"Competent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... six lambs, and a ram." If there was no sacred significance in the observance of these lunar changes, why did the writer of the New Testament Epistle to the Colossians say, "Let no man judge you in respect of the new moon"? A competent scholar, in recognising this consociation of Hebrew religion with the moon's phases, rightly ascribes to it an earlier origin. Says Ewald: "To connect the annual festivals with the full moon, and to commence them in the evening, as though greeting her with ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... 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 competency and brightness. ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... telephones, water-works, &c., must all be judged by the localities which they serve and the amount of business they are likely to command. As per- manent investments it should be considered whether they are likely to suffer by supersession or opposition, and if they are managed by a trustworthy competent board of directors. ...
— Everybody's Guide to Money Matters • William Cotton, F.S.A.
... with the same formality,' said Mr Pluck—'whether I shall say myself that my name is Pluck, or whether I shall ask my friend Pyke (who being now regularly introduced, is competent to the office) to state for me, Mrs Nickleby, that my name is Pluck; whether I shall claim your acquaintance on the plain ground of the strong interest I take in your welfare, or whether I shall make myself known to you as the friend of Sir Mulberry Hawk—these, Mrs Nickleby, are ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... arises as to whether each farmer can make his own analyses. He cannot do so without long study and practice. The late Prof. Norton said that, at least two years' time would be necessary to enable a man to become competent to make a reliable analysis. When we reflect that a farmer may never need more than five or six analyses, we shall see that the time necessary to learn the art would be much more valuable than the cost of the analyses (at $5 or $10 each), setting aside the cost of apparatus, and the ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring
... space beside the fish, then journeys along with the bird and the reptile for his fellow travellers; and only at last, after a brief companionship with the highest of the four-footed and four-handed world, rises into the dignity of pure manhood. No competent thinker of the present day dreams of explaining these indubitable facts by the notion of the existence of unknown and undiscoverable adaptations to purpose. And we would remind those who, ignorant of the facts, must be moved by authority, that no one has ...
— The Darwinian Hypothesis • Thomas H. Huxley
... As long as Purcell remained opposite, indeed, hate and rivalry kept him up to the mark. He was an attractive figure at that time, with his long fair hair and his glancing greenish eyes; and his queer discursive talk attracted many a customer, whom he would have been quite competent to keep had his character been of the same profitable stuff as ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a piece of solemn twaddle—which can't fail to be attended with consequences certainly grotesque and possibly immoral. To begin with, fancy constituting an endowment without establishing a tribunal—a bench of competent ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... labor, that it causes the whole productive resources of the country to be concentrated on one or two products, cotton being the chief, which require, to raise and prepare them for the market, little besides brute animal force. The cotton cultivation, in the opinion of all competent judges, alone saves North American slavery; but cotton cultivation, exclusively adhered to, exhausts in a moderate number of years all the soils which are fit for it, and can only be kept up by travelling ...
— The Contest in America • John Stuart Mill
... commonly amounts to 100 or 150 pieces of eight, being, according to the agreement, more or less. Afterwards for provisions and victualling they draw out of the same common stock about 200 pieces of eight. Also a competent salary for the surgeon and his chest of medicaments, which is usually rated at 200 or 250 pieces of eight. Lastly they stipulate in writing what recompense or reward each one ought to have, that is either ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... population, slavery; and you may be sure I listened with infinite interest to the opinions of a man of uncommon shrewdness and sagacity, who was born in the very bosom of it, and has passed his whole life among slaves. If any one is competent to judge of its effects, such a man is the one; and this was his verdict, 'I hate slavery with all my heart; I consider it an absolute curse wherever it exists. It will keep those states where it does exist fifty ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... of June, reported to be favourably progressing, I determined to put the attack in execution so soon as the tide flowed late enough in the evening to prevent the enemy from perceiving us in time to disturb or defeat our operations. The difficulty was to find competent persons to take charge of the fireships, so as to kindle them at the proper moment—the want of which had rendered most of the fireships ineffective—as such—in the affair of Basque Roads in 1809, and had ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... or mastery of any instrument, for that matter, is the technical power to say exactly what you want to say in exactly the way you want to say it. It is technical equipment that stands at the service of your musical will—a faithful and competent servant that comes at your musical bidding. If your spirit soars 'to parts unknown,' your well trained servant 'technic' is ever at your elbow to prevent irksome details from hampering your progress. Mastery of your instrument makes mastery of your ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... competent servants was one of the problems of Willington people. At Drayton, a large neighbouring town, were several factories, and into these all the working girls from Willington had crowded, leaving very ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... earliest possible moment. This responsibility the London Board assumed and endeavoured to discharge. The result was a severe trial to the faith, not only of the solitary worker but to all interested—and they were many—in the fate of the new mission. As we shall see later on, when a congenial and competent medical colleague reached him, and was entering with vigour and hope upon the work, Dr. Mackenzie of Tientsin suddenly died, and before the immediate and urgent claims of Tientsin the claims of Mongolia had to give way. But in estimating the success of both missions, ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... is difficult to believe how Mr Muller, from whom subsequent map-makers have adopted them, could place them in this chart without some authority. Relying, however, on the testimony of these people, whom I thought competent witnesses, I have left them out of my chart, and made such corrections amongst the other islands as I was told was necessary. I found there was wanting another correction; for the difference of longitude, between the Bay of Awatska, and the harbour of Samganoodha, according ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... occupy the time of this meeting by referring to the origin or the circumstances attendant upon the early history of this material, the manufacture of which has now assumed such gigantic proportions—these matters have already been fully dealt with by other more competent authorities; but rather to direct the attention of those interested therein to certain modifications, which he considers improvements, by means of which a large proportion of capital unnecessarily involved in its manufacture may be set free ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various
... soul's position between the worlds of substance and of phenomenon, and her consequent ability to refer things to their essential ideas, that in her, and her alone, resides an instrument of knowledge competent for the comprehension of truth, even the highest, which she only is able to behold face to face. It is no hyperbole that is involved in the saying, 'The pure in heart see God.' True, the man cannot see God. But the divine in man sees God. And this occurs when, by means of his soul's union ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... 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 ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... from a speech of Dubois Crance, who may be supposed a competent judge, at once furnish an idea of Robespierre's oratory, exhibit a leading feature in his character, and expose some of the arts by which the revolutionary despotism ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... or the readers of Gaboriau, Marlitz, Pierre Bobo. [Footnote: P. D. Boborykin.] Like the problems of non-resistance to evil, of free will, etc., this question can only be settled in the future. We can only refer to it, but are not competent to decide it. Reference to Turgenev and Tolstoy—who avoided the "muck heap"—does not throw light on the question. Their fastidiousness does not prove anything; why, before them there was a generation of writers who regarded as dirty not only accounts of "the dregs and scum," but even descriptions ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... agreeable to him, as building a boat or a fence, planting, grafting, surveying, or other short work, to any long engagements. With his hardy habits and few wants, his skill in wood-craft, and his powerful arithmetic, he was very competent to live in any part of the world. It would cost him less time to supply his wants than another. He was therefore ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... little book I shall not be able to tell you a tithe of what may be told of this land did I feel competent to do so. Volumes have been written on the subject, and still the half has not been said. I purpose, therefore, henceforward to intersperse with the narrative of our own doings, just so much of the manners and customs of the Chinese and Japanese, ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... China unprovided with interpreters capable of translating documents in foreign languages. Foreign nations agreed to accompany their despatches with a Chinese version, until a competent staff of interpreters should be provided. With a view to meeting this initial want, a school was opened in 1862, in connection with the Foreign Office, and placed under the direction of the Inspector-General of Maritime Customs, by whom I was recommended for the presidency. ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... fondness for books, Lady Mary was not a wholehearted believer in reading for young folk, unless the choice of volumes was carefully made by some competent person. This point she emphasised in one of ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... as follows: "In view of the conjunction of circumstances which have recently arisen, and after the position had been jointly discussed with all competent authorities, the Bulgarian Government, desiring to put an end to the bloodshed, has authorized the Commander-in-Chief of the army to propose to the Generalissimo of the armies of the Entente at Saloniki, a cessation of hostilities, and the entering into of negotiations ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... engraving on wood. The youngest, being passionately fond of flowers, and possessed of great artistic genius, was a regular apprentice in an artificial-flower manufactory. Miss Effie, the eldest, had had her musical talent so cultivated under a competent master, that she was now qualified to act as organist in a church, or to teach a class of pupils at the piano; but not satisfied with this, she had insisted on being instructed in the use of the sewing-machine. Both she and her parents ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... provinces, with their differences of race, language, religion, and habits; when we remember that it was on the whole strictly, energetically, and legally administered; it is hard—even allowing for a wise Senate and capable ministers—to realise a man competent for the position. ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... fairly in the matter, told you in the Title Page what you are to expect within. Indeed, had I hung a sign of the Immortality of the Soul, of the Mystery of Godliness, or of Ecclesiastical Policie, and then had treated you with Indiscerpibility and Essential Spissitude (words, which though I am no competent Judge of, for want of Languages, yet I fancy strongly ought to mean just nothing) with a company of Apocryphal midnight Tales cull'd out of the choicest Insignificant Authors; If I had only proved in Folio that Apollonius was a naughty knave, or had presented ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... differences with other Railway Companies, by which the public safety or convenience are affected, to be referred to the Board of Trade, or other competent authority for ...
— Report of the Railway Department of the Board of Trade on the • Samuel Laing
... four leagues further from Martinique. I think that here, on land, my trial might be carried out immediately and my gallows raised in the wink of an eye, while on the open sea there would perhaps be no persons present competent to judge me. I think, after all, that if Blue Beard has begged (as I suppose) Father Griffen to endeavor to withdraw me from the claws of Chemerant, that a sudden and imprudent revelation on my part would spoil all. Much better, then, to keep silence. Yes, all ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... demonstrate the relative prosperity of the different States of the Union, in religion—in morals—in the acquisition of wealth—in the increase of native population—in the prolongation of life—in the diminution of crime, etc., etc., should be ascertained, under oath, by competent and responsible agents, and that these facts should be published at the national expense for the benefit of the people: so that the people could, understandingly, apply the corrective for evils that might be found to exist in one locality, and profit by a knowledge of the greater prosperity ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... come down with her to the Vicarage. He should dine there, and Frank should walk back with him at night. As to that question of Mr. Chamberlaine's visit, respecting which Mrs. Fenwick did not feel herself competent to give advice herself, it should become matter of debate between them and Frank, and then a man and horse could be sent to Salisbury on Sunday morning. As he walked down to the Vicarage with that pretty woman at his elbow, things perhaps were a ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... '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, ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... 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 ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... a judge of the fair sex, a most competent one, I should say. What boy of eighteen is not?" teased his uncle. "Where are your ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... rosary in the shape of a shield, or breast-plate, strung around the neck. Beneath the Emperor is the date, "1091," and around the edge of the coin is the following inscription— "JESTYN-AP-GURGAN, TYWYSOG-MORGANWG." The interpretation of this, as rendered by a competent Welshman, means, "Jestyn, son of Gurgan, Prince of Glanmorgan." On the reverse side is the figure of the Goddess of Commerce, seated on the wheel at her side, the pillar and ancient crown, wreathed with the national emblem, the oak, the shield and spear ...
— The American Goliah • Anon.
... 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
... and an excellent horsewoman. She was also—if that had been necessary to obtain her purpose—well-read and accomplished. Being clever, good-looking, and not easily shocked, however, she was more than competent to secure the affections of young Carew. She was, nevertheless, as I have said, literally old enough to be his mother; and the idea of the affair having been a love-match, in the usual sense of the expression, was simply preposterous. That Miss Hardcastle was herself of this opinion ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... government; for, when a better government came, there was a corresponding change in the inner life of the people; and at the present time, with the freest of constitutional monarchies, and under the guidance of a ruler so sympathetic, competent, and popular, redeemed Greece is making rapid strides in intellectual and material progress. Of this progress we have the following account by a prominent American divine, a recent visitor to ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... translating the whole verbatim et literatim, as has been done by Torrens, Lane and Payne in his "Tales from the Arabic."[FN305] This conscientious treatment is required for versions of an author like Camoens, whose works were carefully corrected and arranged by a competent litterateur, but it is not merited by The Nights as they now are. The Macnaghten, the Bulak and the Bayrut texts, though printed from MSS. identical in order, often differ in minor matters. Many friends have asked me to undertake ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... invest; indue[obs3], endue; endow, arm; strengthen &c. 159; compel &c. 744. Adj. powerful, puissant; potential; capable, able; equal to, up to; cogent, valid; efficient, productive; effective, effectual, efficacious, adequate, competent; multipotent[obs3], plenipotent[obs3], omnipotent; almighty. forcible &c. adj. (energetic) 171; influential &c. 175; productive &c. 168. Adv. powerfully &c. adj.; by virtue of, by dint of. Phr. a toute force[Fr]; <gr/dos moi pou sto ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... poetical narrative, my chief object has been to combine Recitation with Music, so as to enable a greater number of persons to join in the performance, by enlisting as readers those who may not feel willing or competent to take ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... were an instrument of individual refinement. 'The magistrates,' said he, in his great funeral oration, 'who discharge public trusts, fulfil their domestic duties also; the private citizen, while engaged in professional business, has competent knowledge of public affairs; for we stand alone in regarding the man who keeps aloof from these latter not as harmless, but as useless. Moreover, we always hear and pronounce on public matters when discussed by our leaders, or perhaps ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... not only unknown to other nations, but savage and miraculous in their sight. What should we do with those people who admit of no evidence that is not in print, who believe not men if they are not in a book, nor truth if it be not of competent age? we dignify our fopperies when we commit them to the press: 'tis of a great deal more weight to say, "I have read such a thing," than if you only say, "I have heard such a thing." But I, who ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... not easily have drawn me into a public expostulation; for every man's true literary character is best seen in his own writings. Critics may rail, disguise, insinuate, or pervert; yet still the object of their censures lies equally open to all the world. Thus the world becomes a competent judge of the merits of the work animadverted on. Hence, the mere author hath a fair chance for a fair decision, at least among the judicious; and it is of no mighty consequence what opinions the injudicious form concerning mental abilities. For this reason, I have ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... his own life. He was brave, cautious and quick to seize upon all the faults of his opponent. He could patiently wait until battle was proper, and even in apparent defeat was really more dangerous than less competent commanders with a foe beaten and ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... December 21, 1865, said, "A child, over the age of two years, born of a colored parent, may be bound by the father if he be living in the district, or in case of his death or absence from the district, by the mother, as an apprentice to any respectable white or colored person who is competent to make a contract; a male until he shall attain the age of twenty-one years, and a female until she shall attain the age of eighteen.... Males of the age of twelve years, and females of the age of ten years, shall sign the indenture of apprenticeship, and be bound thereby.... ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... consulted me, at any rate," said the doctor. "I think I am best competent to judge of the characters of the boys put in my charge. Good morning, sir. Boys, the ...
— The Hilltop Boys on the River • Cyril Burleigh
... commons that "the influence of the crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished". This resolution was carried, with a trifling addition, by 233 to 215, and another that the house was competent to correct abuses in the civil list was adopted without a division. On the 10th, however, a resolution that certain officers of the household should be disqualified from sitting in the house of ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... performed duly, the beards rightfully braided, and we (in spite of ourselves) correctly served. His view of our stupidity, even he, the mighty talker, must have lacked language to express. He never interfered with my Tahuku work; civilly praised it, idle as it seemed; civilly supposed that I was competent in my own mystery: such being the attitude of the intelligent and the polite. And we, on the other hand—who had yet the most to gain or lose, since the product was to be ours—who had professed our disability by the very act of hiring ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... our readers may be fully competent to appreciate the merits of this defence, we will state, as concisely as possible, the substance of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... with the consciousness of that mobility, the notion of space of three dimensions—which is "Raum" or "room" to move with perfect freedom—is at once given. But the notion that the tactile surface itself moves, cannot be given by touch alone, which is competent to testify only to the fact of change of place, not to its cause. The idea of the motion of the tactile surface could not, in fact, be attained, unless the idea of change of place were accompanied by some state of consciousness, which does not exist when the tactile surface is immoveable. ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... beauty belongs to it as whole. Hence, when, through comparison, you attend to the qualities that are shared with other works, you are still judging the reality and beauty of the object, quite as much as when you seek to taste its unique flavor. A competent judgment can neglect no aspect. The judgment that a work of art is better or worse than another in some general aspect touches it just as surely as the feeling for its distinctiveness. And if it be true that so far as things are unique they are all on a level, ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... According to the same competent judge, the Chancellor Thugut was the only efficient Minister, being very laborious in his work, and indeed "the only man of business about the Court."[338] Yet Thugut was rather a clever diplomat and ideal head-clerk than a statesman. In forethought he did not much excel his master. Indeed, ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... the moral tone and conduct of Siamese monks and most critics state that they are somewhat inferior to their Burmese brethren. The system by which a village undertakes to support a monk, provided that he is a reasonably competent school-master and of good character, works well. But in the larger monasteries it is admitted that there are inmates who have entered in the hope of leading a lazy life and even fugitives from justice. Still the penalty for any grave offence ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... sophisticated him before his return; behind every mask he now discerned a human being; and no social ordeal terrified. Nevertheless, something of his old-time diffidence toward the unknown country beyond the grillroom lingered, and it made for peace that his wife seemed so competent to guide. ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... 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 ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... troops in the field thoroughly equipped and found with ammunition is undoubtedly possible, but this output can only be obtained by a careful and deliberate organization for developing the resources of the country so as to enable each competent workman to utilize in the most useful manner possible all his ability and energy in the common object which we all have in view, which is the successful prosecution and victorious termination of this war. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... would have been more probable that even he had fallen into some error of interpretation of the facts which came under his observation, than that such an animal as a centaur really existed. And nothing short of a careful monograph, by a highly competent investigator, accompanied by figures and measurements of all the most important parts of a centaur, put forth under circumstances which could leave no doubt that falsification or misinterpretation would meet with immediate exposure, could possibly enable a man ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... relation as Woolwich to the Artillery. There Gordon remained until February 1854, constantly engaged on field work and in making plans and surveys, at which his old skill as a draughtsman soon made him exceptionally competent. This kind of work was also far more congenial to him than the cramming at the Academy, and he soon gained the reputation of being an intelligent and hard-working subaltern. In the month named he attained the grade of full lieutenant, ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... myself moved in the inmost recesses of my soul, and I almost thought that I had been wrong. I say almost, because, had I been convinced of it, I would have thrown myself at his feet entreating pardon; but, not feeling myself competent to stand in judgment in my own cause, I satisfied myself by remaining dull and silent, and I never uttered one word until we were only half a mile from Sinigaglia, where I intended to take supper and to remain ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... this kind upon it. Hamilton, the most marvelous and creative genius, made constitutions, built up systems and created institutions, and yet never witnessed a base-ball game. I feel as I stand here that all the men that have ever lived and achieved success in this world have died in vain. I am competent to pay that tribute, because I never played a game in my life, and I never saw it but once, and then did not understand it. A philosopher whom I always read with interest, because his abstractions sometimes approach the truth, wrote an article ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... people always did elect parliaments of lunatics. What does it matter if your permanent officials are honest and competent? ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... prescience does all this imply—prescience no where to be found but in God! "Let now the infidel or the skeptical reader meditate thoroughly and soberly on these predictions. The priority of the records to the events admits of no question. The completion is obvious to every competent enquirer. Here, then, are facts. We are called upon to account for those facts on rational and adequate principles. Is human foresight equal to the task? Enthusiasm? Conjecture? Chance? Political contrivance? If none of these, neither ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... particle of vanity or conceit; she never attempted to plunge out of her depth, or to soar beyond the level of her comprehension and her knowledge. Her conversation therefore was happily described by an old and attached friend and very competent judge, when he said of it that 'her talk was so crisp.'[5] She had an even flow of animal spirits, was never capricious or uncertain, full of vivacity, with a constant but temperate enjoyment of society; never fastidious or exclusive, tasting ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... you will not mind if I use the privilege of a fairly long acquaintance and speak plainly about something that I regard as important. I wish to say that I am quite old enough, and feel quite competent, to direct the course of my own life. It is very kind of you, indeed, to take an interest in what I do and what I hope to do, and I am sure Mamma will be fittingly grateful for any advice you may have offered with regard to me. ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... my outside picture of this extraordinary man; and it is only of externals that I am free to speak here, even if I were competent to touch upon his inner life. He was a still greater recluse than the 'Philip Aylwin' of the novel. I think I am right in saying that he took up one or two Oriental tongues when he was seventy years of age. Another of his passions was numismatics, and it was in these studies that he sympathized ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... the perpetual apprehension that makes other bankers keep a large reserve the apprehension of discreditit would seem particularly necessary that its managers should be themselves specially interested in keeping that reserve, and specially competent to keep it. But I need not say that the Bank directors have not their personal fortune at stake in the management of the Bank. They are rich City merchants, and their stake in the Bank is trifling in comparison with the rest of their wealth. If the Bank were wound up, most ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... Irish bull essentially differs from a blunder, or in what Irish blunders specifically differ from English blunders, and from those of all other nations. To elucidate these points, or to prove to the satisfaction of all competent judges that they are beyond the reach of the human understanding, is the object of the following Essay concerning the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... 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
... "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 to borrow documents; ladies with inexplicable yearnings ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... treasury. The labours of doubling fell chiefly on the minor players, for the leading tragedian was too frequently present on the scene as the hero of the night to be able to undertake other duties. But if the player of Hamlet, for instance, was confined to that character, it was still competent for the representative of "the ghost of buried Denmark" to figure also as Laertes; or for Polonius, his death accomplished, to reappear in the guise of Osric or the First Gravedigger; to say nothing of such minor arrangements as were ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... adjacent bottom land forming a smooth ground surface. Against this hypothesis it must be stated that no evidence whatever was found of more than a single deposit of sandy loam, although the exposures are good; but perhaps were an examination made by a competent geologist some ...
— Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... George. Fact is, I have several times heard him refer to you in terms of praise. As I said before, being the man to do you a bit of a good turn, take my advice as a friend. The Judge has got you in his grasp, according to every established principle of law; and having four good and competent witnesses, (you have no voice in law, and Anna's won't stand before a jury,) will send you up for a twelve-months' residence ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... disadvantage exists no longer; in nearly every town in the kingdom, of any size, there is some institution where knowledge may be obtained readily and cheaply. The societies in connection with the Department of Science and Art now abound with competent masters and teachers, and ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... directed the elector to bring Luther with him to the Diet, assuring him of protection, and promising a free discussion, with competent persons, of the questions in dispute. Luther was anxious to appear before the emperor. His health was at this time much impaired; yet he wrote to the elector: "If I cannot go to Worms in good health, I will be carried there, sick as I am. For ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... method of celebrating the tercentenary of SHAKSPEARE would be the execution on Shakspeare Cliff, at Dover, of a colossal portrait of the immortal dramatist, somewhat on the scale of the famous "White Horse." Once the outline had been marked out by a competent artist the rest of the work could be easily completed gratis by the Volunteers, and the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 150, February 2, 1916 • Various
... years, and do you think he would be at a loss about such a trifle as this? For example, what would be more easy for the emir, if he chose to detain the man, than to say he had committed murder, and therefore could not be given up?" "But," said I, "such a charge must be established by competent witnesses, and under the consul's inspection." "True," replied he, "and where would be the difficulty in that? The emir would bring 500 witnesses to-morrow to establish any crime he was pleased to allege. And as to his fearing the pasha, though ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... difficult and least studied of all—and through increase of experience. Evidently the process is endless (il est evident que tout cela n'a point de fin), and the latest men of science must be the most competent. ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... in seamanship, Captain Billings encouraging me to persevere whenever he saw me inclined to laziness, and giving me all the advantage of his own training and experience; so that, by this time, I believe I was almost as competent to take charge of the ship on an emergency and navigate her to her destination, as if I had passed the Trinity House examination and received a first mate's certificate like Mr Macdougall, whom in the mathematical part of ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... of slavery, so far as it is involved in the issue now before the country, is narrowed down at last to a controversy on the solitary point, whether it be competent for the Congress of the United States, directly or indirectly, to exclude slavery from the Territories of the Union. The Supreme Court of the United States have given a negative answer to this proposition, and it shall be my first effort to ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... may drive the wind back. For the "fulness, throbbing, &c.," we should advise ramming a good-sized darning-needle as far as it will go into the orifice. After that—or even before—it might be best to consult a competent medical man. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 25, 1892 • Various
... trouble he has had in getting the number he wanted has made him think there was not a thimbleful of intelligence among all of the people associated with the entire telephone company. But considering the body of employees as a whole the standard of courteous and competent service is extraordinarily high. The public is impatient and prone to remember bad connections instead of good ones. It is ignorant also and has very small conception of what a girl at central is doing. And it is quick to blame her for ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... abruptly and turned to her. She shrank a little. "I think we had better let that subject alone. As a product of older climes, I am competent to judge." ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Mr. Gye, in London. It was produced with great splendor in the English capital, and conducted by Spohr himself; but it did not prove a great success, a deep disappointment to Spohr, who fondly believed this work to be his masterpiece. "On this occasion," writes a very competent critic, a propos of the first performance, "there was a certain amount of heaviness about the performance which told very much against the probability of that opera ever becoming a favorite with the Royal Italian ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... resource; and he is much less likely to get into scrapes and contract tastes for low vices and mean dissipation, when he comes into life wholly his own master, after having acquired a predilection for refined companionship under the guidance of those competent to select it. There, I have talked myself out of breath. And you had better decide at once in favour of my advice; for as I am of a contradictory temperament, myself of to-morrow may probably contradict ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... observes, that no body will deny this play its due applause; at least I know, says he, that the university of Oxford, who may be allowed competent judges of comedy, especially such characters as Sir Nicholas Gimcrack, and Sir Formal Trifle, applauded it. And as no man ever undertook to discover the frailties of such pretenders to this kind of knowledge before Mr. Shadwell, so none since Johnson's time, ever drew so many different ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... nevertheless, a competent judge and a poet himself. Why, then, such severity? Did he wish to sacrifice the poet to the man, fearing for his friend lest the allusions therein made should lend further weapons to the malice of his ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... can only second the statement made by one of the most experienced men in this country in the surgical treatment of appendicitis, that there are thousands of surgeons who are otherwise competent, i. e., competent to perform the ordinary surgical and gynecological operations, whom he would not think of permitting to open his abdomen in case he personally suffered from an attack of appendicitis. ...
— Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment • John H. Tilden, M.D.
... middle of July. The great "winter season" was developing. I felt perfectly competent to make a whole garment unaided. It was doubtful, however, whether I should be readily accepted as an independent mechanic in the shop where I was employed now and where one was in the habit of regarding me ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... the human senses. Your noble brother, in whom the claims of the spirit have long since triumphed over those of sense, has found this key without seeking it, since he has been permitted to see Korinna's soul. And if he follows a competent guide he ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... 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
... all its students to the war, could in no way so gracefully recognize this proud fact of its history as by hereafter making war one of the arts which it taught. The board explained that of course Mr. Elmore would not be expected to take charge of this branch of instruction at once. A competent military assistant would be provided, and continued under him as long as he should deem his services essential. The letter closed with a cordial expression of the desire of Elmore's old friends to have him once more in their midst, ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... visit him nor write. The bishop told him also that he had found a certain Grecian mariner, Hector by name, a Roman citizen, who was a Christian and faithful. This man desired to sail for the coasts of Syria and was competent to steer a vessel thither. Also he thought that he could collect a crew of Christians and Jews who might be trusted. Lastly, he knew of several small galleys that were for sale, one of which, named the Luna, was a very good ship and almost new. Cyril told him, moreover, ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... President, had been one of the bitter foes of ratification. The former went so far in the direction of local autonomy that he exalted the state above the nation in the Kentucky resolutions of 1798, declaring the Constitution to be a mere compact and the states competent to interpret and nullify federal law. This was provincialism with a vengeance. "It is jealousy, not confidence, which prescribes limited constitutions," wrote Jefferson for the Kentucky legislature. Jealousy ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... to undertake the office of engineer for the line, but his answer was that he had thirty miles of railway in hand, which were enough for any engineer to attend to properly. Was there any person he could recommend? "Well," said he, "I think my son Robert is competent to undertake the thing." Would Mr. Stephenson be answerable for him? "Oh, yes, certainly." And Robert Stephenson, at twenty-seven years of age, was installed engineer ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... be given. This objection has been measurably removed in this new volume. Another important matter is, no receipts are contained in it but those fully tested, not only by the author, but by cooks and housekeepers most competent to judge. The volume opens with directions for soup, for fish, oysters, meat, poultry, etc. In addition to all this, much attention has been given to directions for the preparation of dishes for the sick and convalescent. ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... could never meet Daisy in these days without feeling that, mere chronology to the opposite notwithstanding, she was much the older and more competent person of the two. This sense of juvenility overwhelmed me now, as she calmly rose and put her hand on my shoulder, and took a restful, as it were maternal, charge of ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... reduction in price, but these are not all. Fifty years and less have classified information so that science and sense are conveniently found, and humor and nonsense have their proper sphere. All branches are pretty full of lively and thoroughly competent writers, who take hold of their own special work even as the thorough, quick-eyed mechanic takes hold of his line of labor and acquits himself in a creditable manner. The various lines of journalism may appear to be crowded, but they are not. There may be ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... most skilful in this fishery are the Basques, who, for the purpose of engaging in it, take their vessels to a place of security, and near where they think whales are plenty. Then they equip several shallops manned by competent men and provided with hawsers, small ropes made of the best hemp to be found, at least a hundred and fifty fathoms long. They are also provided with many halberds of the length of a short pike, whose iron is ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... gait myself, but all the same Joyce's diagnosis proved to be quite correct. Mr. Gow was sober—most undoubtedly and creditably sober. I rowed to the bank, and brought him on board, and when we told him of our plans he expressed himself as being perfectly competent to ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... have never seen one yet that in my opinion deserv'd to be called a perfectly good likeness; nor do I believe there is really such a one in existence. May I not say too, that, as there is no entirely competent and emblematic likeness of Abraham Lincoln in picture or statue, there is not—perhaps cannot be—any fully appropriate literary statement or summing-up of him yet ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... chap. iii. As the approximate calculation of a very competent business man these figures are more reliable than the official figures of imports and exports, the value of which throughout the eighteenth century is seriously impaired by the fact that they continued to be estimated by the standard of values ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... Anthony Weldon was the author of "The Court and Character of King James; written and taken by Sir A. W., being an eye and ear witness." London, 1650. A work which has been pronounced, by competent authority, " a despicable tissue of filth and obscenity, of ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... enjoy it if she will take me places and bring me back and forth to rehearsals," and the gray eyes beamed with relief and anticipation of being led forth from the Y. W. C. A. into the gay world by a competent guide. "Can we go to some of the the dansants in the afternoon, and maybe to the Metropolitan ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... was understood by the person to whom it was addressed, than might have been expected under all these circumstances. This person was a Spanish gentleman of rank and great wealth, of the name of Don Antonio Nunnez, whose acquirements included a very competent knowledge of the English language, which, although he spoke it but indifferently, he understood very well. Yet it certainly did require all his knowledge of it, to recognise it in the shape in which Donald presented it to him. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... two boats shot backwards and forwards across the stream in a very erratic way, but after an hour's practice the steersmen found the amount of force required. An hour later Harry thought that they were competent to make a start, and turning they shot rapidly past the cliffs. In a couple of miles there was a break in ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... mine is no exception—disposed to extract the last farthing which the law by its extremest process will give them. And I really must tell you, frankly, that if you dream of escaping the most serious consequences, you must at once place yourself and your affairs in the hands of a competent man of business. It will probably be found that you do not in reality owe sixty pounds of every hundred ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... horses of Theseus that will tear to pieces Hippolytus, his son: these things are demanded back from me, and I am right in refusing them, knowing the use that will be made of them. But how will it be if a competent judge orders me to restore them, when I cannot prove to him what I know of the evil consequences that restitution will have, Apollo perchance having given to me, as to Cassandra, the gift of prophecy under the ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... steady progress with my arithmetic and other studies during the year, thanks to Mr Hashford, who, good fellow that he was, took special pains with me, so that at the end of the year I was pronounced competent to take a situation as an office-boy or junior clerk, or any like post to which my amiable uncle might ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... to discuss the merits of the controversy, which grew out of this battle, between two of the best soldiers of our army. The reader will find, in the Report on the Conduct of the War, 1865, all the facts and arguments on both sides, by those most competent to ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... of a female set designer—who'd turn any male head—from the Studio, a garage mechanic with 30 years' experience, an electronics engineer, a science fiction writer, and the prettiest competent secretary available. I found Hazel, discovering with delight she'd had three ...
— Question of Comfort • Les Collins
... candidate can't cemetery certain changeable changing characteristic chauffeur choose chose chosen clothes coarse column coming commission committee comparative compel compelled competent concede conceivable conferred conquer conqueror conscience conscientious considered continuous control controlled cooperate country ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... inmost recesses of the soul of the sufferer, but do not lay it open before you, it is permitted for the genius of the actor to co-operate with that of the poet in producing an effect, for which neither was singly competent. Those who have witnessed the representation of the heart-rendings of jealousy in Kean's Othello, or of the agonies of "love and sorrow joined" in Miss O'Neil's Belvidera, will, we are persuaded, acknowledge the truth of ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... you do this work if you show yourself competent. But this does not mean that you are merely to sit around the office and say "bright things." There is nothing in "bright things"—there is everything in good judgment ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... four years through the erecting shops, vice shop, blacksmith shop, boiler shop, roundhouse, test department, machine shop, air-brake shop, iron foundry, car shop, work of firing on the road, office work in the motive power accounting department, and drawing room; the most competent may be admitted through the grades of inspector, in the office of the master mechanic or of the road foreman of engines, assistant master mechanic, assistant engineer of motive power, master mechanic and superintendent of motive power. The ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... widow would take Susan's chair, and the two girls would be 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 think alike," ...
— The Courtship of Susan Bell • Anthony Trollope
... complain to no one, least of all to your employer. Fill the place as it was never filled before. Crowd it to overflowing. Make yourself more competent for it. Show that you are abundantly worthy of better things. Express yourself in this manner as freely as you please, for it is the ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... Groostork a good many millions of hard-earned dollars, I certainly don't relish the idea that you may take it into your head to upset the whole transaction merely because you have not had the matter presented to you by me instead of by your cabinet, competent as its members may be. First hand information on any subject is my notion ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... Bob Sawyer sat together in the little surgery behind the shop, discussing minced veal and future prospects, when the discourse, not unnaturally, turned upon the practice acquired by Bob the aforesaid, and his present chances of deriving a competent independence from the honourable profession to which ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... on the miserable thoughts that were chasing each other through June's tired brain—"I assure you, Coppertop and I are very competent people. We won't ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... arrangements to secure for our pages, by a liberal outlay, contributions from gentlemen most competent to write upon their respective subjects of study, and shall strive, more than ever, to be a worthy organ and representative of that most valuable and peculiarly interesting branch of literature which has for its object the instruction of mankind by the study and ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.19 • Various
... "Young man," he said sharply, "I don't like the way you look at me. Stop! Not a word, sir! I have taken up the show business seriously. I find that our animal tamers are entirely competent. What we need here is a tamer for vicious and ungentle bipeds. There is a way to tame them, just as there is a way to break the spirit of the lion or the tiger. It shall be my special duty to deal with these unruly human beings. I hope ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... that the magic mill called a Sampo could only be forged by a competent smith, from materials which Louhi alone possessed, and which, perhaps, she could not again procure. Otherwise Ilmarinen could have forged another for himself, and it would have been unnecessary for the heroes to steal it. The chain forged ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... years ago an iron highway bridge at Dixon, Ill., fell, while a crowd was upon it, and killed sixty persons. The briefest inspection of that bridge by any competent engineer would have been sure to condemn it. A few years later the Ashtabula bridge upon the Lake Shore Railroad broke down under an express train, and killed over eighty passengers. The report of the committee of the Ohio Legislature appointed to investigate ...
— Bridge Disasters in America - The Cause and the Remedy • George L. Vose
... age has known—let them be photographed incessantly for half an hour while they perform a scene in Lohengrin; let all be done stereoscopically. Let them be phonographed at the same time so that their minutest shades of intonation are preserved, let the slides be coloured by a competent artist, and then let the scene be called suddenly into sight and sound, say a hundred years hence. Are those people dead or alive? Dead to themselves they are, but while they live so powerfully and so livingly in us, which ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... of her slipper-buckles; but the intelligent elderly woman in charge of the room made an indefinite sojourn impracticable. "Perhaps I could help you with that buckle, Miss," she suggested, approaching. "Has it come loose?" Alice wrenched desperately; then it was loose. The competent woman, producing needle and thread, deftly made the buckle fast; and there was nothing for Alice to do but to express her ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... attention to what a brain-racking job the office of Governor is. There are so many matters he has to give his mind to just in connection with keeping the town clean and repairs and alterations. In a word, it is enough to upset the most competent person. But, thank God, all goes well. Another governor, of course, would look out for his own advantage. But believe me, even nights in bed I keep thinking: "Oh, God, how could I manage things in such a way that the government would observe my devotion to duty and be satisfied?" Whether ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol
... got to know whither our poor, stupid folks are tending. I have just ended an unpleasantly long spell which I passed among various centres where middle-class leisure is spent, and I would not care to repeat the experience for any money. Any given town will suit a competent observer, for I found scarcely any vital differences in passing from place to place. It is tragical and disheartening to see scores of fine lads and men, full of excellent faculties and latent goodness—and all under the spell of the dreary Circe of the Turf. I have been ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... "The competent American litterateur has a glorious career before him. So much is there in your magnificent country, hitherto undescribed and unexpressed, in scenery, manners, morals, that all may be wells from which he may be the first to drink. Yet it cannot be expected—for it has passed to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... competent military writers, the war of the future will consist primarily of a series of battles for the possession of fortified positions, which will further be protected by wire obstructions, pitfalls, etc., to overcome which great sacrifices ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... New York: It is a marked advance on any available work of its scope. The author has shown competent judgment in the choice of his facts and his style is clear and interesting. The proportions are well observed, and the political significance of events is given due prominence in his treatment. So far as we have noticed, unusual accuracy has ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery
... lapse of ten days." If the proper construction was that the day on which the bill was presented to the President and the day on which his action was had upon it were both to be counted inclusive, then the time allowed him within which it would be competent for him to return it to the House in which it originated with his objections would expire on Thursday, the 24th of February. General Hamilton on the same day returned an answer, in which ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... ago a persuasive argument against attempting to amend the Prayer Book, either in text or rubrics, might have been based upon the lack of hands competent to undertake so delicate a task. Raw material, well adapted to edification, was lying about in blocks, but skilled workmen were scarce. This can hardly be said to-day. Simultaneously with the beginning of the Oxford movement, there naturally sprang up a fresh interest in liturgical ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... the child in her own hard, puritanical way. And, in any case, you are not competent to judge her, unless you have to work for your living, instead of finding somebody eager to support you in luxury for the pleasure of your society; unless, instead of marrying some squatter, or bank clerk, or Member of Parliament, you have inadvertently coupled ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... and I were physicians, and were advising one another that we were competent to practice as state-physicians, should I not ask about you, and would you not ask about me, Well, but how about Socrates himself, has he good health? and was anyone else ever known to be cured by him whether slave ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... fetters—ecclesiastical as well as civil—which have so long bound them. In a measure, at least, their day of civil and religious slavery is drawing to a close. They now very frequently preside and speak at public religious meetings, and are admitted by candid, well-informed men to be quite as competent to discharge the duties of a presiding officer, or to present the ideas they wish to convey in a clear and logical manner, as any of the learned clergymen or clear-headed laymen in the same meeting. Some of the most eloquent public advocates of the missionary enterprise ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... effects foreign to the design and opposite to it." This at once assumes the Deity to be powerless. But a general statement is afterwards made more distinctly to the same effect. "Most sure it is that he can do all things possible. But are we in any degree competent judges of the bounds of possibility?" So again under another form nature is introduced as something different from its author, and offering limits to his power. "It is plainly not the method of nature to obtain her ends instantaneously." Passing over such ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... he was to the instruction of his adopted child, Edward Forster was nevertheless aware that more was required in the education of a female than he was competent to fulfil. Many and melancholy were his reveries on the forlorn prospects of the little girl (considering his own precarious life and the little chance that appeared of restoring her to her friends and relations), still he resolved that all that could should be done; the issue he left ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... its own excellence, its special insight and its extraordinary awakening power. But in general the effect of reading many criticisms on the Alcestis is to make a scholar realize that, for all the seeming simplicity of the play, competent Grecians have been strangely bewildered by it, and that after all there is no great reason to suppose that he himself is more sensible ...
— Alcestis • Euripides
... beset even the courageous and the competent were enormous. The general paralysis of industry, the breaking up of society, and poverty on all sides bore especially hard on those who had not previously been manual laborers. Physicians could get practice enough but no fees; ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... is now almost forgotten as an operatic composer, but at one time his popularity was only second to that of Weber. Many competent critics have constantly affirmed that a day will come when Spohr's operas, now neglected, will return to favour once more; but years pass, and there seems no sign of a revival of interest in his work. Yet he has a certain importance ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... specified time as interpreters at the legation and the consulates in Japan. A limited number of Japanese youths might at the same time be educated in our own vernacular, and mutual benefits would result to both Governments. The importance of having our own citizens, competent and familiar with the language of Japan, to act as interpreters and in other capacities connected with the legation and the consulates in that country ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant • Ulysses S. Grant
... Simmonds. If anything, my car is slightly superior to his, while I may be regarded as an equally competent driver, so the contract is kept in ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... themselves. Why should the United States—of all countries in the world—be chosen for such a theme instead of a country like Ireland, where the population depends mainly upon agriculture? What qualifications has an Irishman, be he never so competent to advise upon the social and economic problems of his own country, to talk to Americans about the life of their rural population? I admit at once that, while I have made some study of American agriculture and rural economy, my ...
— The Rural Life Problem of the United States - Notes of an Irish Observer • Horace Curzon Plunkett
... use, fair Brunhilda, knows neither east nor west; north nor south, but is common to every land, and if it be a stranger to the Rhine, the Saints be witness 'tis full time 'twere introduced here, and I hold myself as competent to be its spokesman, as those screeching scoundrels of mine hold themselves the equal in battle to all the archbishops who ever wore the robes of that ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... for the emergency. When the darkness falls, don't have to hasten away to buy oil. Look after your resources, and be competent to meet the crisis when it comes. Let the light of conscience be burning with clear flame, like a brilliant lighthouse on a dangerous shore. Let the light of love be burning, like a lamp which sends its friendly, cheery beams to ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... a flash of belated intelligence, mingled with self-contempt, fell on me. Now that the explanation was given, how obvious it was! And yet I, a competent anatomist and physiologist and actually a pupil of Thorndyke's, had mistaken those ancient bones for the ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... religion, which caused her to hold it in reverence, even when rejecting the objective validity of its dogmas. Yet much more is to be said for that other attitude, which is faithful to the law of reason, and believes that reason is competent to say some truer and larger word on a subject of such vital importance and such constant interest to man. That both reason and tradition are to be listened to reverently is true, but George Eliot so zealously espoused the cause of tradition as to give it an undue prominence. Her lesson was needed, ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... doubt in this regard, and he committed himself at once to authorship for a support. Previously to this, however, he had published (in 1827) a small volume of poems, which soon ran through three editions, and excited high expectations of its author's future distinction in the minds of many competent judges. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... to go to the heart of the problem of the baby in the congested districts of Philadelphia, and do a piece of intensive work in the ward having the highest infant mortality, establishing the first health centre in the United States actively managed by competent physicians and nurses. This centre was to demonstrate to the city authorities that the fearful mortality among babies, particularly in summer, could ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok |
