ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... of 1862 I was induced, at the request of some personal friends, to print, for private circulation only, a small volume of "Translations of Poems Ancient and Modern," in which was included the first Book of the Iliad. The opinions expressed by some competent judges of the degree of success which had attended this "attempt to infuse into an almost literal English version something of the spirit, as well as the simplicity, of the great original," [Footnote: Introduction to unpublished ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... thought was then entertained of publishing it in a separate form. One day, however, during his last illness, the talk happened to turn on George Eliot's Works, and he mentioned his long-forgotten paper. One of the friends then present—a competent critic and high literary authority—expressed a wish to see it, and his opinion was so favourable that its publication was determined on. The author then proposed to complete his work by taking up 'Middlemarch' and 'Deronda'; and if any trace of failing ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... active principles. But there are no active principles in corporeal matter; since, as we have said above, matter is not competent to act (A. 1, ad 2, 4). Therefore there are no seminal virtues in ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... general result, no fair-minded man or woman can have a doubt. That the lads and girls in these schools are excellently educated, comes home as a fact to the mind of any one who will look into the subject. That girl could not have got as fair at the hypothenuse without a competent and abiding knowledge of much that is very far beyond the outside limits of what such girls know with us. It was at least manifest in the other examination that the girls knew as well as I did who were the Romans, and who were the Sabine women. That all this is of use, was shown ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... apologized the general tiredly. "I wish you gentlemen could see my view of it, how it all fits together. First there were the films and we have the word of a dozen competent paleontologists that it's impossible to fake anything as perfect as those films. But even granting that they could be, there are certain differences that no one would ever think of faking, because no ...
— Project Mastodon • Clifford Donald Simak
... an enemy, to scale a wall, and to be noticed while performing such an exploit. Distinction such as this they regarded as wealth, honor, and true nobility. They were covetous of praise, but liberal of money; they desired competent riches, but boundless glory. I could mention, but that the account would draw me too far from my subject, places in which the Roman people, with a small body of men, routed vast armies of the enemy; and cities which, tho fortified by ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... ministers he regarded as bound to execute his orders. If their views differed from his, they were dismissed. This was the fate even of Van Hogendorp, to whom he owed so much; Roell and Falck also had to make way for less competent but ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... touch will break such pretty bubbles; but Mr. Cabell, himself a master of cynical touches and shrewdly anticipant of them, protects his invention with the competent armor of irony, and now and then—particularly in the felicitous tenson spoken by Perion and Demetrios concerning the charms of Melicent—brings mirth and beauty to an amalgam which bids fair to prove classic metal. A much ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... 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? Your abilities, my ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... absolutely I need available unsaturated hydrocarbons—they'll be gases! And it has to be kept from reforming as it's broken up, and I may need twenty different organic radicals available at the same time! It's a month's work for a dozen competent men just to find out how to make it, and I'd have to make it in quantity for millions of people and persuade them of its necessity against all the authority of the government and the hatred of the paras, and ...
— The Hate Disease • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious, or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship, with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the state governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies; the preservation of the general government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the people, a ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... day of asepsis and modern methods, were revered but carefully watched. They would get out of scrubbing their hands whenever they could, and they hated their beards tied up with gauze. The nurses, keen, competent and kindly, but shrewd, too, looked after these elderly recalcitrants; loved a few, hated some, and presented to the world unbroken ranks for ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... we rose she accompanied him upon some 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 practitioner ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... my brother's housekeeper. She is a fine noble-hearted and competent woman, who has kept his house for years. I know her, and I am perfectly willing to trust Bernice to her care. She will chaperon the young people, for I doubt if my brother will go to many places with them. But he will want them to have the best ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... of our women are able to live and move and have their being literally regardless of expense. These can buy of skilled assistants and competent supervisors, whole lifetimes of leisure; with these, therefore, our problem has no concern. The larger class, the immense majority, either do their work themselves, or attend personally to its being done by others; "others" signifying that inefficient, ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... If a citizen wants to buy some saw-logs for his mill, he goes to the nearest forest officer and states his case, indicating where the timber lies that he wishes to cut. A careful survey and cruise of the timber is then made by experienced and competent men trained especially for that work. If they report favorably upon the cutting, a minimum price is set at which the timber will be sold, and the sale is duly advertised for thirty days, if it amounts to more than one hundred dollars in value. If it comes to less, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... Tyrwhitt's.' 'This exhibits a careful and, I believe, extremely accurate text ... an excellent account of the MSS. and transcripts from which it was derived. It is a fortunate circumstance that the first editor was so thoroughly competent.' (Professor Skeat, Introd. to Vol. II ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... astronomer, when he understood at last exactly what pragmatic value the universe has, and what fortunes the stars actually forebode, would be pleasantly surprised to discover that he was nothing but an astrologer grown competent and honest. ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... to add: "If you don't know enough for that, I'll find a more competent engineer," but he kept his temper ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... once erected competent to the grinding of all our wheat, a reduction in the ration of flour would not be felt. So sensible of this advantage had the governor been, that he brought out with him the most material parts of a windmill, with a model, by which any millwright he might find here ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... was Yoky,—as king of Hooloomooloo, he was competent; the state being a limited monarchy, of which his Highness was but the ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... administration of justice, I shall not go at any length into that subject, because I hope it will be taken up by some other Gentleman much more competent than myself, and I trust that a sufficient answer will be given to what has been stated by the right hon. Gentleman. However, as far as I am able to understand, there appears to be throughout the whole of India, on the part of the European population, ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... of Catana, and Hiketes, either through disgust at Timoleon's successes, or else fearing him as a man not likely to keep faith with despots, made an alliance with Carthage, as they said that the Carthaginians, unless they wished to be utterly driven out of Sicily, must send a competent force and a general. Gisco the son of Hanno sailed thither with seventy ships, and also with a force of Greek mercenary soldiers, whom the Carthaginians had never used before; but now they were full of admiration for the Greeks, as being the most warlike and invincible of men. ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... and anxious about his new cares; but Letty could not help thinking that he regarded the twins as a sort of personal insult,—perhaps not on their own part, nor on Eva's, but as an accident that might have been prevented by a competent Providence. At any rate, he carried himself as a man with a grievance, and when he looked at his offspring, which was seldom, it seemed to Letty that he regarded the second one as an unnecessary intruder and cherished a secret resentment at its audacity in coming to this ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... and led him into the house, for he was thoroughly dazed and incapable of attending to any business. "If you will allow me, colonel," said the lawyer, "I will take charge of legal matters in this case," to which Colonel Morton answered, "Most cehtainly, my deah suh, no one moah competent." ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... been prepared under the auspices of the American Bible Union, by the most competent scholars of the day. No expense has been spared to obtain the oldest translations of the Bible, copies of the ancient manuscripts, and other facilities to make the revision as perfect ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere. Where hostility to the United States in any interior locality shall be so great and universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that object. While the strict legal right may exist in the Government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... idea of a competent driver, eh? He hasn't that reputation on earth. Was it an untruth that credits him with a fine smash-up when he tried to drive the ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... lived in an imagined world of her own, morbidly influenced, no doubt, by the vagaries of her worthless brother Branwell. That she had true genius, allied with fine strength of intellect and character, is the unanimous verdict of competent criticism, while it ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... about the abundance of rhubarb in the hills near Su-chau is believed by the most competent authorities to be quite erroneous. Rhubarb is exported from Shang-hai, but it is brought thither from Hankau on the Upper Kiang, and Hankau receives it from the further west. Indeed Mr. Hanbury, in a note on the subject, adds his disbelief also that ginger is ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... toward their car and met the other physician. "Will you do me the honor of exchanging cards with me?" he said to Elizabeth. "You have shown yourself so competent here this afternoon, and your work has been so skilfully done that I want to compliment you upon it, and to say that I am sure you have before ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... II. habitually takes a keen, sympathetic interest in the material and moral progress of his country, and is ever ready to listen attentively and patiently to those who are presumably competent to offer sound advice on the subject. At the same time he is very prudent in action, and this happy combination of zeal and caution, which distinguishes him from his too impetuous countrymen, has been ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... Joyce insisted on taking most of the care of Calhoun during the day. Margaret Goodsen was all the help she needed. She had engaged a competent man to care for him nights. Had not Mark told her to save the life of the man ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... to Lesser Hill the following day. At this point Adam saw his way sufficiently clear to admit Davenport to some extent into his confidence. He had come to the conclusion that it would be better—certainly at first—not himself to appear in the matter, with which Davenport was fully competent to deal. It would be time for himself to take a personal part when matters had advanced a ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... well 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 ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... by the most competent judges to render a very satisfactory account of the facts. But it has not been universally adopted. Some writers of authority have lately represented the spots as scoriae floating on a liquid surface, and ejected from solar volcanoes, of which the burning mountains of the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... I went to Mt. Sterling, the county-seat of Brown County. This church had fallen into decay for want of the care of a competent evangelist. Here I remained some weeks; and the church was very much revived, and there was a large ingathering. This was originally the home of Bro. Archie Glenn, now conspicuous in building up the University at Wichita. From the first Bro. Glenn, though modest and unobtrusive, ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... secrecy of the French and Italian poisonings have been already alluded to. The poisoners, in general, instead of acting in a bustling crowd, generally prepared themselves for their dreadful task by secretly acquiring the competent knowledge, so that they might not find it necessary to take the aid of confederates. They generally did their work alone, or at most two would act together. It certainly argues a sadly demoralised state of society in the reign of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... suffering on the part of subjects is to be found the ambition of their rulers, even if every actual case should be referred to some other cause. It is in this sense only that the inference is a necessary one. But then this is the only sense which formal logic is competent to recognise. To judge of conformity to fact is no part of its province. From 'Every AB is a CD' it follows that ' Some CD's are AB's' with exactly the same necessity as that with which 'Some B is A' follows from 'All A is B.' In the ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... the expiration of the sixty days, was permitted, without taking the oath, "to practice as an attorney or counsellor-at-law," nor, after that period could "any person be competent as a bishop, priest, deacon, minister, elder, or other clergyman, of any religious persuasion, sect, or denomination, to teach, or preach, or ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... at short intervals—so fast indeed that no matter how hard he works, nor how many hours, he cannot keep pace with their needs—the lover whom all the world loves will have been converted into a disheartened, threadbare incompetent, whom all the world pities or despises. Instead of being the happy, competent father, supporting one or two children as they should be supported, he is the frantic struggler against the burden of five or six, with the tragic prospect of several more. The ranks of the physically weakened, mentally dejected and spiritually hopeless young fathers ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... pupil)—mathematics, for example, for some, and music for those who have no ear; and, again, the particularissima, or those excessive minutenesses and distinctions into which one may go without end in any subject whatsoever. So, at large, with very competent learning, no small philosophical acumen, much logical formality and numeration of propositions and paragraphs, but a frequent liveliness of style, and every now and then a crashing shot of practical good sense, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... heavy burdens in their hands, or are engaged in rowing or sculling their boats. They trade, make change, and clean the fish quite oblivious of the infant at their backs. A transient visitor to China is not competent to speak of the higher class of women, as no access can be had to domestic life. Only those of the common class appear indiscriminately in public, Oriental exclusiveness wrapping itself about the sex here nearly as rigidly as in Egypt. If ladies go abroad at all, it is in curtained ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... offered to any man settling a colony of fifty persons. The disputes which soon arose between these powerful vassals and the sovereign Company had for one effect the recall of Peter Minuit from his position of governor. Never again was the unlucky colony to have so competent and worthy a head as this discarded elder of the church. Nevertheless the scheme was ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... ill-judged praise, no less than ill-judged blame, tends to produce in us.' George Eliot pushed this repugnance to criticism beyond the personal reaction of it upon the artist, and more than disparaged its utility, even in the most competent and highly trained hands. She finds that the diseased spot in the literary culture of our time is touched with the finest point by the saying of La Bruyere, that 'the pleasure of criticism robs us of the pleasure of ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 3 of 3) - The Life of George Eliot • John Morley
... offered, a window accepted, a window put up, and no questions asked as to designer or artist. Imagine what the effect might, or would, have been, had the windows, as a set, been designed by Burne-Jones and executed by William Morris, or by other competent artists. Now, unfortunately, these two great artists are dead, and Gloucester has not a ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... very court of the emperor had something of the complexion of a camp,— and the object of her own youthful choice was elevated in her eyes, if it were at all possible that he should be so, by this ratification of his claims on the part of those whom she looked up to as the most competent judges. ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... be received as things proved, and, consequently, as so many points to be held in view when the public are in search of rules whereby they may be guided. The examination of his assumed facts for one short hour, by a competent tribunal, would prove this to be the case; here it is impossible to enter upon them all: but let us just refer to his management of the question relative to the importation of the disease into the Mauritius by the Topaze frigate, which he says was not believed there to be the ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... Yet the two were written in immediate succession (The Black Dwarf being the first of the two), and were published together, as the first series of Tales of my Landlord, in 1816. Nor do I think that any competent critic would find any clear deterioration of quality in the novels of the later years,—excepting of course the two written after the stroke of paralysis. It is true, of course, that some of the subjects which most powerfully ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... exposed on shore, and he knew that on board his ship, at all events, Alice would be safe from them. Having no great respect for the ordinary female accomplishments of music and dancing, he felt himself fully competent to instruct her in most other matters, while he rightly believed that her mind would be expanded by visiting the strange and interesting scenes to which during the voyage he hoped to introduce her. "As for needle-work and embroidery, why, Jacob and I can teach you as well ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... importation. America has a great body of assimilators, and out of this gift for uncreative assimilation has come the type of art we are supposed to accept as our own. It is not at all difficult to prove that America has now an encouraging and competent group of young and vigorous synthesists who are showing with intelligence what they have learned from the newest and most engaging development of art, which is to say—modern art. The names which have been inserted above are the definite indication, and one ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... which should be found on every shelf throughout the country, and is undoubtedly, in its combination of erudition and artistic merit, one of the masterpieces of English literature. It has been well described by a more competent critic as one which "it is difficult to take up when once you have put it down," and in this judgment most readers will, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... to attempt a new definition where so many more competent have failed, we may nevertheless gather some points of certainty from ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... describes minutely his costume and the part the elements played on the occasion; they were evidently very much upset. He then goes on to say how he held me on my first pony, and taught me to ride and drive. Having finally certificated me as competent to drive a pair of horses under any circumstances, I ask how the children are, Sara in particular. Here Croft looks heavenward, and says she looks a picture, and adds that she looks very like me. The footman knows that here the program ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... say that I am a most decided opponent. It is, however, a subject which I cannot now pretend to discuss. It is my opinion, that to leave religion to rest upon the voluntary efforts of the people, is a notion which we are not at present in a situation competent to entertain. It is so very great a change, and so totally different from all that we know and observe, that we are absolutely precluded, from want of experience, from entering upon the consideration of the question. It is not a just criterion, by which to form a judgment, to ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... that. There are not the necessary materials. The directors of missions, and missionaries themselves, have not yet come to a full practical agreement as to the principles that underlie the working of missions, nor as to the results to be accomplished by them; and it must be left to competent writers in the future,—when the whole subject shall be more generally and better understood,—after patiently examining the proceedings of missionary societies in America, England, Scotland, and Germany, to state and apply the principles that may be thus evolved. ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... competent judge," retorted the Minister; "Madame de Talleyrand is here, and has not the honour of being a Frenchwoman; but I dare say the Marquis will agree with me that in no society in the British Islands, among a dozen of ladies, has he counted more beauties, or admired greater accomplishments ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... of efforts by the greatest minds in the Church, from Eusebius to Archbishop Usher, to settle this point are presented in another chapter. Suffice it here that the general conclusion arrived at by an overwhelming majority of the most competent students of the biblical accounts was that the date of creation was, in round numbers, four thousand years before our era; and in the seventeenth century, in his great work, Dr. John Lightfoot, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... this tremendous tragedy, which is not solely American, which closely concerns the whole world? Of course, there are purely American elements in the explanation which I am not competent to speak on. But besides the American quarrel with President Wilson there is something to be said on the great matters in issue. On these I may be permitted ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan
... regimen when prescribed by Homoeopathists as well as by others, would be very unfair to them. But to suppose that men with minds so constituted as to accept such statements and embrace such doctrines as make up the so-called science of Homoeopathy are more competent than others to regulate the circumstances which influence the human body in health and disease, would be judging very harshly the ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... have considered it an amusing instance of family conceit. To the multitude her works appeared tame and commonplace, {136a} poor in colouring, and sadly deficient in incident and interest. It is true that we were sometimes cheered by hearing that a different verdict had been pronounced by more competent judges: we were told how some great statesman or distinguished poet held these works in high estimation; we had the satisfaction of believing that they were most admired by the best judges, and comforted ourselves with Horace's 'satis est Equitem mihi plaudere.' So much was this the case, ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... human personality—and forms, indeed, the very core of our being, so far as its expression into the physical world is concerned. This view of the case, I may say, is not altogether new; several competent neurologists have, of late, defended this conception in no measured terms. Thus, Dr. William Hanna Thomson, in ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... it is to be recollected that the history of that life is the history of a great empire, which it would be vain to condense within our limits, were they greater than they are. Results are all that we are competent to deal with. From the peace of Nieustadt, the exertions of Peter, still unremitting, were directed more to consolidate and improve the internal condition of the empire, by watching over the changes which he had already made, than to effect farther ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... this? Will So-and-so do?" naming one of the before-mentioned civil appointments. "For heaven's sake, no! He would tie up the whole business. Send an orderly," was the reply. The orderly, an enlisted man of the Regulars, was sent. The officer thus adjudged less competent to carry a message than a private soldier was perhaps actuated by a high sense of duty; but he filled a place which should have been occupied by an experienced and able officer—no, he did not fill it, but he prevented such ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... nevertheless had to think a moment, conscious as she was that he distinctly would want to fill out his notion of her—even a little, as it were, to warm the air for her. That, however—and better early than late—he must accept as of no use; and she herself felt for an instant quite a competent certainty on the subject of any such warming. The air, for Milly Theale, was, from the very nature of the case, destined never to rid itself of a considerable chill. This she could tell him with authority, if she could tell him nothing else; and she seemed to see now, in short, that it would ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... pillars; doors knocked into windows; a dozen squares of glass into one; one shopman into a dozen; and there is no knowing what would have been done, if it had not been fortunately discovered, just in time, that the Commissioners of Bankruptcy were as competent to decide such cases as the Commissioners of Lunacy, and that a little confinement and gentle examination did wonders. The disease abated. It died away. A year or two of comparative tranquillity ensued. Suddenly it burst out again amongst the chemists; the symptoms were the same, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens |
