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Possess   Listen
verb
Possess  v. t.  (past & past part. possessed; pres. part. possessing)  
1.
To occupy in person; to hold or actually have in one's own keeping; to have and to hold. "Houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land." "Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power, After offense returning, to regain Love once possessed."
2.
To have the legal title to; to have a just right to; to be master of; to own; to have; as, to possess property, an estate, a book. "I am yours, and all that I possess."
3.
To obtain occupation or possession of; to accomplish; to gain; to seize. "How... to possess the purpose they desired."
4.
To enter into and influence; to control the will of; to fill; to affect; said especially of evil spirits, passions, etc. "Weakness possesseth me." "Those which were possessed with devils." "For ten inspired, ten thousand are possessed."
5.
To put in possession; to make the owner or holder of property, power, knowledge, etc.; to acquaint; to inform; followed by of or with before the thing possessed, and now commonly used reflexively. "I have possessed your grace of what I purpose." "Record a gift... of all he dies possessed Unto his son." "We possessed our selves of the kingdom of Naples." "To possess our minds with an habitual good intention."
Synonyms: To have; hold; occupy; control; own. Possess, Have. Have is the more general word. To possess denotes to have as a property. It usually implies more permanence or definiteness of control or ownership than is involved in having. A man does not possess his wife and children: they are (so to speak) part of himself. For the same reason, we have the faculties of reason, understanding, will, sound judgment, etc.: they are exercises of the mind, not possessions.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Possess" Quotes from Famous Books



... English Bibles.—The arguments or contents which are prefixed to each chapter of our English Bibles seem occasionally to vary; some being more full and comprehensive than others. When and by whom were they compiled? what authority do they possess? and where can we meet with ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various

... attributed, unquestionably, to the sublime lessons of the great American people, and the generous sympathy they evince invariably in regard to nations deprived of the blessings of freedom. Time was, we are aware, when the children of Ireland had no such exalted idea of human liberty as they possess to-day, and when they would have hailed the return of kingcraft to their shores, on the restitution of their independence, with every demonstration of pleasure; but that period has passed away, and forever. Having once tasted the blessings, and ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh

... up, and Julian led her to him with her hand in his, and his arm supporting her. "Mr Kennedy," he said, "I am going to ask you for the most priceless jewel you possess." ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... well received. They found a pleasant country, densely populated, whose inhabitants appeared in no hurry to sell their commodities. All their working implements were either of stone or of bone, which led Lieutenant Furneaux to infer that the Tahitians possess no metals. ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... possess the land as long as they fulfilled the terms of the covenant under the seal of its ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman

... that you and I have grown to be of different tastes. All of the hoard that I have made for myself in this colony, few men would covet. I have the poor clothes you see me in this moment, and a box of drugs such as I have found useful to the stomach. I possess also three slaves, two of them scribes and the third a sturdy savage from Europe, who cooks my victual and fills for me the bath. For my maintenance during my years of service, here, I have bled the State of a soldier's ration and nothing beyond; and if in my name any man has mulcted ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... aspire unto, thou mayest even now enjoy and possess, if thou doest not envy thyself thine own happiness. And that will be, if thou shalt forget all that is past, and for the future, refer thyself wholly to the Divine Providence, and shalt bend and apply all thy present thoughts and ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius

... Ostyaks are poor, they possess a great treasure in their dogs, for these creatures are as useful as horses, and much more sensible. They need no whip to make them go, and no bridle to turn them the right way; it is enough to tell them when to set ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer

... squalid in the extreme, and, being destitute of the means of making a coffin, had rolled the corpse up in such wretched materials as they happened to possess. One consequence of this was, that it was quite supple. On being lifted out of the canoe, the joints bent, and a sort of noise was emitted from the mouth, which was exceedingly horrible. Had the dead face been ...
— Fort Desolation - Red Indians and Fur Traders of Rupert's Land • R.M. Ballantyne

... another shall succeed this, which shall be as much larger and more elaborated than this is compared to its predecessor, and still another shall succeed, which shall bear the same relation to that, then the country will possess an edifice that is on a level with the first-rate Gothic cathedral-architecture of Europe. It would be idle to pretend that the new Trinity is without faults; some of which are probably the result of circumstances ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... to the sixth century, mentions gall-apples and iron (copper) vitriol, it must have referred to "gall" ink. Further investigation discloses the fact that such galls were of Chinese origin and as we know they do not contain the necessary ferment which the aleppo and other galls possess for inducing a transformation of the tannin into gallic acid, no complete union could therefore obtain. Hence the value of this composition was limited until the time when yeast and other materials were introduced ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho

... a conservative and carefully selected group of men. Each must pass through a long term of apprenticeship and must possess ability and personality. The order has been carefully and skillfully led and in recent years has had but few differences with the railways which have not been amicably settled. Edgar E. Clark was chosen president in 1890 and served until 1906, when he became a member ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth

... principle possess great stability, and are seldom overturned; nevertheless they occasionally are, and with fatal results. Here is one example. In the month of January, 1865, the Liverpool lifeboat, when out on service, was ...
— Battles with the Sea • R.M. Ballantyne

... before our eyes, with fine prospects for patronage and the gift of many offices. It is at least equal in dignity and grandeur to the city government, and nothing prevents its becoming a vast scheme of corruption, except that it never can, by any possibility, possess a penny of revenue. Of course there should be a committee of repairs and supplies, and one of immigration, the latter to provide for the naturalization of foreign words and their proper treatment before they could take care of themselves; the former for furnishing ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... not! I rave; I am possess'd By utmost longing. I am sore oppress'd By thoughts of woe; and in my heart I feel A something keener than the touch of steel, As if, to-day, a danger unforeseen Had track'd thy path,—as if my prayers had been Misjudged in Heaven, or drown'd in demon-shouts ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay

... seemed to "possess their souls" in patience, if not "in peace." There was really nothing to be done but to wait. There was no place where inquiries could be made. At this time of the year nearly all the fashionable world of London ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... as one can judge from a few seconds' conversation," Philip remarked, "he seems to possess all the qualities essential to the production of a multimillionaire in ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... valley calls to mind a garden, almost in the heart of town, where this flower went forth to possess the land and spread itself in so reckless a growth that at intervals it had to be uprooted to protect the landed rights of the rest of the community. Never were there such beds of lilies! And when they pierced the black loam with their long sheath-like leaves, and ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall

... relatives and friends to possess her soul in patience and adhere to her original plan of returning to India in the autumn,—the best time for arriving in the East. By then she would be able to decide whether to take her baby out to India, or leave him behind in the care of the ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi

... seem foolhardy in a prince so little popular as Philip the Fair; but Philip in reality risked nothing, and knew it; the feudality did not possess sufficient union, the people did not have enough force to profit on this occasion against the Crown. Besides, the Pope was more unpopular than the King, and had been so for a much longer time; the nobility, which, since the reign of St. Louis, had ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... the latent power which lies hidden even in the worst of us, ready to take fire when touched by the Divine flame, and burn up its old evil into a light that will shine to God's glory before men. I still possess the epitome of one of these "hopeful" sermons, which she sent me in a letter after hearing the chaplain preach on the two texts: "What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God"; "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden

... bishops, were the seminaries of the clergy, the nurseries for the education of young noblemen, and the great schools of all the sciences. To the libraries and industry of the monks we are principally indebted for the works of the ancients which we possess. Grateful for this benefit, we ought not to condemn them because, by a fatality incident to human things, some works are come down to us ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... the cases of solids and liquids too, bodies may, and most probably do, possess specific differences as to their ability of assuming the polarized state, and also as to the extent to which that polarity must rise before discharge occurs. An analogous difference exists in the specific inductive capacities already pointed out ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday

... the Arabian Nights, built Bagdad and Granada, and invented Algebra, sends forth men with the hunger for gold in their hearts, and Enfield muskets in their hands, to plunder and to slay. They exploit the domestic affections of the forest dwellers in order to strip them of all they possess in the world. That has been going on for years. It is going on to-day. It has come to be regarded as the natural and normal law of existence. Of the religion of these hunted pygmies Mr. Stanley tells us nothing, perhaps because there ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... works are of an intensely interesting and fascinating character. Nearly all of them being founded upon some historical event, they possess a permanent value while presenting a thrilling, earnest, dashing fiction surpassed by no novel of ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill

... the Negroes constantly wear about them. These saphies are prayers, or rather sentences, from the Koran, which the Mahomedan priests write on scraps of paper, and sell to the simple natives, who consider them to possess very extraordinary virtues. Some of the Negroes wear them to guard themselves against the bite of snakes or alligators; and on this occasion the saphie is commonly enclosed in a snake's or alligator's skin, and tied round the ancle. ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... Trumpets sounding, and other Instruments of Musick, English Colours flying, their Pirate Flagg at the Topmast-Head, with Deaths Head and Cutlash, and there being 22 sail in that Harbour, upon the sight of the Pirate the Men all fled on Shore and left their Vessels, which they possess'd themselves off, burnt, sunk and destroyed all of them, excepting one Bristol Gally, which they designed to be their best Pirate Ship, if a better did not present. After they did all the mischief they could in that Harbour, they came on upon the ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various

... biggest laugh-point for the last. When you wrote the monologue and arranged it into the first routine, that biggest laugh may have been the tenth, or the ninth, or the fifteenth, but you have spotted it unerringly as the very biggest laugh you possess, so you blend it in as the final laugh ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... seemed desirous of possess- ing her. One was a neighbor, Henry Reed, a tall, spare young man, with sandy hair, and blue, sinister eyes. He seemed to appreciate her wants, and watch with interest her improvement or decay. ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson

... woman of forty-five. The greater part of her life she had spent as a governess; her position now was more agreeable, and the removal of her anxiety about the future had developed qualities of cheerfulness which formerly no one would have suspected her to possess. The acquaintance between Mrs Milvain and her was only of twelve months' standing; prior to that, Mr Yule had inhabited a house at the end of ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing

... Incorporeal things, of which there are no phantasms, are known to us by comparison with sensible bodies of which there are phantasms. Thus we understand truth by considering a thing of which we possess the truth; and God, as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. i), we know as cause, by way of excess and by way of remotion. Other incorporeal substances we know, in the present state of life, only by way of remotion or by some comparison to corporeal ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... conjectured—erroneously, as it happened—hunger for warmth or food. Under these circumstances, what could be done by a woman who was conscious of owning a redly glowing hearth with a big black pot, fairly well filled, clucking and bobbing upon it? To possess such wealth as this, and think seriously of withholding a share from anybody who urges the incontestable claim of wanting it, is a mood altogether foreign to Lisconnel, where the responsibilities of poverty are no doubt very imperfectly ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... influenced in Mr. Brown's favour by this incident. "The entire address," said a leading Conservative paper next day, "forms the most refreshing episode which the records of the Canadian House of Commons possess. Every true-hearted man must feel proud of one who has thus chivalrously done battle for his gray-haired sire. We speak deliberately when asserting that George Brown's position in the country is at this moment immeasurably higher ...
— George Brown • John Lewis

... did not know that," Ned went on. "Now, while Pedro went into your employ for the purpose of stealing the papers he also went for a purpose of his own. It was his longing to possess the emerald necklace—which had long been in his family—that induced him to become a servant, though the large sum of money the conspirators paid him was a consideration, he ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson

... deserts had any connection with the courses of the sun and moon. The Bishop and all the priests of the province were to head the procession, and thus a simple natural phenomenon was forced in the minds of the people into a significance it did not possess. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... other in their consequence, differ widely with respect to the facility with which they may be attained. To make great acquisitions can happen to very few; and in the uncertainty of human affairs, to many it will be incident to labour without reward, and to lose what they already possess by endeavours to make it more: some will always want abilities, and others opportunities to accumulate wealth. It is therefore happy, that nature has allowed us a more certain and easy road to plenty; every man may grow rich by contracting his wishes, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... had formerly been well acquainted with the Reverend Charles Clifton, late pastor of a church in that place. He might deal wisely with the evil intelligence, or, possibly, the infatuated egotism, which controlled that unfortunate man. Dr. Burge would possess his soul in calmness in presence of the singular epidemic which was then running through Foxden, as it had previously run through, and run out ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... zis wiz such Luftschiffe and Drachenflieger as we possess, but ze accession of your machine renders our project complete. It not only gifs us a better Drachenflieger, but it remofes our last uneasiness as to Great Pritain. Wizout you, sir, Great Pritain, ze land you lofed so well and zat has requited you so ill, zat land of Pharisees and reptiles, ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells

... I should find him, an' lo, he was gone. They were eatin' an' drinkin' when the end came, an' they knew it not. Like enough they had some warnin' which they heeded not, an' their house is left unto them desolate. An' we go in and possess their land. Young ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... ate my breakfast, Mr. Jaffrey hopped up and down the narrow bar-room and chirped away as blithely as a bird on a cherry-bough, occasionally ruffling with his fingers a slight fringe of auburn hair which stood up pertly round his head and seemed to possess a ...
— Miss Mehetabel's Son • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... Career" have gone the way of all good books. The author says, in his modest preface to the "Lessons," that he can hardly pretend to have done more than to organize and put into form the average thinking of those who read his books, and be only claims for his essays that they possess the quality of common sense. He herein pays a very high compliment to the crowd which demands over the bookseller's counter so many thousands of his volumes. Wisdom, admirably put, is not a commodity ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various

... this, inwardly commented; "These obscure forms of hysteria often possess the cunning, the dissimulation of madness. Poor girl! She is beginning to realize her predicament, and is preparing us for disappointment," and a return of his doubt kept ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... wages; it is the purpose of the union to eliminate those lower levels and to make them stay eliminated. That brings the union men face to face with the whole matter of industrial control. They have no assurance that the employer will not get the best of them in bargaining unless they themselves possess enough control over the shop and the trade to check him. Hence they will strive for the "recognition" of the union by the employer or the associated employers as an acknowledged part of the government of the shop and the trade. It is essential to note that in struggling ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman

... a period, however, affords but little for narration, either professional or personal, except when the particular occupations mentioned are the subject of special study. General interest they cannot be said to possess. ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... picture to ourselves, if we muster all the good things which it is possible to possess, royalty is the finest position in the world. Yet, when we imagine a king attended with every pleasure he can feel, if he be without diversion, and be left to consider and reflect on what he is, this feeble happiness will ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal

... with that industrial energy and political dignity that mark its population in our day, we shall hail the realized fact with infinite delight. We will rejoice, not only because the emancipated negro may thenceforth possess a realm wherein his rights shall be sacred, but because the civilization with which the colonies must border the African continent, will, year by year, sink deeper and deeper into the heart of the interior, till barbarism and Islamism ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... such parts of the produce of other men's labour as he may have occasion for, encourages every man to apply himself to a particular occupation, and to cultivate and bring to perfection whatever talent of genius he may possess for that particular species ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... him to all but the immediate object of his pursuit. Then, the goal being reached, there would be no reason for the poet's not achieving complete satisfaction in love, for there would be nothing in it to suggest any delight that he does not possess. Therefore, having all his desire, the lover would be lethargic, with no impulse to express himself in song. Probably something of this sort is the meaning of the Tannhauser legend, as versified both by Owen ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... a request, none of which were in any degree satisfactory. Her most prevailing thought, though she could not justify it to her reason, inclined her to believe that the angler was a messenger from her father. But wherefore he should deem it necessary to communicate any intelligence that he might possess only by means of a private interview, and without the knowledge of her friends, was a mystery she could not solve. In this view of the matter, however, she half regretted that her instinctive delicacy had impelled her so suddenly to break ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... people were strict in morals. Governor Winthrop prohibited cards and gaming tables. A man was whipped for shooting fowl on Sunday. No man was allowed to keep tavern who did not bear an excellent character and possess property. The names of drunkards were posted up in the ale houses, and the keepers forbidden to sell them liquor. By order of the colony of Connecticut, no person under twenty years of age could use any tobacco without a physician's order; and no one was allowed to use ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.

... fresh affidavits have been put upon the file," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "and as they are short, and as I proceed upon the troublesome principle of begging leave to possess my clients with any new proceedings in a cause"—cautious man Mr. Tulkinghorn, taking no more responsibility than necessary—"and further, as I see you are going to Paris, I have brought ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... a year, when he might sigh in vain for one who positively could not get through, and be decent, on four hundred. Women, too, are getting to be so attached to the trappings and accessories of life that they cannot think of marriage without an amount of fortune which few young men possess." ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... wholesome counsel of the Solomon of Bards to an aspirant, who, in his ardour for poetical honours, becomes careless of their consequences, if he can but possess them. ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... and lived on a little money left by her husband, in a hut close to Debendra's residence. People used to say that God had created her a female by oversight, for she had every bad quality which a man could possess. She was noted for the fact that misfortune invariably fell on a house which she honoured with her intimacy. People were very shy ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea

... against the sides, were battered pewter mugs and plates, mixed with silver tankards and salvers, and other utensils of the same precious metal. The party, however, had no time to pay attention to any of these things, or to wish even to possess themselves of any of them. They were only anxious to find the articles which would facilitate their escape. In a receptacle for all sorts of stores a ship's compass was found; but that without a chart, and oil for the ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston

... Armenian; "take another glass of wine; you possess a great deal of philological knowledge, but it appears to me that the language of this Petulengro is your foible: but let us change the subject; I feel much interested in you, and would fain be of service to you. ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... (his) name was Ducarius, i.e. ei nomen erat Ducario, where Ducario is possess. dat. in appos. to ei understood. It is, however, possible that the trooper's name was Ducario, but cf. page 126, l.2. [[Selection ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce

... sailing out of the farmhouse as fresh and smiling as the morning itself. Garth hastened to meet her. A dark flush rose in Grylls's cheeks, and he gritted his teeth, until the muscles stood out in lumps on either side his jaw. He felt a desire to possess this slender, swimming figure mounting in his brain to the pitch of madness. As she passed him Natalie nodded not unkindly, and the big man's eyes followed her in a sort of ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... at a glance. So far from tending to lucidity, accumulation of detail in pursuit of minute accuracy rather obscures. Nelson himself indicated his intentions sufficiently by straight lines. One merit my June 1st plan may possibly possess; the perplexing optical effect may convey better than words the intricacy of a ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... had become deified. It had, in other words, come to possess all the attributes of a god, or of a powerful man, which in reality was the same thing. It is this god personified which is represented as appearing to Abraham and talking with him face to face. With this same god Jacob wrestled, while the real God—the dual or triune principle, the Jehovah ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble

... she said, looking at him steadily, "because I know that a man like you, when he loves a woman, will fight for her and protect her even though he may not possess her." ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood

... resonance in the use of the voice is still too little recognized, though obvious enough in the construction of musical instruments. With the exception of a few instruments of percussion, all musical instruments possess three elements,—a motor, a vibrator, and a resonator. The violin has the moving bow for a motor, the strings for a vibrator, and the hollow body for a resonator. The French horn has the lungs of the performer for a motor, the lips for ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown

... high with brimming vats; Hither, O Father of the wine-press, come, And stripped of buskin stain thy bared limbs In the new must with me. First, nature's law For generating trees is manifold; For some of their own force spontaneous spring, No hand of man compelling, and possess The plains and river-windings far and wide, As pliant osier and the bending broom, Poplar, and willows in wan companies With green leaf glimmering gray; and some there be From chance-dropped seed that rear them, ...
— The Georgics • Virgil

... rational doubt as to the matter of fact of the utmost practical and speculative importance—belief or disbelief in which may affect, and has affected, men's lives and their conduct towards other men, in the most serious way—then I am bound to believe that Jesus implicitly affirmed himself to possess a "knowledge of the unseen world," which afforded full confirmation of the belief in demons and possession current among his contemporaries. If the story is true, the mediaeval theory of the invisible ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley

... this marriage declaration, that our Marriage with Countess Chotek is not a marriage of equal birth, but a morganatic one and is to be considered as such for all time, and that in consequence neither our wife nor our issue or descendants is entitled to possess or claim those rights, titles, armorial bearings and privileges that belong to wives of equal birth and to children of archdukes or marriages of equal birth." Franz Ferdinand, further, recognised that ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... thoughts and afterthoughts. He has cross-examined the German people, and he has cross-examined them with consummate tact and skill. An unofficial ambassador of peace, he has revealed all the qualities of a diplomat, and he has added qualities which the diplomat does not often possess—outspokenness and uprightness, a loyal regard for truth, and that moral preoccupation and that delicate sense of international honour which are generally alien to the official ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... were murdered, had moral courage to an unusual degree. So had the other man, Johnson. Not only did it not stand them in good stead, but it destroyed them. And so with me if I should exercise what little moral courage I may possess. ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... as utterly inconsistent with any legislative power. We have either a government or we have not. If we have one, it must possess within itself the power to sustain itself. Our chief magistrate becomes otherwise a mere puppet, and our Congress a shallow mockery, and the shadow only of a legislative body. Our nationality becomes a word, and nothing more. ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood

... had gone to his work; but now he found, to his own surprise, that this girl's answer had made him absolutely unhappy. Having expressed a wish for this thing, the very expression of the wish made him long to possess it. He found, as he rode along silently by her side, that he was capable of more earnestness of desire than he had known himself to possess. He was at this moment unhappy, disappointed, anxious, distrustful of the future, and more intent on one special toy than ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... a man 'possess' and yet not 'have' knowledge in the sense of which I am speaking? As you may suppose a man to have caught wild birds—doves or any other birds—and to be keeping them in an aviary which he has constructed at home; we might say of him in one sense, ...
— Theaetetus • Plato

... found himself also a prisoner in the hands of the bereaved widower, to whom he proved an easy victim, as he was incapable of making resistance, which, indeed, he declined to attempt. If he did not possess bodily strength, however, he was not without presence of mind. For whilst Reilly and his captors were engaged in a fierce and powerful conflict, he placed his fore-finger and thumb in his mouth, from which proceeded a whistle so piercingly loud ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... the Forum (around which the schools were placed), she was seen by Appius Claudius, who was so struck by her beauty that he determined to gain possession of her, and sought to win her by insidious words. The innocent girl repelled his advances, but this only increased his desire to possess her, and he determined, as she was not to be had by fair means, to have her by foul. He therefore laid a wicked plot for ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... dining-rooms, bedrooms, and even stables. One regiment has first class cow-sheds. One day a whimsical 'piou-piou,' finding a cow wandering about in the danger zone, had the bright idea of finding shelter for it in the trenches. The example was quickly followed, and at this moment the ——th Infantry possess an underground farm, in which fat kine, well cared for, give such quantities of milk that regular distributions of butter are being made—and ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... me to think that it is in English literature we possess the first sketch of that mighty saga [the Volsunga Saga Wlsinges gewin] which has for so many centuries engaged all the arts, and at last in the hands of Wagner the art of music."—Br., p. 63. Cf. ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.

... hand, we can quite easily, without arming the eye with a lens, perceive the mouth-apparatus—and particularly the mandibles—of either a honey-eater, such as an Osmia, Chalicodoma or Megachile, or a game-eater, such as a Scolia, Ammophila or Bembex. All these possess stout pincers, capable of gripping, grinding and tearing. Then what is the purpose of the Leucopsis' invisible implements? His method of ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... avenues might be kept open without making such sacrifices as that above referred to, universal. We have conquered and possessed ourselves of continents of land, concerning which antiquity knew nothing; and if new continents of thought reveal themselves to the exploring human spirit, shall we not possess them also? In these latter days, the study of Physics has given us glimpses of the methods of Nature which were quite hidden from the ancients, and we should be false to the trust committed to us, if we were to sacrifice ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... hand he would earn much credit with his majesty by revealing the plot, saying that he had learned it from the lips of the white hunter, whom Umgona and Nahoon had forced to participate in it, and of whose coveted rifle he must trust to chance to possess himself. ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard

... the first Unitarian book of which I had even seen the outside, and I handled it with a timid curiosity, as if by stealth, I had only time to dip into it here and there, and I should have been ashamed to possess the book; but I carried off enough to suggest important inquiry. The writer asserted that the Greek word [Greek: aionios], (secular, or, belonging to the ages,) which we translate everlasting and eternal, is ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman

... had seemed at best but mildly desirable, became of singular value when he believed that another was trying to possess himself of it; jealousy had quickened love, duty and conscience insisted that he should save the girl from the snare that was being set for her. The great renunciation must be made; he, Westray, must marry beneath him, but before doing so ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... read such notes, that I am unwilling to intrude upon others what I should regard myself as impertinent. They are in reality too personal and objective, and turn the commentator into a showman. With such sign-post criticism I have no sympathy. Nor do I wish to add to the awful amazement which must possess the soul of Shakespeare when he knows of the manner in which his works have been tabulated, and classified, and labelled with a purpose, after the most approved method, like modern tendenzschriften. Such criticism ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... Castilians, having surmounted the crest of the eminence, began the descent into the opposite valley, which they had the mortification to observe was commanded on every point by their vigilant adversary, who seemed now in their eyes to possess the powers of ubiquity. As the light broke upon the troops, it revealed the whole extent of their melancholy condition. How different from the magnificent array which, but two days previous, marched forth ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... facts like these before us, how can we talk of libraries of 700,000 or 800,000 volumes in the ancient world? When we find it so difficult at the present day, in spite of the testimony of intelligent travellers, and of all the advantages we possess for making our estimates, to ascertain the truth with regard to the great libraries of modern Europe, how can we give credit to the contradictory and exaggerated statements which were promulgated in ages of the darkest ignorance concerning ancient Rome and Alexandria? "After an attentive ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... possess the traces of the Gnostic astrology in a number of amulets and engraved gems, with the word Abraxas or rather Abrasax and other emblems of their superstition, which they kept as charms against diseases and evil spirits. The word ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... Britons and Picts, received a third nation, the Scots, who migrating from Ireland, under their leader Reuda, either by fair means or by force of arms secured to themselves those settlements among the Picts which they still possess.'—Bede's Ecclesiastical Hist., ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere

... that she were back again in her pretty safe room, with the naughty Kit to scold! Oh, if Aunt Priscilla were to rise, and, looking out of her bedroom window, catch a glimpse of her, as she hastes to meet the man she has been forbidden to know! A thousand terrors possess her. The soft beauty of the night is unseen, the rushing of sweet brooks in the distance is unheard. She hurries on, a little, lithe, frightened figure, with wide eyes and parted lips, to the rendezvous she has not sought. And what a little ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... Then an inspiration struck her. The covered bridge ran from the main hall not thirty feet from her own door. She determined to cross it, pretending to be walking in her sleep, and find out what she could regarding the brick tower. When the time came, she knew that all the information she could possess about the house and its occupants would be necessary to the success ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks

... precious to us. It is the way of life we strive for with all the strength and wisdom we possess. But more precious than peace are freedom and justice. We will fight, if fight we must, to keep our freedom and to prevent justice from ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... minutes more we were treading the verdant sod of the island, when my first movement was to walk round it. I found it to possess every variety of country in perfect miniature proportions: here were wood-crowned steeps, shady glades, and open meadows, all offered in as many changes as might well be managed on so small a surface. Viewed from this, the city too looked very attractive, scattered over the ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power

... of Parliamentary representation, and that those limits had been fairly reached by the two German princes who ruled reluctantly enough over the fortunes of England. This same dispassionate observer might reasonably, assuming him to possess familiar knowledge of certain facts, have hazarded the prediction that George the Third would be a better king than his grandfather and his great-grandfather. He was certainly a better man. There was so much of a basis whereupon ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... they hear thee sing The glories of thy King, His zeal to God, and his just awe o'er men, They may blood-shaken then, Feel such a flesh-quake to possess their powers, As they shall cry 'like ours, In sound of peace, or wars, No harp ere hit the stars, In tuning forth the acts of his sweet raign, And raising Charles his chariot 'bove ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... system is the greatest saving fund which the American people possess. The total value of school property is greater than the entire fortune of the richest American. Each year the people spend upon their schools a sum sufficient to construct a Panama Canal or a transcontinental railway system. Thus the public ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing

... suppose that, at this time of day, in this condition of the world, we are going to disintegrate the capital institutions of this country for the purpose of making ourselves ridiculous in the sight of all mankind, and crippling any power we possess for bestowing benefits, through legislation, on the country to ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... discriminating between the widely conflicting accounts that have been given. Amongst the persons from whom this small settlement has suffered disparagement there are none, perhaps, more blameable than those who have put forth statements which ascribe to it advantages and qualities that it does not possess; for just in proportion as the expectation of intending settlers have been raised by exaggeration or untruths has been their disappointment and disgust, when the facts themselves have stared ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... wherein trappers could track the enemy by a broken blade of grass, and the enemy escaped by coming down the river under a log, and the price was sixpence each. We used to pass the tuck-shop at school for three days on end in order that we might possess Leaping Deer, the Shawnee Spy. We toadied shamefully to the owner of Bull's Eye Joe, who, we understood, had been the sole protection of a frontier state. Again and again have I tried to find one of those early friends, and in many ...
— Books and Bookmen • Ian Maclaren

... Magdalen. There are worse lives. Though selfish, he was never cruel; though affected in manner, he never posed. Like Margaret, he disdained the heroic equipment, and it was only after many visits that men discovered Schlegel to possess a character and a brain. He had done well in Mods, much to the surprise of those who attended lectures and took proper exercise, and was now glancing disdainfully at Chinese in case he should some day consent to qualify ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... with grateful pleasure, as an acknowledgment that the chief part of whatever scientific merit this journal and the other works of the author may possess, has been derived from studying ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... of the Commonwealth, a remarkable revolution ensued in the power and the subordination of these magistrates. For, as the prince came alone to possess all that was by a proper title either imperial or praetorial authority, the ancient praetors dwindled into his legates, by which the splendor and importance of that dignity were much diminished. The business of the quaestor at this ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... Sancho replied that a knight was an adventurer, who one day might be the poorest and meanest of men, and the next day emperor, with crowns and kingdoms in abundance to give away to his squire and underlings. Here the women expressed surprise that he himself, judging by appearance, did not possess even so much as a small strip of land. He then confided to them that he and his master had been going but a short time; that as yet it was much too soon; that the adventures they had met with so far were but a beginning and not ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... Hospitals, and also quite recently examined by Dr. EDWIN PAYNE, who, in the words of the late Dr. PEREIRA, say, that "The finest oil is that most devoid of colour, odour, and flavour," characters this will be found to possess ...
— A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes • Charles Elme Francatelli

... civilization. The conversion of this man was the apostles' great success. If it had not been for him the nascent Church, like other Jewish sects, would have perished in the catastrophe of Jerusalem, because the apostles did not possess that vigor and energy to resist the violent shock. In Paul, however, the spirit of John and of Jesus resurrected with double vigor, and he became the actual founder of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... Apennines, which divide it about equally, the Papal dominions incline gently, on one side to the Adriatic, on the other to the Mediterranean. In each of these seas they possess an excellent port: to the east, Ancona; to the west, Civita Vecchia. If Panurge had had Ancona and Civita Vecchia in his Salmagundian kingdom, he would infallibly have built himself a navy. The Phoenicians and the Carthaginians were not so ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About

... brass and a note of red—and the silk tassel completed the color-scheme. The result was a combination which delighted his soul; Jack had a passion for having his soul delighted and an insatiable thirst for the things that did the delighting, and could no more resist the temptation to possess them when exposed for sale than a confirmed drunkard could resist a favorite beverage held under his nose. That all of these precious objects of bigotry and virtue were beyond his means, and that most of ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith

... to obtain the "cream of the year" from the nearest spring, and maidens sat up till after midnight to obtain the first pitcherful of water, supposed to possess remarkable virtues. Modern plumbing and city water-pipes have done away with the observance of the "cream of the year," although the custom still prevails of sitting up to see the Old Year out ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann

... living. Besides, the fact may as well be told—he had a very comfortable opinion of his own abilities. He felt that he was no common boy. Was he not a sophomore, or rather a junior-elect, of Euclid college? Did he not possess a knowledge more or less extensive of Latin, Greek and mathematics, with a smattering of French and German, not to speak of logic, rhetoric, etc.? For one of his age he considered himself quite accomplished, and he persuaded himself ...
— Walter Sherwood's Probation • Horatio Alger

... herself to call it so. No manager was considering the payment of a salary to her for anything she could legitimately do. It was what Smitherton had described it, capitalizing the publicity of a misfortune so sweeping as to possess a morbid public interest. In whatever generosity of terms her contract was drawn its essential meaning would be that in ten-and a hundred-fold it would come back to the management for that one reason. It would so come because people would flock in vulgar curiosity to see ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... helpers of the professor, but employes who were at one time upper servants, and then become superior workmen. At the present day they are, however, nearly always themselves scientific graduates. For, indeed, their task is a most delicate one; they must possess biological, physical, and chemical knowledge, and the more thoroughly they are "prepared" by a culture analogous to that of the masters of research themselves, the more rapid and secure ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori

... object exists; it catches the eye, it attracts attention. It must therefore be good for something; it must possess virtue of some kind. So in all ages have the simple reasoned, in the childlike hope of finding in the unfamiliar an alleviation of ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre

... student; she descended inconceivable social altitudes to speak to him. At the thought of the education she must have had, and the accomplishments she must possess, the soul of Hill became abject within him. She had spoken to him first over a difficulty about the alisphenoid of a rabbit's skull, and he had found that, in biology at least, he had no reason for self-abasement. And from that, after the manner of young people starting from any starting-point, ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... made of tin, wood and clay. Some of them are very simple, having paper covers, while others possess the whole paraphernalia of the street carts. When the mule of the toy cart is unhitched and unharnessed, he looks like a very respectable mule. Nevertheless, instead of devouring food, he becomes the prey of ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland

... thought it a glorious thing to be an author,—to touch the electric wire of sentiment, and know that thousands would thrill at the shock,—to speak, and believe that unborn millions would hear the music of those echoing words,—to possess the wand of the enchanter, the ring of the genii, the magic key to the temple of temples, the pass-word to the universe of mind. I once had such visions as these, but they ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... "Apostolic" times—that is, documents proceeding immediately from men who could remember the time of Our Lord, form not only in their quantity (and that is sufficiently remarkable), but in their quality, too, a far superior body of evidence to what we possess from the next generation. We have more in the New Testament than we have in the writings of these men who came just after the death of the Apostles. But what does remain is quite convincing. There arose from the date of Our Lord's Ascension ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc

... sunburnt, stalwart barge folk, their huge gondoliers affording endless pictures. Hard as is undoubtedly the life of the rope tower, rude as may appear this amphibious existence, there are cheerful sides to the picture. Many of these floating habitations possess a fireside nook cosy as that of a Parisian concierge, I was never tired of strolling along the canal and watching the barge folk. One day a friend and myself found a large barge laden with coal at the head of the canal, the huge dark framework and its sombre burden lighted up with touches ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... substance; on account of their gradual revolutions and changes into each other. At the same time it assigns to each of these species of objects a distinct substantial form, which it supposes to be the source of all those different qualities they possess, and to be a new foundation of simplicity and identity to each particular species. All depends on our manner of viewing the objects. When we look along the insensible changes of bodies, we suppose all of them to be ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... Gothic architecture was so marvellously adaptable that all these parts, built at widely different times, at various and strongly-contrasted stages of the development of this English mediaeval architecture, together make a single building that appears to possess the most felicitous unity of general design and a perfectly wonderful diversity of sectional design, for every part is in complete sympathy with the ...
— Life in a Medival City - Illustrated by York in the XVth Century • Edwin Benson

... and women seemed to possess that particular ease of manner which we deem a sign of good breeding, and, notwithstanding their huge statures, there was nothing about them suggesting awkwardness. As I was a lad in only my nineteenth year, I was doubtless looked upon as a true Tom Thumb. ...
— The Smoky God • Willis George Emerson

... would not have been an unhappy one, and I have often wished for a position in which I might fully show the secret feelings of my heart. It is not, Sostratus, that merit fails to have for me all the value which it should have, and because, in my inmost soul, I do not prefer the virtues which you possess to all the magnificent titles which adorn others. The princess my mother has also, it is true, left me free in my choice, and I have no doubt that I could have obtained her consent according to my wish. But, Sostratus, ...
— The Magnificent Lovers (Les Amants magnifiques) • Moliere

... examined the books and Hannibal had grudgingly admitted that they might possess certain points of advantage over the label, he and Betty went out for a walk. It was now late afternoon and the sun was sinking behind the wall of the forest that rose along the Arkansas coast. Their steps had led them to the terrace ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... it out upon the paper, white-hot from the furnace of his brain. Seldom had he seen his way so clearly. It had come, as he said, in an instant. It possessed him, as it were, body and soul and mind, as his work was wont to possess him when, as he thought, he saw his way. His ideas would come to him with the force of a mighty rushing river. He could not dam them back. He felt that he was obliged to give them instant utterance ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various

... it not useless? He knew he did not possess one hundredth part of the incriminating evidence that was in existence. Of what service would it be to his master to destroy that ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson

... translations are available, but the most acceptable English version, besides laboring under the handicaps of an archaic style, had to be condensed into half its volume in order to accomplish the "streamlining" of the book. Whatever merit the translation now presented to the reader may possess should be written to the credit of Rev. Gerhardt Mahler of Geneva, N.Y., who came to my assistance in a very busy season by making a rough draft of the translation and later preparing a revision of it, which forms the basis ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther

... Children, who possess an unsophisticated judgment in these matters, seldom feel much interest in the model boy of a moral story; not from any innate depravity of mind, which leads them to prefer vice to virtue, for no such preference can exist in the human breast,—no, ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... Their code of etiquette was severe. They aimed to combine the graces of Italy with the chivalry of Spain. The model man must have a keen sense of honor, and wit without pedantry; he must be brave, heroic, generous, gallant, but he must also possess good breeding and gentle courtesy. The coarse passions which had disgraced the court were refined into subtle sentiments, and women were raised upon a pedestal, to be respectfully and platonically adored. In this reaction from extreme license, familiarity ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason

... resolutions to which his long meditation had now crookedly and clumsily conducted him. His next immediate business was to examine those letters in the box, which he had hitherto not opened; and also to possess himself of the enclosure of hair, in the letter to "Mary Grice," that he might have it always about him ready ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins

... was introduced in its Legislature to grant them the Provincial franchise, which was voted down. Similar bills were defeated in 1918 and 1920 and Quebec remains the only Province in Canada where women do not possess the State franchise in addition ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... possess himself of a sharp bronze knife that lay among the dishes; then he advanced, alertly on his guard, and shovelled more herrings upon the flat piece of hard bread that served as a plate. Egil, however, noticed him no more than he did the flies buzzing ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... disagreeable. The principal forms of the body and limbs, as the breasts, belly, shoulders, biceps of the arm, knees, shin-bones, and feet, are expressed with a fleshy roundness, although without anatomical knowledge of detail; and in the female figures these parts often possess considerable elegance and beauty. The forms of the female face have much the same outline and progression towards beauty in the features as we see in some of the early Greek statues, and, like them, without variety of character; for little difference can be traced in the faces of Isis, in her representations ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold

... abilities lay in that direction; it was not a new process, not a trade secret which brought him here. Indeed, even though he might appreciate the value of such things, he would never dream of trying to possess himself of them. ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad

... vicissitudes which are likely to be met upon our voyage. Rough weather, river mud, and all the other exigencies of a moving camp, are beginning to tell upon clothing; we are becoming like gypsies in raiment, as well as color. But what a soul-satisfying life is this gypsying! We possess the world, while afloat ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites

... phosphorescent halo; this continued for several days and recurred after further indiscretions in diet. It is well known that there are insects and other creatures of the lower animal kingdom which possess the peculiar quality ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... reply; blushed-stammered-trembled, and could not utter a word. "Sit down, Mr. Washington," said the Speaker, with a smile; "your modesty equals your valor, and that surpasses the power of any language I possess." ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving

... suspect their import. They apply not at all to Lord Dunroe's morals, I assure you. It is enough to say, at present, that I am not at liberty to disclose them; and, indeed, I never intended to do so; but as a knowledge of the secret I possess may not only promote your happiness, but relieve you from the persecution and misery you endure on this young nobleman's account, I think it becomes my duty to have an interview with ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... in the herring-curing industry, which the cottagers said failed because Babb was engaged in it; and years after his granddaughter, Ursula Babb, was pointed out as the last of the race with the curse on it, and, as she was reported to possess the evil eye, became a great object ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... from her; and since she had begun to think about them again, it had never occurred to her that anyone could become attached to Flavia in that deeply personal and exclusive sense. It seemed quite as irrational as trying to possess ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather

... that I had to tell you, you might have reconsidered the advisability of eloping with me in such haste," went on the girl in her clear, ringing tones, "for it has become apparent to me—with even as little knowledge of the world as I possess—that you are a fortune hunter—that most despicable of all creatures—but in this instance your dastardly scheme has entangled your own feet. Your well-aimed arrow has missed the mark. You have wedded this night a penniless ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey

... each wish. Shortly after this he was invited to a sumptuous feast at Frederic Taillefer's. On the next morning Raphael found himself heir to six million francs. In the autumn of 1831 he died of consumption in the arms of Pauline Gaudin; they were mutual lovers. He tried in vain to possess himself of her, in a supreme effort. As a millionaire, Raphael de Valentin lived in friendship with Rastignac and Blondet, looked after by his faithful servant, Jonathas, in a house on rue de Varenne. At one time he was madly in love with a certain Comtesse Foedora. Neither the waters of Aix, ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... a new product, and can therefore transform us while retaining a connection between our present and future body; (b) that God is able to create a variety of embodiments, and can therefore give us a higher embodiment than we now possess. There will be a spiritual body adapted to the spiritual world, as truly as our natural body is adapted to life in this world. Thus the gospel is truly a gospel for the body as well as for the spirit. Our whole personality will be saved, and nothing ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan

... the aged king, 'for know that we play against fate. As the game goes, so shall the issue be. If you win my kingdoms all is well; if I win the cocks, then good-bye to the glory of Anahuac, for its people will cease to be a people, and strangers shall possess the land.' ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... other of the author's remarks, is not so applicable to English laws and customs as to those of several of the continental states, especially Germany, where men are not allowed to marry till they have attained a certain age, or can show that they possess the means of supporting a ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... out of the room: my mother sank upon the sofa, and hid her face in her pocket-handkerchief. I walked as slowly to the coach as common decency would permit. My father looked at me, as if he would inquire of my very inward soul whether I really did possess human feelings? I felt the meaning of this, even in my then tender years; and such was my sense of propriety, that I mustered up a tear for each eye, which, I hope, answered the intended purpose. We say at sea, "When you have no decency, sham a little;" and I verily believe ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... and Dulness is fully justified of her children. In a country where all men, at least in theory, are equal, and where every man does in fact exercise a certain influence on public affairs, it is not surprising that a large number of persons should possess a certain facility of public speaking, which even in England is far from universal, and is elsewhere possessed by very few. No man in the United States is deterred from offering his views upon matters of state, by the feeling that neither his education nor his position ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... possess a very sad account; one named Drummond's Island, which is of coral formation, is about thirty miles long, and about three-quarters of a mile in width. The island is covered with cocoa-nut and pandanus trees, but not a patch of grass was seen. The character of these islanders is of the most ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... usually men of many parts, can act equally well as guide, boatman, baggage-carrier, purveyor, and cook. They are respectful and chivalrous: no woman, be she old or young, fair or faded, fails to receive the most polite and courteous treatment at their hands, and with these qualities they possess a manly independence that is as far removed from servility as forwardness. Some of these men are strikingly handsome, with shapely statuesque figures that recall the Antinous and the Apollo Belvidere. Their life is necessarily a hard one, exposed as they ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 1, October, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... charge of my enemies, that resentment for the accumulated injuries of our country, and an ardor for her glory, rising to enthusiasm, may deprive me of that accuracy of judgment and expression which men of cooler passions may possess. Let me beseech you, then, to hear me with caution, to examine your prejudice, and to correct the mistakes into which I may be ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... blackguards and scoundrels of the Bible! How thankful at having joined for ever the society of Rabelais, Bruno, Spinoza, Voltaire, Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, and all the great poets, sages and wits, who possess so much of that carnal wisdom which is at enmity with the pious folly of ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote

... normoblasts. These are red corpuscles of the size of the usual non-nucleated disc, whose protoplasm as a rule shews a pure haemoglobin colour, and which possess a nucleus. Occasionally there may be 2-4 nuclei. The sharply defined nucleus lies generally in the centre, comprises the greater part of the cell, and is above all distinguished by its intense colour with nuclear stains, which exceeds that of the nuclei of the leucocytes, and indeed of all ...
— Histology of the Blood - Normal and Pathological • Paul Ehrlich

... conforming themselves to the laws of the South African Republic (a) will have full liberty, with their families, to enter, travel, or reside in any part of the South African Republic; (b) they will be entitled to hire or possess houses, manufactories, warehouses, shops, and premises; (c) they may carry on their commerce either in person or by any agents whom they may think fit to employ; (d) they will not be subject, in respect of their persons or property, or in respect of their commerce or industry, ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot

... grace of his own frantic eleventh hour efforts and his teachers' clemency and Honor Carmody—to graduate. Barring calamities, he would possess a diploma in February. Honor was tremendously earnest about it; Carter, to whom learning came as easily as the air he breathed, faintly amused. She thought, sometimes, for brief, traitorous moments, that Carter wasn't always ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... accompanied certain other women to see a splendid court spectacle in the Trianon.[19] There her eyes fell upon a cavalier wearing a Spanish costume, who wore a flashing jewelled chain round his neck, and she could not keep her eyes off it. Her whole being was concentrated into desire to possess the glittering stones, which she regarded as something of supernatural origin. Several years previously, before my mother was married, the same cavalier had paid his insidious addresses to her, but had been repulsed ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann



Words linked to "Possess" :   dominate, prepossess, possession, own, possessive



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