There is no happiness in this world without a
competency. O Nancy!
Moreover, a small but sufficient
competency was mine, allowing me reasonable comforts, and the luxuries of a small but choice library, and a small but choice garden.
Hadst thou taken this old blacksmith to thyself ere his full ruin came upon him, then had the young widow had a delicious grief, and her orphans a truly venerable, legendary sire to dream of in their after years; and all of them a care-killing
competency. But Death plucked down some virtuous elder brother, on whose whistling daily toil solely hung the responsibilities of some other family, and left the worse than useless old man standing, till the hideous rot of life should make him easier to harvest.
The
competency of this regulation may be estimated by a clause in their treaty of 1683, with Victor Amadeus of Savoy; in which he obliges himself to interpose as mediator in disputes between the cantons, and to employ force, if necessary, against the contumacious party.
It was confided to Robert Stuart, who, though he had never been across the mountains, and a very young man, had given proofs of his
competency to the task.
My father bequeathed me a
competency; some remoter ancestors lust to roam.
If mere parsimony could have made a man rich, Sir Pitt Crawley might have become very wealthy--if he had been an attorney in a country town, with no capital but his brains, it is very possible that he would have turned them to good account, and might have achieved for himself a very considerable influence and
competency. But he was unluckily endowed with a good name and a large though encumbered estate, both of which went rather to injure than to advance him.
"You'll make nothing by trade," continued he; "nothing more than the crust of dry bread and the draught of fair water on which you now live; your only chance of getting a
competency lies in marrying a rich widow, or running away with an heiress."
He knew that the lack made a man petty, mean, grasping; it distorted his character and caused him to view the world from a vulgar angle; when you had to consider every penny, money became of grotesque importance: you needed a
competency to rate it at its proper value.
When his stocking was full, Solomon calculated that he would be able to retire on a
competency. Peter now gave him a pound.
"If J.E., who advertised in the -shire Herald of last Thursday, possesses the acquirements mentioned, and if she is in a position to give satisfactory references as to character and
competency, a situation can be offered her where there is but one pupil, a little girl, under ten years of age; and where the salary is thirty pounds per annum.
He gave the medical testimony, in pointed imitation of our local practitioner; and he piped and shook, as the aged turnpike-keeper who had heard blows, to an extent so very paralytic as to suggest a doubt regarding the mental
competency of that witness.
