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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



... What was his business? Great and complicated enterprises: the erection of public edifices, the purchase, sale, and exchange of values of various descriptions, exchanges in many markets and corporations. To finish all this business it was necessary to possess qualities of the most opposite character: the courage of the lion and the caution of the fox, the talons of the falcon and the elasticity of the cat. His life was passed at a gaming-table, composed of the whole surface of a gigantic State; that life was a species ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)

... in order, all that tribe of people may for a time lose sight of the bitter feelings they cherish against us, for the way we've dealt with them in the past. But there's another thing besides. I naturally know the great talents you possess, but I feel mistrust lest you should, by your own wits, not be able to bring things round. I enjoin these things then on you, now, for although a mere girl she has everything at her fingers' ends. The ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... double chain of granite mountains. It was there that the Egyptians, in the days when they worshipped demons, carved their idols. Paphnutius saw an enormous sphinx carved in the solid rock. Fearing that it might still possess some diabolical properties, he made the sign of the cross, and pronounced the name of Jesus; he immediately saw a bat fly out of one of the monster's ears, and Paphnutius knew that he had driven out the evil spirits which had been for centuries in the figure. His zeal increased, and ...
— Thais • Anatole France

... every year that you stick to the work. What I intended to convey is that you three are the best experts in this line I have ever seen, considering, of course, the amount of time you have already given to this work. Give you three lads time enough, and the United States appears destined to possess the three greatest ...
— The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip - "Making Good" as Young Experts • Victor G. Durham

... prevailed. The bishops and archbishops were outvoted, and an order in council was passed authorizing the Lord Protector to possess himself of his nephew, the Duke of York, and for this purpose to take him, if necessary, ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... proceeded, "I already possess that authority without special warrant of law, by the plain implication of my constitutional duties and powers, but I prefer in the present circumstances not to act upon general implication. I wish to feel ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... Jane answered, "but they do not possess the kind of information, and the character of mind, and the intellectual tastes which I wish any one who is ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... being rolled as a sweet morsel of revenge under the tongue of the vicious Sarah, Brownie came running from the house. Possibly he beheld his master's predicament and wished to succor him; possibly he was animated by the spirit of mischief which seemed to possess him most of the time. However that may be, he collided with a hive of bees as he ran and upset it. Then swift as a flash he fled to a large tree growing nearby and stood upon his little hind feet close to its trunk, in such a manner that he was ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington

... in which the new facts could be imparted to our knowledge, the facts themselves being beyond the reach of any senses whereof we are now in actual possession. I expect to find my new body provided with new, I mean OTHER senses beyond what I now possess: many more may be required to bring us into relation with all the facts in himself which God may have shadowed forth in properties, as we say, of what we call matter. The spaces all around us, even to those betwixt star and star, may be the ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

... of the Future will possess a god whose highest fact will not be his own defeat and death upon a cross; a god whom the people, by their own power and skill, will force to unveil his face to them; a god who will be torn by the very children whom he once scattered over the face ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... in a sensible manner, Mr. Lubliner," Mr. Williams replied in the rounded tones that only truly great actors, clergymen, and room clerks possess. "Which means that I am interested in a real-estate development near here, and I'm combining business with pleasure for a ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass

... to the mass of buildings close at hand. "You have all that, and there is no doubt that inanimate things possess a peculiar influence, either strengthening or otherwise. But still I can quite imagine what it means to you to sit here and listen to silence with so many reminders about you. It is one of the things that the servants of humanity must ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan

... her silken tresses arranged on either side of her head, draped like curtains from a central parting, is to be envied if she can do it and yet look young and pretty. She is the Madonna type and seems to possess all the attributes of gentleness, modesty, and meekness, and angelic sweetness that are supposed to characterize the distinctively feminine woman. This is the ideal style of coiffure much bepraised by man, because, according to a bright modern Amazon, ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley

... "What right have you to be happy? You should be thinking about others. In fact, you should be thinking about me. I am always thinking about myself, and I expect everybody else to do the same. That is what is called sympathy. It is a beautiful virtue, and I possess it in a high degree. Suppose, for instance, anything happened to me to-night, what a misfortune that would be for every one! The Prince and Princess would never be happy again, their whole married life would be spoiled; and as for the King, I know he would not get over it. Really, ...
— The Happy Prince and Other Tales • Oscar Wilde

... tidings there to hear (If hear I may) of my lov'd Sire's return. He ceas'd, then wept his gentle nurse that sound 470 Hearing, and in wing'd accents thus replied. My child! ah, wherefore hath a thought so rash Possess'd thee? whither, only and belov'd, Seek'st thou to ramble, travelling, alas! To distant climes? Ulysses is no more; Dead lies the Hero in some land unknown, And thou no sooner shalt depart, than these Will plot ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... saw impressed him, as he has often told me, more than he could have conceived any drawing or picture capable of impressing him. And, though the drawing he saw is no longer in existence, there is a photograph of it (which I possess) which fully bears out that statement. The picture in question was a sepia drawing at the end of the seventeenth century, representing, one would say at first sight, a Biblical scene; for the architecture ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various

... nervous and the muscular system. The latter, however, asserts its pre-eminence throughout. The prodigal provision of organs for the purposes of respiration, and the marvellous powers which numerous tribes of insects possess, of accommodating the most corrupted airs, for a longer or shorter period, to the support of their excitability, would of itself lead us to presume, that here the vis irritabilis is the reigning dynasty. There is here no confluence of nerves into one reservoir, as evidence of the ...
— Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... does not possess any proof, nor does the note of the Imperial and Royal Government furnish such, that the Society Narodna Obrana and other similar societies have up to the present committed any criminal acts of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... Lumley thought at that moment less of Evelyn than of Lisle Court. As he woke from the stupor and the first fit of rage into which these epistles cast him, the recollection of the story he had heard from Mr. Onslow flashed across him. Were his suspicions true, what a secret he would possess! How fate might yet befriend him! Not a moment was to be lost. Weak, suffering as he still was, he ordered his carriage, and hastened ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book IX • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... winter. It commenced very decidedly from the breaking up of the Indian summer. November is not at all like the same month at home. The early part was soft and warm, the latter cold, with keen frosts and occasional falls of snow; but it does not seem to possess the dark, gloomy, damp character of our British Novembers. However, it is not one season's acquaintance with the climate that enables a person to form any correct judgment of its general character, but a close observance of its peculiarities and vicissitudes during many years' ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... covet, one heavy loss or deprivation having succeeded another, we see ourselves stript, as I may say, of every one we loved; and find ourselves exposed, as uncompanionable poor creatures, to the slights, to the contempts, of jostling youth, who want to push us off the stage, in hopes to possess what we have:—and, superadded to all, our own infirmities every day increasing: of themselves enough to make the life we wished for the greatest disease of all! Don't you remember the lines of Howard, which once you read ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson

... were dupes, fears may be liars; It may be, in you smoke concealed, Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, And, but for you, possess the field. ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... weight of General Scott's opinion on such a (p. xxvi) subject, and whether or not it is important, as he insists, that medals should possess high artistic value, in order that they may be not only the rewards of merit and monuments of history, but also favorable specimens of contemporary art, it must be acknowledged that those struck since 1840 differ widely, in many respects, from those of the preceding ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... people of that district gained their livelihood in the stone-quarries around Settignano and Maiano on the hillside of Fiesole. Michelangelo's foster-mother was the daughter and the wife of stone-cutters. "George," said he in after-years to his friend Vasari, "if I possess anything of good in my mental constitution, it comes from my having been born in your keen climate of Arezzo; just as I drew the chisel and the mallet with which I carve statues in together with my ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... a moment later, Joe fell into deep thought. It had come upon him quite swiftly that he had not been duly grateful for the good things of life he did possess. Already home, father, and mother had assumed a greater significance to him; but he now found himself placing a higher personal value upon his sister and his chums and friends. He had never appreciated them ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London

... "what a beautiful instrument that is, and what a deal of money you must make." "Why, yes," said the man, "I make a great deal of money, to be sure, and it is a wonderful instrument." "Oh!" cried Mr. Vinegar, "how I should like to possess it!" "Well," said the man, "as you are a friend, I don't much mind parting with it; you shall have it for that red cow." "Done!" said the delighted Mr. Vinegar. So the beautiful red cow was given for ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)

... prayer. I have since thought that the recovery of her infant sister, and her own prayer for the same, were so associated in her mind, as to produce a conviction of the efficacy of prayer, such as few possess. ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... of the National Conference of Social Work (formerly called the National Conference of Charities and Correction), Office, 315 Plymouth Court, Chicago, Illinois. These Reports constitute the best record of social movements we possess. Since 1873 the attempt has been made each year to take account of social stock and show what is being done for all classes needing help toward better living. Alexander Johnson prepared a Topical Index which ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer

... Eve of May Day, and even within recent years persons in the Principality have affirmed that they witnessed the great vernal congress of the snakes and saw the magic stone in the midst of the froth. The Welsh peasants believe the beads to possess medicinal virtues of many sorts and to be particularly efficacious for all maladies of the eyes. In Wales and Ireland the beads sometimes went by the name of the Magician's or Druid's Glass (Gleini na Droedh and Glaine nan Druidhe). Specimens ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... a Louis Napoleon which was then as now acceptable that side of the Rhine. It was not done with pomposity, but rather with the exuberance of a man whose purse and letter of credit possess an assuring circumference. ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath

... King, her sarcasm for his courtiers. Perhaps little of this latter quality appears in the pages bequeathed to us, written, as they are, in a somewhat cold, formal style, and we may assume that her much-dreaded irony resided in her tongue rather than in her pen. Yet we are glad to possess these pages, if only as a reliable record of Court life during the brightest period of ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... and Prussia that the Polish commonwealth should preserve its right to free election of a king," said the secret treaty concluded in 1764 between Frederick II. and the Empress Catherine, "and that no family should possess itself of the elective throne of that country, the two undermentioned Majesties engage to prevent, by all means in their power, Poland from being despoiled of its right of election and transformed into an hereditary ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... even." Thompson declared himself frankly. He did possess a little such knowledge, but held a little knowledge to ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... rug, and even then it isn't easy to find a place to stand on. It was about four o clock I think when I began, and the memory of the next three hours is weird, and lacking in Christmas spirit. I know now just how every piece of furniture we possess looks from the under side. I suppose this isn't a bad sort of knowledge to have, but I would rather not acquire it while I am pulling the wrinkles out of a two-hundred-pound rug. But when the Little Woman looked at the result and at me she was even more kind than I had expected. She ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine

... voice took a tone which made it somewhat uncertain whether, in spite of all the lofty impassibility which she felt bound to possess, she did not hate Pelagia with a most ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... with this dress, his glazed hat, and his small brass speaking-trumpet in his hand, he bade defiance to the weather. When he made his appearance in this most suitable attire for the service, his crew seemed to possess additional life, never failing to use their utmost exertions when the captain put on his storm rigging. They had this morning commenced loading the praam-boats at four o'clock, and proceeded to tow them into the eastern landing-place, which was accomplished with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... thinking of their loved ones at home. Can you wonder at the tears coming to the eyes of our veterans when the strain is sung And for bonnie Annie Laurie I'd lay me down and dee. I sing this song with all the sincere feeling and personality that I possess. It is a sacred song to me for I have heard the story many times as told by the veterans since the war. After this final tribute of my career The Oakland Herald had this to say next day: "The beautiful simplicity of Mrs. Blake-Alverson's singing provoked ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson

... of the water thou beheldest there (It matters not how many are his years) Thenceforward from that moment he appears Like as he was in youthly days, before His passed summers told beyond a score: And so the people of this land possess Unto all time their youth ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson

... fellow to continue in his mistake, and to endeavor to find out what mischief was about to be done in his, Lawrence's, name, and under his apparent authority. "I will become a subscriber," said he, taking out his pocket-book, "and request that you give me all the information you possess, here ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton

... reproaches, although even some of my masters the philosophers spent a good deal of their lamp-oil in setting forth the excellency of it; grant, I say, what they will have granted, that not only love, but lust, but vanity, but, if they list, scurrility, possess many leaves of the poets' books; yet, think I, when this is granted, they will find their sentence may, with good manners, put the last words foremost; and not say that poetry abuseth man's wit, but that man's wit abuseth poetry. For I will not deny but that ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney

... a few straggling grape-shot that splashed the water round us, the whole went over our heads. For a moment I found myself cut off from my companions, and drifting fast upon the enemy. The banks of the river were covered with warriors, yelling and rushing down to possess themselves of my boat and its crew. I had some difficulty in getting my long gig round, and paddling up against the stream; but, while my friend Brooke steered the boat, my cockswain and myself kept up a fire with tolerable aim on the embrasures, to prevent, if possible, their ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel

... talked with those I knew, and presently the Colonel came in, and I heard what the orders were for the evening. I felt very strange and foreign to it all, as everyone except myself had had their baptism of trench life, and, consequently, at this time I did not possess that calm indifference, bred of painful experience, which is part of the essence of a ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather

... Somehow, it had never hitherto dawned on her that the chemist might possess relatives in some part ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy

... his friends in the army, and finally was persuaded to sit for a portrait, to be the common property of six or eight of them. Money was desperately tight, they could not afford a copy apiece, but each was to possess it for two months at a time so long as he lived; he who survived the others to dispose of it as he chose. For Hamilton to sit still and look in one direction for half an hour was nothing short of misery, even with Betsey, Troup, and the Baby to amuse him; and only the head, face, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... my study of bird life, when I had a bird-room for close observation, I was interested to see that our little neighbors in feathers possess as much individuality of character as ourselves, and in Chapters XII. and XIII. of this volume I offer two studies of that ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller

... Observer" represents stray ideas, gathered here and there and everywhere, which I have decked out in gay habiliments of Fancy and embellished with such wit as I possess. Do not take them seriously, I pray you, for their aim is to amuse. Do not feel offended if some pet corn is trod upon, for it is all in fun and ...
— Said the Observer • Louis J. Stellman

... by a large portion of the Democratic electors of the Lincoln Congressional District as their candidate for Congress. That district has recently shown itself to possess a decided Whig majority; and this would have been equally the case in 1836, had any other man than Mr. Cilley appeared on the Democratic side. He had likewise to contend, as in all the former scenes ...
— Biographical Sketches - (From: "Fanshawe and Other Pieces") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... of Gautama Buddha. To overcome hatred with love, to subdue anger, to control the mind, and to be kind to all living things, and to be calm. That this is the greatest happiness, to subdue the selfish thought of I. That it is better to laugh than to weep, better to share than to possess, better to have nothing and be free of care than to have wealth and bend ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... well tremble. Even such contact was terrible. Why? Because there was no love in it. When the sense of beauty which God had given him that he might worship, awoke in Lord Rothie, he did not worship, but devoured, that he might, as he thought, possess! The poison of asps was under those lips. His kiss was as a kiss from the grave's mouth, for his throat was an open sepulchre. This was all in the past, reader. Baron Rothie was a foam-flake of the court of the Prince Regent. There are no such men ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... was like standing at the gate of the Promised Land. And the only way in was through the casual drawing of numbers. They stood long, staring at the land which lay so golden in the sun, and which only a few could possess. ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl

... Asterias, the power of reproduction is particularly-striking. "I possess one," says Blumenbach, "in which regeneration had begun of the 4 rays that had been removed out of 5 which it originally possessed." We have picked up on the seashore many of the species to which he alludes, and they ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 398, November 14, 1829 • Various

... the children chanced to die, Ere they to age should come, Their uncle should possess their wealth: For ...
— My First Picture Book - With Thirty-six Pages of Pictures Printed in Colours by Kronheim • Joseph Martin Kronheim

... you are going to say, mother. I don't boast that I possess all these things; but I do say that I will ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... language which he makes musical with solace and aspiration. The present volume, while it will confirm Mr. Longfellow's claim to the high rank he has won among lyric poets, deserves attention also as proving him to possess that faculty of epic narration which is rarer than all others in the nineteenth century. In our love of stimulants, and our numbness of taste, which craves the red pepper of a biting vocabulary, we of the present generation are apt to overlook this almost obsolete and unobtrusive ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell

... would have awaited the outcome with serene indifference could he have been certain of a dear field. The arrival of Winkleman would, he secretly admitted, upset him completely. Winkleman—another white man, possessed of powers he did not possess, of wonders he did not own, of knowledge equal to his—would have no difficulty in taking the lead from him. Certainly Winkleman had not yet arrived, and he was long overdue. On the other hand, neither had Simba nor Mali-ya-bwana reported; and they ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al

... visited, the thefts, so frequently committed by the natives, of what we had brought along with us, may be fairly traced to less culpable motives. They seemed to arise solely from an intense curiosity or desire to possess something which they had not been accustomed to before, and belonging to a sort of people so different from themselves. And, perhaps, if it were possible, that a set of beings, seemingly, as superior in our judgment, as we are in theirs, ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... the one universal law of which evasion is impossible; and this is true, not of the individual only, but of society, of nations, of civilization, and even, it would seem, ultimately of physical life itself. Every vital energy therefore that we possess can be directed not to the abolition, but only to the postponement of this final full close to which the most ecstatic created harmony must come ...
— Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson

... a great advantage, especially in case of meeting ferocious animals. The park laws will not allow us to kill them, and it would be mighty convenient, Lizzie. Not to mention that it would be an accomplishment few women possess." ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... discouraged expeditions to Africa and to the Moluccas; for he believed that the control of Indian traffic could be maintained by sea power, and that land settlements would drain the resources of the nation. Once the Moslem traders excluded, Portugal would possess all it wanted, on land ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... his resting place on a top shelf. At first glance he appeared to consist entirely of a very gaunt, cadaverous head and a sizable hump, but on being spread out he was found to possess a dark brown, unwholesome-looking body made of ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... not desire Olaf's heritage; and rather turn thyself to the kingdoms in the East country, which thy forefathers the former Swedish kings had, and which our relation Styrbjorn lately subdued, and let the thick Olaf possess the heritage of his forefathers and ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... well be thought that flowers, those "fairy ministers of grace," with their delicately tinted, variegated, perfect hues, that emit, in their sweet, delicious perfumes, what may be called the "breath of heaven," possess in these delightful qualities full enough to instruct and charm mankind. But there is a flower, it seems, that, inviting the aid of the evening zephyr, adds sweet music to its other fascinating beauties. Let the poet Twombly ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter

... fired. The invention of the apparatus, legalized in 1879, for the determination of the flash-point of petroleum, was another piece of work which fell to him by virtue of his official position. His first instrument, the open-test apparatus, was prescribed by the act of 1868, but, being found to possess certain defects, it was superseded in 1879 by the Abel close-test instrument (see PETROLEUM). In electricity Abel studied the construction of electrical fuses and other applications of electricity to ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... her that the state of the times made life impossible to women who possess nothing, and offered her certain properties. As Clara gazed at him in astonishment at this strange proposition, he said, "If it is your vows which prevent you, we ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

... the street as merry as school-children—even the self-contained Lucius smiled at Joe's odd turns of speech. Bertha's heart swelled with the keen delight of giving pleasure to her friends. This was, indeed, the chief of all the wondrous powers of money—it enabled one to be hospitable, to possess a home wherein visitors were always welcome, to own a car in which dear friends could ride; for the moment her resolution to ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... made, almost all of us, that the false seeming which we have thought of with painful shrinking when beforehand in our solitude it has urged itself on us as a necessity, will possess our muscles and move our lips as if nothing but that were easy when once we have come under the stimulus of expectant eyes and ears. And the strength of that stimulus to Savonarola can hardly be measured by the experience of ordinary lives. Perhaps no ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... man lived upon such fees as he could wring without authority from those who came to lay their suits before the Papal Court, playing upon their hopes and fears and pretending to a power which he did not possess. Had they done so, they might have seen him turn up a certain side street, and, when he was sure that none watched him, slip into the portal of an ancient house where visitors of rank were ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard

... And still my eyes delay my feet To gaze upon the earth and heaven, And hear the happy birds repeat Their anthems to the coming even; Yet is my pleasure incomplete; I grieve to think how few are given To feel the pleasures I possess, While thousand hearts, by sorrow riven, Must pine in utter loneliness, Or be to ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... error, nor the failure other than accident. The courage with which you, in an open field, maintained the contest against an intrenched foe, and the consummate skill and success with which you crossed and recrossed the river in the face of the enemy, show that you possess all the qualities of a great army, which will yet give victory to the cause of the country ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... with the lawyer very satisfactory, and she viewed with pleasure the roll of bills he left for their immediate use; and, at the sight of it, Gussie made a mental list of various luxurious articles she had long desired to possess. ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... received a nautical training on a school-ship, is bent on going to sea. A runaway horse changes his prospects. Harry saves Dr. Gregg from drowning and afterward becomes sailing-master of a sloop yacht. Mr. Converse's stories possess a charm of their own which is appreciated by lads who delight in good healthy tales that smack of ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis

... strange that there are no more remains left about. They did not possess anything apparently but a few earthen pots and the stone mills," ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn

... to make complete observations on the lunar surface, the terrestrial atmosphere should possess a transparency seventy times greater than its present power of transmission. But in the void through which the Projectile was now floating, no fluid whatever interposed between the eye of the observer and the object observed. Besides, the travellers now found themselves at a distance that ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne

... rate very highly, as compositions of importance, beautifully formed and having the noblest tendency. But unfortunately at that time Vienna influences, both social and publishing, were of an injurious kind, and Czerny did not possess the necessary dose of sternness to keep out of them and to preserve his better ego. This is generally a difficult task, the solving of which brings with it much trouble even for the most capable and those who have the ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated

... style of writing be found not to possess all the polish that my readers may desire, it will at least record the true state of events; and I shall not be disappointed if it only serve to enable another to present a history of the same period in more elegant language ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... rest of the world, in equitable exchange for what we supply, greater amounts of important raw materials which we do not ourselves possess in ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower

... and her daughters," their leader having taken this scriptural name from a misconception of the meaning of Genesis xxiv., 60: "And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her. . . . 'let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them.'" This captain of the gate breakers in the guise of a woman, always made her marches and attacks by night, and her conduct of the campaign manifested no small dexterity and address. A sudden blowing of horns and firing of ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton

... no authority, sir, to make such a statement!" he exclaimed. "I want it distinctly understood that I would give half of what I possess to have the slayer of my son brought ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon

... you?" said he, stretching his arms. "What an agreeable surprise! Ma foi! Sleep had made me forget I had the happiness to possess you. ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... from her shoulders, to find that the top of her daintily poised head, with its soft, fine hair, came well below the level of his eyes. Somehow her poise, her slender grace of movement and of attitude, had lent her the impression of a stature she did not possess. To-night her eyes, while fathomless as ever, ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White

... examples unsurpassed in literature. By the story of Ugolino the chords of the heart are so thrilled that pity and awe possess us wholly; and by that of Francesca they are touched to tenderest sympathy. But Ugolino is to Lear what a single fire-freighted cloud that discharges five or six terrific strokes is to a night-long tempest, wherein the thundering heavens gape with ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert

... indubitably the most entertaining, in Some respects the most valuable, work of its kind in the English language, Regarded as a series of pictures of the society of the time, the Diary is unsurpassed for vivid Colouring and truthful delineation. As such alone it would possess a strong claim upon our attention, but how largely is our interest increased, when we find that the figures which fill the most prominent positions in the foreground of these pictures, are those of the most noble, most gifted, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... sad condition of his own children embittered his lot, but the sad condition of other black men's children as well. He yearned to help all to better social conditions—to that freedom which is the gift of God to mankind. He yearned to possess this God-given boon, in its fullness and entirety, for himself before he passed thence to the grave. For he possessed it not. He had indeed bought himself, but he soon learned that the right to himself which he had purchased from his master was not the freedom of a man, but the freedom accorded ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke

... grew worse now from day to day; he lingered through the summer and with the chill days of autumn the end came. Dick hurried home and arrived just in time to see him alive. He left a much larger fortune than we had supposed him to possess, and Dick, always fond of sport, was soon in negotiation for this place which ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William

... a game of pool may be said to possess was not made plain, but Mr. Bennet seemed, after a moment or two of thought, inclined to agreement with the idea. He cast a weather eye about for Arethusa, but as her dancing partner had changed since he last observed her, not five whole minutes before, he felt himself ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox

... wit, asinine rather than attic, and can be exercised as well by those who know nothing of the subject as by those best acquainted with it. Indeed, it is greatly to be doubted whether one in a hundred of these witty persons know any thing of the matter; for if they possess sense enough to make them worthy of being ranked among reasonable men, it could be proved to them in five minutes that they are themselves transcendentalists, as all thinking men find themselves compelled to be, whether they know themselves by that ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various

... history published in 1886, says that this was simply following out the social plan of a Zion which Smith attempted in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois, under "revelation." He explains: "According to the primal law of colonization, recognized in all ages, it was THEIR LAND if they could hold and possess it. They could have done this so far as the Mexican government was concerned, which government probably never would even have made the first step to overthrow the superstructure of these Mormon society builders. At that date, before this territory was ceded to the United States, Brigham ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... albeit an unseaworthy vessel, is a picturesque object. Its dirty sails are of a fine rich colour, because of their very dirtiness. Its weather-worn and filthy spars, and hull and rigging, possess a harmony of tone which can only be acquired by age. Its cordage being rotten and very limp, hangs, on that account, all the more gracefully in waving lines of beauty and elegant festoons; the reef points hang quite straight, and patter softly ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne

... sighingly, "not yours! Up among the northern hills, yonder towards the sunset, sits the owner, sorrowful, weeping, wailing"? I believe I am wading out into the Sally Waters of Mother Goosery; but, prose or poetry, somewhere a woman,—and because nobody of taste could surreptitiously possess herself of my veil, I have no doubt that she cut it incontinently into two equal parts, and gave one to her sister, and that there are two women,—nay, since niggardly souls have no sense of grandeur and will shave down to microscopic dimensions, it is every way probable that she ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... the island of Kaffa[10] is occupied by the Tartars, who are governed by a prince named Ulubi[11], the son of Azicharei. They are able, in case of need, to bring 3000 or 4000 horse into the field. These people possess two walled towns, which are by no means strong. One of these, Sorgathi[12], is by them likewise called Incremia or Chirmia, which signifies a fortification. The other is Cherchiarde or Kerkiarde[13], which signifies ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... greatly relies for the propagation and extension of his plants, are also matters with which teratology concerns itself. Again the difficulty experienced occasionally in getting vines, strawberries, &c., to set properly, may sometimes be accounted for by that inherent tendency which some plants possess of exchanging an hermaphrodite for ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters

... sources of happiness which seem inherent in woman, the wife of the Sovereign sometimes seeks in politics and in pleasure a means of excitement which may purchase oblivion. But the political queen is a rare character; she must possess an intellect of unusual power, and her lot must be considered as an exception in the fortunes of female royalty. Even the political queen generally closes an agitated career with a broken heart. And for the unhappy votary of pleasure, who owns her cold duty to a royal husband, ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... in my mind—a project full of romance and imagination, one that might make me wealthy—in a position wherein I could laugh at Garcia's pretensions and boldly ask my uncle's consent, for I was hopeful of obtaining Lilla's. I was poor now, but need not remain so. Suppose by one grand stroke I could possess myself of the riches of ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn

... Great crimes have been committed in your district,"—and not a man of them all but dropped his eyes and looked as if he felt himself guilty—"and great excitement has been caused in the public mind. But it is one of the highest triumphs of civilisation that we possess a wholesome system of procedure, whereby time is afforded to elapse for the abatement of popular excitement,"—here he glanced searchingly at the exemplary public on the other side of the barrier, as though he ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace

... borne a kind of enchantment with it. I still believe him, in virtue of this carriage, his animal spirits, his delightful voice, his handsome face and figure, and, for aught I know, of some inborn power of attraction besides (which I think a few people possess), to have carried a spell with him to which it was a natural weakness to yield, and which not many persons could withstand. I could not but see how pleased they were with him, and how they seemed to open their hearts to him in ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... Howard's The Committee (1662), which long kept the stage, and, in a modified form, The Honest Thieves, was seen as late as the second half of the nineteenth century, are pre-eminently the best. Both possess considerable merit and are worthy of the highest comic traditions of ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... he gravely, "the only course that promises you success is to return to Paris, and, raising sufficient men, with guns and other modern siege appliances such as we possess not here, come back and batter down ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini

... never admitted any "natural" political rights to man, but we have steadily insisted on the constitutional right of representation in Parliament to those who possess a fixed abode and contribute by ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton

... deserves. We have a great and difficult task to perform if we are to succeed in bringing back to the Jewish youth a pride in their Jewish heritage and a knowledge of their Jewish past, and I know that such work is worthy of all effort. I trust that your convention may possess the spirit and the wisdom necessary to further the work, and I wish to renew to you my assurance of ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... corduroys and middy blouse. I knew Sam would get his new family off at the station at the cross-roads. I wanted to be at The Briers all established and at work when he got there. I have heard lots of times that possession is nine points of the law, and I was determined to possess all nine. ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess

... into whose bands his wealth would pass; nor would it be any comfort to him, even for his children or friends to possess it, when he was torn from all which he loved and idolized, and plunged into the pit of destruction; and perhaps they too were preparing by it ...
— Christian Devotedness • Anthony Norris Groves

... embroidery, say of the reign of King Richard Coeur de Lion, Queen Anne, or George III., would be an historical document and a standard to gauge the period of any uninscribed examples. Although few of us are likely to possess treasures of the XIIIth century, signed and dated pieces of our great-grandmothers' embroideries are interesting personal landmarks in family history, so for this reason, amongst others, unostentatious marks of identification are by no means out of place. Descriptive names or verses are also a ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie

... I possess a Bible and Prayer-book bound together in one volume which was given me on leaving Rottingdean by my sincere friend, the master of the preparatory school there. It contains, just before the First Chapter of Genesis, a Chronological Map "with remarkable persons and events collaterally placed." ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones

... Company, almost entirely disappeared after its establishment for some few years. It was a miserable place from all accounts, and was described by Captain James Lowe, in 1836, "as an expensive port, and of no use to any nation that might possess it," and he only echoed what was previously said of it by William Dampier, who had once been there in the humble position of a gunner, that it was "a sorry place, sorrily governed, and very unhealthy." So unhealthy was it, that it became necessary as early as 1714 to remove the Residency ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair

... your bright faces and listen to your merry laughter and your girlish chatter, I wonder if any one of you understands how much you are worth. Now you may say, "I haven't any money in the bank, I have no houses or land, I am worth nothing," but that would only be detailing what you possess. It is not what you possess but what you are that determines what you are worth. One may possess much wealth and be worth ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen

... sure test of individual identity. Secondly, that at least the outer corona may be traversed by such bodies with perfect apparent impunity. Finally, that their chemical constitution is highly complex, and that they possess, in some cases at least, a metallic core resembling the meteoric masses which occasionally reach ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... in a way very satisfactory, upon the whole, to his superiors, having, as he frequently said, learned wisdom abroad. The Popish Church never fails to turn to account any particular gift which its servants may possess; and discovering soon that Murtagh was endowed with considerable manual dexterity—proof of which he frequently gave at cards, and at a singular game which he occasionally played at thimbles—it selected him as a very fit person to play the part of exorcist; and accordingly ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... called upon, also, to express their ideas verbally, they soon acquire by practice, the power of expressing their ideas with clearness and force, and communicating with ease and confidence the knowledge they possess. ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... one should not possess anything, one can't have any clothes, nor even a crust of bread, but must give away everything, so that ...
— The Light Shines in Darkness • Leo Tolstoy

... late in life to those who ought to have recognized it years before. Thinking along the surface of things, and in particular repeating catchwords and platitudes and trite maxims on the subject of sincerity, is apt to make us believe that we possess the quality we talk about, and as it is impossible to have anything to do with the education of children without treating of sincerity and truthfulness, it is comparatively easy to slip into the happy ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart

... experience only the rapture of the senses; and gratification, restlessly revolving round itself between enjoyment and exhaustion, is condemned to eternal sterility. All religio-sexual orgies of which history tells us are so many attempts of sensuality to possess itself of a higher intuition—vain attempts, because casual intercourse and the annihilation of the individual can never produce new values. According to Hegel the immanent sense of everything that happens in the world is the destiny of the individual to grow ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka

... prejudicial to himself, the most deserving public castigation? The blemishes of an atheist, then, as the theologian styles him, have not any thing more extraordinary in them than those of the superstitious man; they possess nothing with which his doctrine can he fairly reproached. A tyrant, who should he incredulous, would not be a more incommodious scourge to his subjects, than a theological autocrat, who should wield his sceptre ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach

... altars, fonts, choir-screens, and other objects were made of carved stone or of stucco, which hardened like stone, and were all richly ornamented with sculpture. A completely new spirit seemed to possess the artists, who thus found a satisfactory field for their labors, and the period known as the Romanesque was thus ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement

... spark of originality and of wholly hindering the development of histrionic talent. With the French such results are happily, to a certain extent, impossible. There is scarcely any French man or woman of ordinary intelligence who does not possess sufficient capacity for acting to be capable of being trained into a very fair performer. The preponderance of beautiful women on the French stage above those to be found in other stations of life may be accounted for on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... that the great mass of the population in Ireland belong to one creed, and the great bulk of landed proprietors to another; and to take care that none of those fierce and iniquitous prerogatives of power, which are claimed and exercised by those who possess property, shall be suffered, in the name of religion, or politics, or prejudice of any kind, to disturb or abridge the civil or religious rights of the people, and thus weaken the bonds which should render the interests of landlord ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... at Christmas. The old man, weakened by his long illness, had been stunned by the War, and when his second illness seized him, he made no effort to resist it. He would lie very quietly for a long while, and then a paroxysm of fury would possess him, and he would shake his fist impotently in the air. "If they wanted a war," he shouted once, "why didn't they go and fight it themselves. They were paid to keep the ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... Dowden's statement of the case:—"Over 'Hamlet,' as over 'Romeo and Juliet,' it is supposed that Shakespeare laboured long and carefully. Like 'Romeo and Juliet,' the play exists in two forms, and there is reason to believe that in the earlier form, in each instance, we possess an imperfect report of Shakespeare's first treatment of his theme,"[4] We know also that Shakespeare had before him, at least as early as 1589, an old play in which "a ghost cried dismally like an oyster wife, 'Hamlet! ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various

... himself from public affairs, and employed his leisure in instructing those young men that wished, in philosophy; and by the near intercourse he thus had with some of the noblest and highest in rank, he again began to possess great influence in the city. The work which he set himself to do was to compose and translate philosophical dialogues and to render logical and physical terms into the Roman idiom. For he it was, as it is said, who ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... what I was going to tell you. First of all, everybody's money and land and anything else he may possess will be made common property. Then we shall maintain you all out of the common stock, with due regard ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... desire is to give to Spain exactly that which she does not possess, in spite of the lying clamour of some deluded people—that liberty which she only knows by name; liberty, which is the daughter of the gospel, not liberalism, which is the son of disbelief (de la protesta); ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... and ingenuity; and the possession of it is secured by the laws of the community. Against whom think you is it secured? It is secured against thieves and robbers; against idle and profligate men, who, however low your condition may be, would be glad to deprive you of the little you possess. It is secured, not only against such disturbers of the public peace, but against the oppression of the noble, the rapacity of the powerful, and the avarice of the rich. The courts of British justice are impartial and incorrupt; they respect not the persons of men; the poor man's lamb ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... newspaper, and set himself to work to study the advertisements. He was dismayed to find how many more applicants there were for places than places requiring to be filled. All the persons advertising were older than himself, and seemed to possess various accomplishments in the way of languages; many too could be strongly recommended from their last situation. The prospect did not look hopeful. In the first place he had looked to see if any required boy clerks, but this species ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty

... best types of the race as these objectors claimed, there would be something to have been said in favor of its retention. But the first condition of any competition or test, the results of which are to command respect or possess any value, is the fairness and equality of the struggle. Did this first and essential condition of any true competitive struggle characterize the competitive ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... grief, such a spirit as yours and such a friend as you have in me, Anto," he said, "you possess the ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... they had departed, he bent his aged shoulders to the weight of the holy corpse; and laying it in the grave, heaped earth on it, and raised a mound as is the wont. And when another dawn shone, lest the pious heir should not possess aught of the goods of the intestate dead, he kept for himself the tunic which Paul had woven, as baskets are made, out of the leaves of the palm; and returning to the monastery, told his disciples all throughout; and, on the solemn days of Easter and ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley

... perform one set of duties without neglecting another. She and Lesbia collected fifteen and ninepence for the cot among their friends in Skelwick, and wrote down the various items with much satisfaction in a notebook supplied for the purpose. The Gascoynes did not possess bicycles, so could not join the cycle parade, but Lesbia was to sing in one of the glees, and Gwen meant to enter for certain of the athletic sports. Her long arms and legs would, she hoped, stand her in good stead in a contest of running or jumping, and even if she did not ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil

... more abundant, I plump for a sea unicorn of colossal dimensions, no longer armed with a mere lance but with an actual spur, like ironclad frigates or those warships called 'rams,' whose mass and motor power it would possess simultaneously. ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... perfectly happy, and still more proud of her social position. Certain products of civilisation especially caused her rapture. Once, perceiving in a public garden a fountain, she admired it for a couple of hours with inexpressible delight, and on returning to her city, which did not possess a fountain, she talked to her friends during the whole year of that beautiful phenomenon. She was also very fond of mirrors, and when she found herself opposite a large mirror she could not tear her eyes away from it, and especially from the reflected ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko

... what qualities we hope to develop by means of these school activities. To do this effectively we must visualize the pupil when he emerges from the school period and ask ourselves what qualities we hope to have him possess at the close of this period. If we decide upon such qualities as imagination, initiative, aspiration, appreciation, courage, loyalty, reverence, a sense of responsibility, integrity, and serenity, we have discovered ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson

... thrust asunder, by their common feeling. It had grown to be a bond uniting them; they were not so much rivals as ardent novices serving a single altar, each worshiping there without visible gain over the other. Each had even come to possess, in the eyes of his two fellows, almost a sacredness as a sharer in the celestial glamor; they were tender one with another. They ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington

... to your predecessors; the deceit and hypocrisy of the enemy; and whatever the antagonist could with exquisite craftiness invent, by which they might entrap your noble spirit. Wherefore, since it becomes no one to possess knowledge more than a Prince, whose learning may be most beneficial to his subjects,—I, a poor and humble votary, offer (if it be your will) this volume to the inspection of your Highness; giving it the name of Ypodigma Neustriae, because ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... body," his impulses and desires, under the name, as our author gives it, of animal soul, may separate from the more enduring parts of his composition, and become lost to him in Nature's great store of material substance. As there is an animal soul, the seat of those faculties which we possess in common with the lower beings about us, so there is a human soul, the seat of intelligence; and, higher still, a spiritual soul, possessing powers of which as yet we know but little, yet destined to give us, when it shall be more fully developed, ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... much inferior to that of the enemy. In a general way it is an advantage to have your frontier in the form of a re-entrant angle; for then you can strike on your enemy's flank and threaten his communications. That advantage the Boers possess against Natal, and that is why Sir George White has abandoned Laing's Nek and Newcastle, and holds the line of the Biggarsberg: even so the Boers might conceivably get between him and his base. The same advantage we should possess on this western side of the theatre of war, except ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens

... of me so? Suppose me to have been tempted. You conclude that I must have aimed at stealing the girl from you solely to gratify myself, heedless of her, heedless of you. Such a motive as that is to outweigh every higher instinct I possess, to blind me to past and future, to make me all at once a heartless, unimaginative brute. That is your view of ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing

... estate to the value of two hundred pounds, over and above all encumbrances, there was no property qualification whatever required for members of the legislative council. The address of the House expressed the opinion that members of the council should be required to possess a certain amount of real estate, and that their seats should be vacant on the loss of this qualification, or on their becoming bankrupt, or public defaulters, or from neglect to give their attendance for a given time without leave of the lieutenant-governor. ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay

... man shall possess his own property, and shall dispose of it with the most entire liberty. Thus, for example, the innocent heirs of a criminal shall not be deprived of their legal rights, and the goods of the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... people, as well as the language, of Portugal possess a distinctive character. Early in the history of the country the extensive and fertile plains were abandoned to pasturage, and the number of shepherds in proportion to the rest of the population was so great, that the idea of rural life among them ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... to drink"; "we do not carry on this business for money," they say; "here is your friend; he promised us a glass of brandy, which we will take and then go back to our work."[3194]—Outside of their business they possess the expansive cordiality and ready sensitivity of the Parisian workman. At the Abbaye, a federate,[3195] on learning that the prisoners had been kept without water for twenty-six hours, wanted to "exterminate" the turnkey for his ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... love with one another, because she is not jealous of me. She is Madame Socani in the plot, and a genuine American from New York; but she can sing; she has a delicious soprano voice, soft and powerful; but she has also a temper and temperament such as no woman, nor yet no devil, ought to possess. Of Monsieur Socani, or Signor Socani, or Herr Socani, I never yet heard. But such men do not always make themselves troublesome. I have to sing with her, and a woman you may say would not be troublesome, but she and Mahomet between them consider themselves competent ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope

... of his chief the Senator, the more he honored him, and the more conspicuously the moral grandeur of his character appeared to stand out. To possess the friendship and the kindly interest of such a man, Washington said in a letter to Louise, was a happy fortune for a young man whose career had been so impeded and so ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... me to possess you, and that possession would seem as trivial as a fiddle in a temple.... Yet, too, there was a lustful beast, somewhere inside of me, which nudged me to—kiss you, say! But nothing happened. I did not even kiss you, my ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al

... a strange caprice that we should now possess what is in every probability the very breastplate worn by the heroic monarch on that occasion. It was found in 1820, and thereafter sold—some fragments of it, at least—to the British Museum, where under the name ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... up a pitiful whimper, and tried to possess herself of his hand; she kissed his coat-sleeve instead. "That you will return with ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells

... did a great deal more than talk. He supplied from himself that deficiency of inventive power and enterprise which is woman's weak point; and he tilled those wide powers of masterly execution which they possess unknown to grandpapa Cant and grandmamma Precedent. As this clear head had foreseen, his women came out artisans. The eye that could thread a needle proved accurate enough for anything. Their supple, taper fingers soon learned to pick up type and ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... thing in order to win every thing. But I am the king, and, moreover, the king of an unfortunate state. I must forget my own wrongs, and remember only that I have sacred duties to fulfil toward my people, and that, so far as my own person is concerned, I am not yet allowed to possess any other courage than that of resignation. I am not allowed to stake the existence of my monarchy and the welfare of my people to obtain personal satisfaction. Until I obtain the incontestable certainty that ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... deeply. He looked at her with the dispassionateness which comes to men who have lived much in countries where nakedness offers itself unashamed to the sunlight, and said to himself, "I should like to see her run." He knew that a body like this must possess an infinite capacity for physical pleasure, that to her mere walking would give more joy than others find in dancing. And then he raised his eyes to her face and was sad. For sufficient reasons he was very sensitive to the tragedies ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... the fitness of things which so many of these women possess, showed itself as the evening wore on—. Finding the situation hopeless, Suzette accepted it, curbed the real emotion in herself and played the game—She tried to amuse me—and then we discussed plans for her future. A villa at Monte Carlo she decided at last—A bijou of a place! which ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn

... imagine that death makes man immortal. Immortality is an attribute of the gods. But since all souls possess a spark of the divine essence of Brahman (The Absolute), mukti may be attained by earnest seeking, ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad

... indeed, for one great company of merchants to possess themselves of the whole crop of an extensive country, it might perhaps be their interest to deal with it, as the Dutch are said to do with the spiceries of the Moluccas, to destroy or throw away a considerable part of it, ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... corroborate. Dr. Clouston's observation, and assert that children fed largely on flesh foods have capricious appetites, suffer more commonly from indigestion in its various forms, possess an unstable nervous system, and have less resisting power ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... cleaned and the paint taken from the panels, and if under the mellow brick walls there were set out lawns and flowers; then Croydon might justly boast of its tram lines, its admirable sanitation, and its new Town Hall. It would possess something else. ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... President of the United States, unmindful of the high duties of his office and of his oath of office, on the 21st day of February, A.D. 1868, at Washington, in the District of Columbia, did unlawfully conspire with one Lorenzo Thomas by force to seize, take, and possess the property of the United States in the Department of War, and then and there in the custody and charge of Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary for said Department, contrary to the provisions of an act entitled "An act to define and punish certain conspiracies," approved July 31, 1861, and with intent ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... reflections may possess, I hasten to add that, instead of the arguments of his predecessors, which have no real value, Fourier has substituted proofs, demonstrations; and we know what meaning such terms convey to ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... down and reverted to the bottle, Luke Tweezy generously purchased a second and invited him and his friend to a vacant table in the corner of the room. It was an amazing sight. Luke Tweezy the money-lender, the man who was supposed to still possess the first dollar he ever earned, had actually bought three eighths of one bottle of whiskey and the ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White

... not thrust a shy young man, long a hermit, into a miscellaneous company when he had come merely to drink tea with herself and son and a few intimate friends. Later, of course, they should all meet him, but they must possess their souls in patience. To this dictum they submitted as gracefully as possible, but they were not so much in awe of Lady Hunsdon as to forbear to peep from windows and sequestered nooks on the ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton



Words linked to "Possess" :   exhibit, have, possession, possessor, prepossess



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