"Competence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... three thousand pounds, even in these days, represents a handsome competence—provided you don't "owe a duty to society." In Mrs. Gallilee's position, an income of three thousand pounds represented genteel poverty. She was getting into debt again; and she was meditating future designs on her brother's purse. A charming letter to Robert was the result. It ended with, ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... some future day be actually constructed. My highest ambition was to gain, as rapidly as possible, a thorough knowledge of my business, procure the command of a good ship, and by my own labors, acquire a competence before age should weaken the faculties or diminish a relish for society; and then, residing in my own house with a small piece of land attached which I could cultivate with my own hands, and within a few miles of the metropolis of New England, surrounded by a pleasant neighborhood, and enjoying ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... his countrymen, accordingly, conceived the plan of a national testimonial to the philanthropist, which should ensure to him during the rest of his life a competence. ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... McKinley," I was not primarily concerned with either following or not following in his footsteps, but in facing the new problems that arose; and that if I were competent I would find ample opportunity to show my competence by my deeds without worrying myself as to how to ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... proud, Delaserre, when I trust that even this trial may terminate favourably to my wishes? Am I too vain when I suppose that the few personal qualities which I possess, with means of competence, however moderate, and the determination of consecrating my life to her happiness, may make amends for all I must call upon her to forego? Or will a difference of dress, of attendance, of style, ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... of publications is subject to modification in response to requests by members. From time to time Bibliographical Notes will be included in the issues. Each issue contains an Introduction by a scholar of special competence in the ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... and I doubt his competence. The poor creature seems to have had everything taken from her,—her bed, her ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... been made familiar." Thus a month Went by. They liked the stirring ways of youth, The quick elastic step, and joyous mind, Ever expectant of it knew not what, But something higher than has e'er been born Of easy slumber and sweet competence. And as for him,—the while they thought and thought A comfortable instinct let him know How they had waited for him, to complete And give a meaning to their lives; and still At home, but with a sense of newness there, ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... disputants have asserted, may be matter for doubt, but the manner in which the proposal was made certainly had one unfortunate consequence. Mr. Gladstone's action struck a blow at the independence and self-respect, or as M. Faguet terms it, the moral competence of our parliamentary representation from which it has never recovered. Men were called on to abandon, in the course of a few hours, opinions which they had professed for a lifetime and this not as ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... mail and weapons of all kinds only ornaments for decking your persons, and were words given to you only for speaking in assemblies, that ye failed to protect my son (even though ye were clad in mail, armed from head to foot, and even though you had assured me in words of your competence)?"—Having said these words, Partha sat down, holding bow and his excellent sword. Indeed, none could, at that time, even look at Vibhatsu who then resembled the Destroyer himself in wrath, repeatedly drawing deep breaths. None of his friends or kinsmen ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... occasion, in order to hide the treason which he meditated, is highly probable. But it is impossible to believe that a man of his sense would have urged the members of a council of war to inflict a punishment which was notoriously beyond their competence.] ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... your own be not judged. The reasons of your licensed pamphlet, you say, 'are good.' They must be better than your own then . ... Mr. Licenser ... you are reputed a man discreet enough, religious enough, honest enough—that is, to an ordinary competence in all these. But now your turn is to hear what your own hand hath earned ye, that when you suffered this nameless hangman to cast into public such a despiteful contumely upon a name and person deserving of the Church and State equally to yourself, and one who hath done more ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... she renewed her protestation against the competence of the tribunal. Bromley lord-chancellor answered her, showing the jurisdiction of the English law over all persons within the country; and the commissioners ordered both the objection and the reply ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... income was important to him, and it was at no slight personal sacrifice that he was now serving his country. He had a moderate competence, but his expenses were almost doubled by living thus apart from his family, while his affairs suffered by reason of his absence. For a while he was left unmolested in the post-mastership, and in view of all the circumstances ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... rather to thank Heaven that circumstances have enabled us to shew some gratitude for benefits heaped upon us? How much greater are these privations to my uncle and aunt now that they are so much more advanced in years, and have been so much longer accustomed to competence and ease; and shall we repine or even regret, unless it is on their account? surely, my dear Emma, not on ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... innocent. Of my father I will say nothing, but that if he is now without wealth—without state, almost without a sheltering home and needful food—it is because he spent all in the service of the King. He needed not to commit any act of treachery or villany to obtain wealth— he had an ample competence in his own possessions. For Markham Everard— he knows no such thing as selfishness—he would not, for broad England, had she the treasures of Peru in her bosom, and a paradise on her surface, do a deed that would disgrace his own name, or injure ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... know the great facts of our human past and their causes that we are enabled to understand our human present, for the present is the child of the past; and it is only in proportion as we thus learn to understand the present that we can face the future with confidence and competence. Past, Present, Future—these can not be understood singly and separately—they are welded together indissolubly ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... business, the law, universities and schools, the press, and so on. About once a month, from October through May, members come together for dinner and an evening of discussion with a guest speaker of special competence.... Since the beginning in 1938, the Carnegie Corporation of New York has continued to make annual grants in support ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... on the conservative interest, was elected without much expense, which was very wonderful, and took his seat in Parliament. Don Philip and Don Martin, after two months' stay, took their passage back to Palermo, fully satisfied with the prospects of their sister as to competence and happiness. Jack had no occasion to argue the point with Agnes; she conformed at once to the religion of her husband, proved an excellent and affectionate wife, and eventually the mother of four children, three ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... Sime's competence as a biographer of Goethe, both in respect of knowledge of his special subject, and of German literature generally, ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... pay much attention to those tempting little arithmetical sums by which it is demonstrated that paying so much for ten acres of barren land, and so much for planting it with vines or oranges, the income in three years will be a competence to the investor and his family. People do not spend much time now in gaping over abnormal vegetables, or trying to convince themselves that wines of every known variety and flavor can be produced within the limits of one flat and well-watered ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... will determine what is in a man. If he has the stuff in him to earn a competence at forty, he has usually acquired the judgment and experience to keep it ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... of a small shipyard here at the time, a thing which was not much at first but which grew swiftly. He was born in Noank also, a few years before Burridge, and as a builder of vessels had been slowly forging his way to a moderate competence when Elihu was already successful. He was a keen, fine-featured, energetic individual, with excellent commercial and strong religious instincts, and by dint of hard labor and a saving disposition he obtained, soon after the Civil War, a powerful foothold. Many vessels were ordered here ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... protection, reassurance and guidance. When society consisted of strong independent farmers, hunters, warriors, nomads or artisans backed by family and clan, liberty was an important idea. Today few if any can rise above the horde and gain the insights, the wisdom and the competence which once was such a common thing. Today the strong seek promotion inside the hierarchy of the welfare ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... own home circle. Her faithful sister Mary, a most successful teacher in the public schools of Rochester for a quarter of a century, and a good financier, who with her patrimony and salary had laid by a competence, took on her shoulders double duty at home in cheering the declining years of her parents, that Susan might do the public work in the reforms in which they were equally interested. Now, with life's earnest work nearly accomplished, the sisters are living happily ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... France where serious literature does not reap renown quickly. M. M. Lairesse De Voguee, Bourdeau, Sorel, all welcomed it as a revelation, in the Debats, Revues des Deux Mondes, and elsewhere, and its real title was awarded it in the Temps, by M. Albert Sorel, whose experience and competence as an historical critic has never been denied, and who unhesitatingly proclaimed it, Le Fuit et l'Idee, namely, the announcement of the ruling national idea whence the fact of German ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... to beat her. The latter resented it, and the result was a scrimmage, after which she was driven out of the house, without being paid the wages due her. Katiousha went to the city, where she stopped with her aunt. Her aunt's husband was a bookbinder. Formerly he used to earn a competence, but had lost his customers, and was now given to drink, spending everything that came into ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... friends, he announced one day, when he was turned of forty, that he had had enough of work, and that he would do no more. Well, he had no one to say him nay; he has but few relations, none in any way dependent on him; he has a modest competence; and, being fond of all leisurely things—books, music, the open air, the country, flowers, and the like—he has no need to fear that his time ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... as we know girls; but she had straight steady eyes, a wide brow, smooth matronly bands of hair, and a wholesome, homely New England character, sweet, yet with a tang to give it a flavour, like the apples on the tree near the old-fashioned, long-armed well. Peter could gain no competence from the stony farm, no consent from the girl. It was to win both that he ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... filled my anticipatory imagination as the waters fill the sea, but which resolved itself in realization to a simple, childlike faith in the fixtures on the wire, and in the skill and competence of the man who guided ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... departments that most men entrust to others he filled in person. He managed the correspondence, he travelled for orders, he arranged the importation, he directed the growers out in Spain, and gradually built up a great business, paid off his father's creditors, and secured his own competence. ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... words from Amy she departs on her perilous enterprise. The two conspirators would now give a handsome competence to Cosmo to get him out of the room. He knows it, ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie
... 1794, and Benjamin junior retired to Hampstead a few years after his father, leaving the business to a younger brother, John, who continued bookselling until the earlier part of the present century, when he, in his turn, gave up active work for the 'enjoyment of a country life' with 'an easy competence.' In one of the catalogues of this celebrated firm—our copy is minus the title-page, but it was evidently issued about 1790—four of the most interesting entries occur among the folios: Caxton's 'Lyfe of the Faders,' ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... for more than thirty years he has accumulated an unequalled experience of all classes of crime and criminals, and has travelled widely in many countries on dangerous and difficult missions. Tall and neat, he gives an impression of absolute competence. And competence is needed in the ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... of security, as of a believer living under the shadow of the fane. That any human being of ill odour should consciously come within a mile of the scent of so famous a sleuth-hound seemed to her highly improbable. Grodman had retired (with a competence) and was only a sleeping dog now; still, even criminals would have sense enough to ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... things, let us take life easily, and you know what St. Paul says about 'trouble in the flesh,'—a remark which I am sure is specially applicable to briefless barristers, even though possessed of a modest competence of their own. Perhaps one of these days, when I am a fat old judge, I shall give my cook a chance if she is satisfactory in her clear soups; but till then I shall expect you, Evie, to work ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... Permanent Military Command, still in existence, to advise the Council of the League on all military matters. But when these gentlemen got to work upon such questions as reduction of armaments, they at once found themselves dealing with matters entirely beyond their competence, because into this problem enter problems of high politics and finance, and a thousand other questions of which soldiers, sailors, and ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... begin with," whispered Ellen, who apparently distrusted my competence for the office. That nettled me and, instead, I made a plunge for a big wether and fastened both hands into his wool. The animal gave a tremendous jump and then went round about that yard, into corners and over the backs of the other sheep, at a ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... University for the Government of Russia was the work of Diderot's last years, but no copy of it was given to the public before 1813-14, when M. Guizot published extracts from an autograph manuscript confided to him by Suard. Diderot, with a characteristic respect for competence, with which no egotism can ever interfere in minds of such strength and veracity as his, began by urging the Empress to consult Ernesti of Leipsic, the famous editor of Cicero, and no less famous in his day (1707-1781) for the ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... "The probability of her becoming free to give me herself and estate ever rose to drive away the prospect of her decline under her present grief." "I had reason to hope that ere very long I should be the husband of a lady whom I loved best in the world, and with whom, in more than competence, I might live at leisure to try to make myself a name in the world of posterity, without being pestered by the small but countless botherments, which, like mosquitoes, sting us in the world of work-day toil. That hope and herself are gone—she to wither into patiently pining decline—it ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... is fairly well. Mowbray has had a Lift in his Inland Revenue Office, and now is secure, I believe, of Competence for Life. Charles wrote me a kindly Letter at Christmas: he sent me his own Photo; and then (at my Desire) one of his wife:—Both of which I would enclose, but that my Packet is already bulky enough. It won't go off to-night when it is written—for here (absolutely!) comes my ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... very anxious at my long silence; I did indeed mean to make a professional tour of Australia, but the shipwreck, and those lonely weeks on the island changed my plans. Henceforth I shall restrict myself to America. I have a competence already, and can make an income at home twice as large as my expenses. Why should ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger
... daughters of kings, high-bosomed maids, as they were moons: I was blessed with a thousand sons as they were fierce lions, and I abode a thousand years, glad of heart and mind, and I amassed treasures beyond the competence of all the Kings of the regions of the earth, deeming that delight would still endure to me. But there fell on me unawares the Destroyer of delights and the Sunderer of societies, the Desolator of domiciles and the Spoiler ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... then my humorous vein run wild, some latitude allow. I learned the habit from the best of fathers, who employed Some living type to stamp the vice he wished me to avoid. Thus temperate and frugal when exhorting me to be, And with the competence content which he had stored for me, 'Look, boy!' he'd say,' at Albius' son—observe his sorry plight! And Barrus, that poor beggar there! Say, are not these a sight, To warn a man from squandering ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... the year of the great pestilence that civilization had prospered, had produced a long series of generals, inventors, architects, sculptors, painters, musicians, poets, authors, and orators. Everywhere men had shown self-confidence, capacity, originality, power and competence and had achieved success ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... the always dignified position occupied by the daughters of the house culminates." Among other privileges she is allowed to receive the "most intimate attentions from the clan-fellows of the group." "She is the receiver of the supplies furnished by her lover, measuring his competence as would-be husband. Through his energy she is enabled to dispense largess with a lavish hand, and thus to dignify her clan and honour her spouse in the most effective way known to primitive life; and at the same time ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... and tremulous, went straight from the minister to his wife—with the impetus of Mr. Ancrum's shove, as it were, fresh upon him. Sitting opposite to her in the back kitchen, while she peeled her potatoes with a fierce competence and energy which made his heart sick within him, Reuben told her, with incoherent repetitions of every phrase, that in his opinion the time had come when Mr. Gurney should be written to, and some of Sandy's savings applied to the starting of Sandy's ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... appropriated it to the proper pay and support of the servants of all kinds, carefully dividing the proceeds according to a scale; and thus gave every British functionary employed in the East the means of slowly but surely acquiring a competence. Having disposed of the affairs of the civil servants, Clive turned his attention to those of the military, his old companions in arms. And here he had greater difficulties than ever to contend with, for they were men who held the power of the sword ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... gradually dwindled; and he drifted in Paris and Italy, and even in England, more and more disconsolately, with thoughts of suicide sometimes in his head. But in 1830 the tide of his fortunes turned. The revolution of July, by putting his friends into power, brought him a competence in the shape of an Italian consulate; and in the same year he gained for the first time some celebrity by the publication of Le Rouge et Le Noir. The rest of his life was spent in the easy discharge of his official duties at Civita Vecchia, alternating with periods of leave—one of them lasted ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... this claim on a vision. The implication is that Baha-'ullah was virtually the head of the Bābī community, and that Ṣubḥ-i-Ezel was wrapt up in dreams, and was really only a figurehead. In fact, from whatever point of view we compare the brothers (half-brothers), we are struck by the all-round competence of the elder and the incompetence of the younger. As leader, as teacher, and as writer he was alike unsurpassed. It may be mentioned in passing that, not only the Hidden Words and the Seven Valleys, ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... is true that it was at an epoch when the head of your house was your father, if I remember right, the deceased Prince Urban, whom I had the honor of knowing when I served in the zouaves. He was a fine Roman nobleman, and did honor to his name. What I have told you is proof that I have some competence in the matter of a duel.... Well, we have always held that seconds were constituted to arrange affairs that could be arranged, but also to settle affairs, as well as they can, that seem incapable of being arranged. Let us now inquire into the ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou was't The Tutor and the Feeder of my Riots: Till then, I banish thee, on paine of death, As I haue done the rest of my Misleaders, Not to come neere our Person, by ten mile. For competence of life, I will allow you, That lacke of meanes enforce you not to euill: And as we heare you do reforme your selues, We will according to your strength, and qualities, Giue you aduancement. Be it your charge (my Lord) To see perform'd the tenure ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... next night she was expecting him, and last night she felt sure he would come. If he did not come tonight—— Maybe something had happened, maybe he had been shot by some of Jenkins' hired assassins? Fear, which really had been hovering about for three days, but put off by her faith in Bob's utter competence to take care of himself, swooped down on her suddenly. Her throat grew dry, her heart beat like a frightened bird's, she whirled and started to run for the house. She would start ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... him is in reality no gladiator but a Gaulish warrior, perhaps fairly represents one class of combatant, but it represents only one. In the case of these "swordsmen" a number of successful fights might in the end secure freedom and something more for slave or prisoner, and a competence for the volunteer. It was not unnatural that men of courage and strength should frequently offer themselves for this service. Their physical training was indeed severe both in the way of exercise and of diet, and their personal treatment ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... savages were upon them. With anguish they saw, from the loop-holes of their retreat, every house and barn consumed, their cattle shot, and all their property of food, clothing, and furniture destroyed. They were thus, in an hour, reduced from competence to the ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... course, when you like. I will set aside a certain sum every year, to be invested for him, so that when he grows up he will have a competence—even a small fortune. I will have a deed drawn out for you to sign; it shall be all ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... in the street, and so pave the way to a position as a millionaire. Who ever heard of a man rising from a respectable competence to a fortune? According to the papers, you must start with nothing; that is the first rule of the game. We have ten thousand a year, so we can never hope to be rich. Fortune only favours the pauper. I am mad about money to-day. I can ...
— The Folly Of Eustace - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... from care. His sole regret was the impossibility of sharing the political life of the city at this critical period; and at times he felt some little anxiety concerning the fate and management of his property, though, even if his estates were confiscated, he would still retain a competence which he had left in the hands of a trustworthy money-changer. Barine shared everything that concerned him, even these moods, and this led him to tell her about the affairs of the city and the state, in which she had formerly taken little ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Claude's crudest works, which he hung by the side of his Delacroix, predicting equal fortune for them. The worst was that Papa Malgras had just retired after making his fortune. It was but a modest competence after all, an income of about ten thousand francs, upon which he had decided to live in a little house at Bois Colombes, like ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... By tact and shrewdness, you might yet save something from your creditors. Compromise with them. And if you need my services, here I am. Go to Nice, and give me a power of attorney to act for you. From the debris of your fortune, I will undertake to guarantee you a competence which would satisfy many an ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... willing, chaste and discerning wife. We have been poor, for I renounced my inheritance in favour of my next brother, retaining nothing of it, and began the world again where I left it when I was driven from Lucca by misfortunes; and by industry and thrift we have risen to a competence enough to educate our children according to the degree marked out by their birth. I did this deliberately, having found out by hard experience that money was the bondslave of lust, and rank the breastplate of inanity. Had I taken my wife to England I must have retained my wretched ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... for its subject is the future political condition of Ireland under the assumption of Repeal; for its address is, 'To the People of Ireland.' So placing himself, a writer has it not within his choice to play the fool; it is not within his competence to tumble or 'come aloft' or play antics as a mountebank; his theme binds him to decency, his audience to gravity. Speaking, though it be but by the windiest of fictions, to a nation, is not a man pledged to respectful language? speaking, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... investment, and safe keeping of property, must engage, more or less, the attention; and owing to the extreme selfishness of the heart, are very liable to awaken a lively interest. Hence, the more people are employed in the acquisition of affluence or competence, the more covetous they usually become. This influence, so chilling to the generous affections, can be resisted only by a counter process of reflection. The truth that ourselves and all we have belong to ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark
... Irish Bills in the House of Commons made us realize how little English members knew about Ireland; how utterly different were their competence for, and their attitude towards, Irish questions and English questions. We perceived that we were legislating in the dark for a country whose economic and social condition we did not understand—a country to which we could not apply our English ideas of policy; a country ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... any thing, as of our own knowledge and competence, respecting heavenly bodies which are said to be millions of millions of miles removed from us, it would not perhaps be amiss that we should possess ourselves of a certain degree of incontestible ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... large number of naval officers have for several years past been troubled with doubts as to the strategical competence displayed by the Board or Boards of Admiralty since 1904. The Board of Admiralty has also been criticised for other reasons, into some of which it is not necessary to enter, but it is desirable to state precisely the considerations which tend to show that important decisions ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... Cornwall. But here with Mrs. Forrester always seems to me more like the life of Europe. English life, as a rule, is, I think, rather like boxes one inside the other." She was perfectly sweet and undogmatic, but her air of cosmopolitan competence amused Gregory, serenely of opinion, for his part, that English was ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... himself, the work proved a success, not only in public acceptance and esteem, but even in a temporal view, bringing to him at last a modest competence, which he accepted with surprise and gratitude. To the last of a very long life, he was the same steady, undiscouraged worker, the same calm witness against popular sins and proclaimer of unpopular truths, ever saying and doing what he saw to be eternally right, without the slightest consultation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... degree Lao Ting found no difficulty in earning a meagre competence by instructing others who wished to follow in his footsteps. He was also now free to compete for the next degree, where success would bring him higher honour and a slightly less meagre competence. In the meanwhile he married Hoa-mi, being ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... Suppose competence, health, and honesty; then a happy marriage depends on four things:—1. An understanding proportionate to thine, that is, a recipiency at least of thine:—2. natural sensibility and lively sympathy in general:—3. steadiness in attaching ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... the industry of my competitors? or, perhaps, lend me gratuitously some capital, which you may take from its possessor? Could you not bring up my children at the public expense? or grant me some prizes? or secure me a competence when I have attained my fiftieth year? By this means I shall gain my end with an easy conscience, for the law will have acted for me, and I shall have all the advantages of plunder, without its ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... the contrary, it is precisely such men who prove its necessity; since, when they have conquered fortune, they know not how to avail themselves of its advantages. When Franklin had, at the age of forty-two, won a moderate competence, he could turn from business to science, and from science to the public service, using money as a means to the noblest ends. Strong-minded but unlettered men, like Girard, who cannot be idle, must needs plod on to the end, adding superfluous millions to their estates. ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... spoilt child. At last Miss Keith's refusal of him softened by a half-implied hope, sent him forth to his uncle at Rio, on the promise that if he did his utmost there, he should in three years be enabled to offer Miss Keith more than a competence. With this hope he had for the first time applied himself to business in earnest, when he received the tidings of her marriage, and like a true spoilt child broke down at once in resolution, capacity, and health, so that his uncle was only too glad to ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... house, some rods back from the village street, lived Dr. Drayton, a physician, whose skill was so well appreciated that he had already, though still in the prime of life, accumulated a handsome competence. ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... efforts to force it upon the new railroads of the West, he had obtained a knowledge of their affairs. From that knowledge came his wealth. That was twenty years ago. Since then giants had arisen in the land; men whose wealth made the fortune of Stephen Hallowell appear a comfortable competence, his schemes and stratagems, which, in their day, had bewildered Wall Street, as simple as the trading across the counter of a cross-roads store. For years he had been out of it. He had lost count. Disuse and ill health had rendered his mind ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... league embraced an indefinite number of city-states which maintained their internal independence practically undiminished, and through their several magistrates, assemblies and law-courts exercised all traditional powers of self-government. Only in matters of foreign politics and war was their competence restricted. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... In his turn, Judge Emery bestowed on his wife an esteem the warmth of which was not tempered by his occasional amusement at her—an amusement which Mrs. Emery was far from suspecting. He did heartily and unreservedly admire her competence; though he never did justice to her single-handed battle against the forces of ignorance and irresponsibility in the kitchen until an illness of hers showed that the combat must be continuous, though his wisdom in selecting an ambitious wife had shielded ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... has been observed to be true in certain individual instances of the class; the first place among the operations subsidiary to induction, is claimed by Observation. This is not, however, the place to lay down rules for making good observers; nor is it within the competence of Logic to do so, but of the art of intellectual Education. Our business with observation is only in its connection with the appropriate problem of logic, the estimation of evidence. We have to consider, not how or what to observe, but under what conditions observation is ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... constant affection. The marriage was still "imprudent,"—eight years of then uncontested supremacy in English poetry had not brought a golden harvest. Mr Moxon appears to have supplied 300 pounds "in advance of royalties." The sum, so contemptible in the eyes of first-rate modern novelists, was a competence to Tennyson, added to his little pension and the epaves of his patrimony. "The peace of God came into my life when I married her," he said in later days. The poet made a charming copy of verses to his friend, ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... died, without leaving him, a younger son, a competence. Nor would his great relatives give him an office or sinecure by which he might be supported while he sought truth, and he was forced to plod at the law, which he never liked, resisting the blandishments and follies by which he was surrounded; and at intervals, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... Gothic and Classic—tweedledum and tweedledee. Furthermore, they must learn certain neglected lessons from the engineer, lessons that they will be able immeasurably to better, for although the engineer is a very monster of competence and efficiency within his limits, these are sharply marked, and to any detailed knowledge of that "beautiful necessity" which determines spatial rhythm and counterpoint he is a stranger. The ideal relation between architect and engineer is that of a happily wedded pair—strength married ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... however, to show the superiority of the duly trained military mind in a marked degree. Some West-Pointers of repute of course proved incapable, and a great many amateur colonels and generals, both North and South, attained a very fair level of competence in the service (the few conspicuous failures seem to have been quite exceptional); but, all the same, of the many clever and stirring men who then took up soldiering as novices and served for four years, not one achieved brilliant success; of the generals in the war whose names ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... instinctively that Mrs. Burgoyne would approach him again, coldly as she had parted from him. She had betrayed to him all the sick confusion of soul that existed beneath her intellectual competence and vigour. The situation between them, indeed, had radically changed. He laid aside deference and humility; he took up the natural mastery of the priest as the moral expert. She had no faith; and faith would save ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a plain brick house on East Thirty-Ninth Street. He was a down-town merchant, and in possession of a snug competence. Mrs. Fenton was his own cousin, but he had never offered to help her in any way, though he was quite aware of the fact that she was struggling hard to support her little family. He had a son Raymond who was by no means as plain in his tastes ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... broken until the beginning of the Revolution.[26] The flame of enthusiasm passed like wildfire through the Highland glens and Western Isles. It pervaded all classes, from the poorest crofter to the well-to-do farmer, and even men of easy competence, who were according to the appropriate ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... authority, and legally were not piracy. His correspondent, Sir Leoline Jenkins, for twenty years judge of the High Court of Admiralty, and at this time also secretary of state, was one of the most learned admiralty lawyers England ever produced. Morgan's view of his own competence as admiralty judge in his colony is given with engaging frankness in a contemporary letter: "The office of Judge Admiral was not given me for my understanding of the business better than others, nor for the profitableness thereof, for I left the ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... military service had very real misgivings over using Negroes in white combat units or forming new black combat units because they felt that black fighters in the air and on the ground had performed badly in the past. To entrust the fighting to Negroes who had failed to prove their competence in this highest mission of the Army seemed to them ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... Tennyson was engaged to his wife for twenty years, from her seventeenth to her thirty-seventh year, owing again to stress of circumstances, and there is living now one eminent man for whom, as for Immanuel Kant, comfort, competence, and fame have come too late to allow of any share in the blessing and joy of home. Such things cannot but deepen the hold these elect spirits have and shall have upon men unto ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... but dwell in a Para (quarter) of their own. The Bhadralok, or Upper Crust, consists of two Brahman and ten Kayastha (writer-caste) families. Among the latter group Kumodini Kanta Basu's took an unquestioned lead. He had amassed a modest competence as sub-contractor in the Commissariat during the second Afghan War, and retired to enjoy it in his ancestral village. His first care was to rebuild the family residence, a congenial task which occupied ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... unredeemed matter and redeeming spirit, of contest and of victory—or of failure. In the case of races and nations and epochs there is the same conflict between material factors and spiritual energy; the same crescent youth with all its primal vitality, maturity with its assurance and competence, and the dying fall of dissipating energies. In each case death is the concomitant of life but there is always something that lasts over, and that is the spiritual achievement, the precious residuum that remains, defying death and dissolution, that infuses ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... said Ursula, rising and lifting her eyes to heaven;—"they shall buy masses for his mother's soul; for him I shall reserve a competence when his years require it. Lady, accept the thanks of a wretched and desolate ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... appeared, he would talk on any subject with an air of convincing competence and familiarity that made him greatly appreciated by fashionable women, whom he served as a sort of traveling bazaar of erudition. As a matter of fact, he knew many things without ever having read any but the most indispensable books; but he stood very well with the five ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... be worse than they are, for the purpose of pleading a stronger necessity for his possession of your settlement. Besides, so long as you keep this, you may look forward to it as a resource, at least, that will afford you a competence, should the Signor's future conduct compel you to ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... defend themselves; and often pleased, without ever praising man or woman in book or conversation. Long supported by the private bounty of friends, he rather delighted to insult than flatter; he at length obtained competence from a public he esteemed not: and died, refusing that assistance he considered as useless—leaving no debts (but those of gratitude) undischarged; and expressing neither regret of the past, nor fear of the future, I believe. Strong in his prejudices, haughty and independent in his spirit, ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... like St. Ambrose, St. Martin, and St. Leo deprecated the use of violence against heretics. Nevertheless, as the preservation of morality depends on the preservation of faith, both alike are in the interest and within the competence of the State. The Church of her own strength is not strong enough to resist the advance of heresy and unbelief. Those enemies find an auxiliary in the breast of every man whose weakness and whose passions repel him from a Church which imposes such onerous duties on ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... of the greater intellectual opportunities and demands of modern times, the standard of education has greatly advanced. And under the incentive of present-day economic success and luxury, comfortable circumstances and a moderate competence no longer satisfy our people. Hence they turn to the city, looking to find there the coveted social, educational, ...
— New Ideals in Rural Schools • George Herbert Betts
... good family, and had traveled extensively. Having run through the disgraceful round of fashionable dissipation, he had become crippled by the paralysis of his lower limbs, and was living a literary life in the enjoyment of a competence. He was still young. Imperturbable gayety, wonderful conversational powers, and celebrity as a poet, caused his saloons to be crowded with distinguished and admiring friends. Some one mentioned to him the situation of Francoise d'Aubigne, and her desire to enter ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... such hapless lot was Shelley's as that of his own contemporaries—Keats, half chewed in the jaws of London and spit dying on to Italy; de Quincey, who, if he escaped, escaped rent and maimed from those cruel jaws; Coleridge, whom they dully mumbled for the major portion of his life. Shelley had competence, poetry, love; yet he wailed that he could lie down like a tired child and weep away his life of care. Is it ever so with you, sad brother; is it ever so with me? and is there no drinking of pearls except they be dissolved in ...
— Shelley - An Essay • Francis Thompson
... left a widow when Bessie was twelve years old, with a neat little cottage in the suburbs of the city and a snug competence in a secure investment. I was fairly settled in business, with an income that would enable us to live in modest comfort, and was determined not to disturb the investment or have it drawn upon in any way for household expenses. But the old lady—I ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... maintenance of peace by sagacious prevision is the laurel of the statesman, which, in failing to achieve except by force, he takes from his own brow and gives to the warrior, it is none the less a necessary part of his official competence to recognize that in public disputes, as in private, there is not uncommonly on both sides an element of right, real or really believed, which prevents either party from yielding, and that it is better for ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... stand alone, or almost alone, by the ample generosity of their conception of the objects that power should be exerted in furtherance of; their outlook on life was more commensurate with the variety and competence of human nature than perhaps that of any ruling class has been before or since. As Shakespeare is the amplest of poets, so were theirs the most fruitful of courts. From the great Medicis to our own Elizabeth they all partake of a certain grandiose vitality and variety ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... actually done by the English navigator was in no measure due to the sagacity of the Admiralty—whose officials procrastinated in an inexplicable fashion even after the Investigator had been commissioned and equipped—but to his own promptness, competence and zeal, and the peculiar dilatoriness of his rivals. Baudin's vessels reached Ile-de-France (Mauritius) in March, 1801, and lay there for the leisurely space of forty days. Two-thirds of a year had elapsed before they ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... flat history of phenomena and no means of prediction or even classification. All knowledge would be reduced to gossip, infinitely diffuse, perhaps enlisting our dramatic feelings, but yielding no intellectual mastery of experience, no practical competence, and no moral lesson. The world would be a serial novel, to be continued for ever, and ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... vocations, those in which the labor is principally physical and manual, there also it is according to nature that there should be different and unequal positions; some, by brains and good conduct, make capital, and get a footing upon the ways of competence and progress; others, being dull, or idle, or disorderly, remain in the straitened and precarious condition of existence depending solely on wages. Throughout the whole extent of the social structure, in the ranks of labor as well as of property, differences ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... of the Laws of Nations; and, more memorable still, when, his high position attained, and able to add thousands upon thousands to his wealth, he, with noble self-denial, put another enticing cup away from his lips, and withdrew with a moderate competence only to the bosom of his family and to the peaceful pursuits of agriculture, leaving, as an example worthy of all imitation, a broad margin which Plutus might have condemned, but which Socrates, Cato, and Cicero would have extolled, between the bar of man and that supreme tribunal ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... well in the free air of Canada, but they contend that thrift, forethought, frugality is produced in them by desperation. I see desperation all round here producing a recklessness and despair. I know that hope is the star that shines for the backwoods Canadian to light him to competence. ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... commander of the army on the Kovel front, is relatively a new figure in important operations. At the beginning of the war, as commander of a cavalry division, his universal competence in all operations committed to his care brought him rapid promotion, until now he is the head of this huge army. Meeting him frequently as a guest, I have come to feel great confidence in this resolute, quiet man, who is surrounded by a sober, serious staff, each officer ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... driven to betake themselves to the lowest, and even the most criminal courses; and he bethought him, that if he were the child of any of these, he might think himself but too fortunate in having obtained an inferior station which gave him competence at least. The cloud might never be cleared away from his fate; and he recollected, that even if it were so, there was but little if any chance of his obtaining, with every advantage, that which he had learned to desire even without hope. ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... furious raids on the mob of spectators who pressed round the door, and stood with their eyes glued to every crack in the bark of which the hut was made. The next door neighbours on either side might have amassed a comfortable competence for their old age, by letting out seats for the circus. Every hole in the side walls had a human eye in it, and I heard new holes being bored in all directions; so I deeply fear the chief, my host, must have found his palace sadly draughty. I felt perfectly ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... arrived. Helen was fulfilling her promise of giving Althea all the people she wanted. Lady Pickering was widowed, young, coquettish, and pretty; Sir Charles Brewster a lively young bachelor with high eyebrows, upturned tips to his moustache, and an air of surprise and competence. They made great friends at once with Mildred, Dorothy and Herbert Vaughan, who shared in all Sir Charles's hunting and yachting interests. Lady Pickering, after a day of tennis and flirtation, would drift at night into Dorothy and ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... had been gone many, many years—she could not tell how many; that she had remained faithful and constant to him, and distracted her mind from the bitterness of sorrow by trading in kamas and magic herbs, and had thus acquired a genteel competence. But little cared the sage for such things; he, was rejoiced to be at home and at peace, and near his own early gains of hiaqua and treasure buried in a place of security. He imparted whatever he possessed—material treasures or stores of wisdom ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... with the sage. Except on very rare occasions he never left London, nor indeed the parish in which he was born. He pursued the trade of a tailor till late in life, but his books had sold largely, and he managed to get together a competence, and was at one time worried by his neighbours and fined for refusing to serve in some parish offices. There was a fund of sagacity about the man which appears frequently in his later letters, but an utter absence of all sentiment and ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... reduced to transcribing for a justice of the peace in the quartier Saint-Jacques. At the same time he began lending money on short time, and by speculating with the poorer class he acquired a certain competence. Although thoroughly debauched, Cerizet married Olympe Cardinal about 1840. At this time he was implicated in the intrigues of Theodose de la Peyrade and in the interests of Jerome Thuillier. Becoming possessed of a note of Maxime de ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... attainder lawgivers are bound, by every obligation of morality, systematically to refrain. In the same manner ought the British legislature to refrain from taxing the American colonies. The Stamp Act was indefensible, not because it was beyond the constitutional competence of Parliament, but because it was unjust and impolitic, sterile of revenue, and fertile of discontents. These sound doctrines were adopted by Lord Rockingham and his colleagues, and were, during a long course of years, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... is the flowery way. No pursuit gives so great joy in the achieving, none achieved yields higher meed of competence, contentment, and repute. Its ambition is more genial and subdued than that of literature, its rivalry more courteous and exalting; its daily life should be pastoral and domestic, free from those feverish mutations and adventures ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... uses. At once coarser than his rival and infinitely more refined and gentle, he had mastered lessons which the other had never found the need of learning, or else had learned too readily and then dismissed. He had thoroughness for the other's competence; insight into human nature, and a vast sympathy, for the other's facile handling of men; a deep devotion to the right for the other's loyalty to party platforms. The very core of his nature was truth, and he himself ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... was ready, the old hat and coat on, the suitcase packed. There was a look about for forgotten details and he attended to them with swift competence. The papers on the desk—those expense accounts—were crammed into his pockets, the shades drawn up, the bed rumpled for the room boy's eye in the morning. Then a last sweeping survey and he turned out ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... prophecies of doom and disaster. They could hear him, as he rushed about the hotel telling the news, taking people into corners and informing them that it was a Bit Thick. There was something pitiful about him ... he had climbed to a comfortable competence from a hard beginning ... and something comical, too, something that made them all wish to laugh. The veneer of manners which he had acquired with so much trouble had worn off in a moment, and the careful speech, the rigid insistence ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... but the new Under-secretary sat up still later, reading and smoking in his bedroom. A box of Foreign Office papers lay on his table. He went through them with a keen sense of pleasure, enjoying his new work and his own competence to do it, of which, notwithstanding his remarks to Mary Lyster, he was not really at all in doubt. Then when his comments were done, and the papers replaced in the order in which they would now go up to the Secretary of State, he felt ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... himself. If he travels through our rural districts he views not the hostile castle, and the haughty mansion, contrasted with the clay- built hut and miserable cabin, where cattle and men help to keep each other warm, and dwell in meanness, smoke, and indigence. A pleasing uniformity of decent competence appears throughout our habitations. The meanest of our log-houses is a dry and comfortable habitation. Lawyer or merchant are the fairest titles our towns afford; that of a farmer is the only appellation of the rural inhabitants of our country. It must take some time ere he can reconcile ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... for Ralegh to weigh the character of the individual. He imagined himself not merely pardoned, but trusted by the depositary of boundless national resources, which he was conscious of an infinite competence to employ. His admiration of the capabilities of the royal Prerogative, if utilized as he perceived that they could be utilized, embraced its titular tenant whoever he might be. He was dominated by an intense sense of all he might accomplish for the indistinguishable ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... a quiet comfort and competence, in the love of my children, and in the King's peace, these my latter days are gliding away. I am somewhat troubled with gout and twitching pains, scotomies in the head, and fulness of humours, with other old men's ailments; and I do not sleep well o' nights owing to vexatious ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... the suffering. They are fast learning that there is an almost infinite world of industry opening before them, by which they can elevate themselves and their families from wretchedness and ignorance to competence and intelligence. It is this great upheaving of our masses which we have to fear, so far as our ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... cent purity contains 25 per cent of ammonia, and at present (Dec. 1893) is valued at L13, 15s. per ton. In order to obtain the unit value of ammonia in sulphate of ammonia, we have only to divide L13, 15s. by 25, which gives us 11s. The value of such tables depends on the competence of those drawing them up, and they require to be subjected to constant revision. In the Appendix will be found two of these tables, taken from the 'Transactions of the Highland ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... Albanian brigands, the banditti of Piedmont, the Lanzknechte and Freiritter of the Rhine, Algerine picaroons, and other such folk. Yet I cannot call to mind one who hath ever been able to retire in his old age on a sufficient competence. It is but a precarious trade, and must end sooner or later in a dance on nothing in a tight cravat, with some kind friend tugging at your legs to ease you of any breath ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to New York to work in department stores for the purpose of gaining experience in salesmanship and a more thorough knowledge of corsets. She expected to be able to command a high salary as soon as she had thus increased her competence. She went at first to a new and attractive Sixth Avenue store, where, working eight hours and a quarter a day, she earned $10 a week. Laid off at the end of five months, she was idle a month before finding employment at another ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... the book? It is not, of course, simply a question as to the author's name, but his position and his competence to ...
— The Art of Lecturing - Revised Edition • Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis
... altogether escape me. You accuse me of creating a vacuum around you. Who is to blame? Did I grow tired of a happy and quiet existence? My friends would have come to see us in a home in accordance with a modest competence. Can I bring them here? On seeing all this luxury, this insolent display of my folly, they would ask each other where I obtained all the money I have spent on you. I may have a mistress, but I have not the right to squander a fortune that does not belong to me. If my acquaintances learnt ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... things like other people. Short of being an Urquhart, who could do everything and had everything, whose passing car flamed triumphant and lit the world into a splendid joy, and was approved under investigation with "quite all right"—short of that glorious competence and pride of life, one might surely be an average man, who could walk from San Pietro to Florence without tumbling on the road at dawn. Peter sighed over it, rather crossly. The marvellous morning was insulted by ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... America, that cacao plantations are occupied by persons of humble condition, who prepare for themselves and their children a slow but certain fortune; a single laborer is sufficient to aid them in their plantations, and 30,000 trees, once established, assure competence for a generation and ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... task was done, Bobby felt an unusual glow of competence and experience. He was really "camping out." A new ambition to learn came to him, an ambition to do his share and to understand other people's share. Naturally his mind turned first ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... passed his examination in law in Orleans, and, coming back to Paris, practised as a lawyer for eight or nine years. He was concerned in no famous case, it is supposed, since his name is never mentioned in the gossip of the time. He inherited a competence from his father, and probably lived an idle life, diversified by a little legal business of a very mediocre nature. As his biographer says, he grew more and more "inclined by his temperament to a meditative ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... competence and the comforts which it brings shield women of the higher and middle classes in this country, in a great measure, from certain snares of the devil in which multitudes of their poorer sisters miserably fall. If those who enjoy this protection throw ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... broke in the Academician with ill-concealed satisfaction. "My colleagues call me rich. They slander me. Works on numismatics do not make a man rich. Monsieur Fabien, who made some investigations into the subject, can prove it to you. No; I possess no more than an honorable competence, which does not give me everything, but lets me ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... respectable and pious middle- aged sister, by the name of BIGGS. She was a rather attractive widow, whose life as such had always been particularly blameless; Her first husband had left her a secure but moderate competence, owing to some fortunate speculations in the matter ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... the spade but to Kenny his methodical competence proved an irritant. He was glad when Hughie's back gave out and forced him ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... than Preston, transformed into the grand and awful figure of Ahasuerus; and Nora was so eager to know what part she could take; and Mrs. Sandford entered into the scheme with such utter good nature and evident competence to manage it. Ella Stanfield's eyes grew very wide open; and Mrs. Fish was full of curiosity, and the ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... observed, "as regards the dowry, you know very well, my pretty Bobinette, that I have already taken steps about it, on your behalf—now don't protest! It gives me pleasure to make your future safe, as far as I can: a modest competence. On the other hand, I am not a society man, and if ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre |
