"Possess" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... people would not believe that you would do no harm," he explained. "I can see that you are quite harmless. But they have not the intelligence I possess. You understand?" ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... necessarily a hostile feeling toward any of the parties to these great national struggles, is quite consistent with amicable relations with them all. The Hungarian people are three or four times as numerous as the inhabitants of these United States were when the American Revolution broke out. They possess, in a distinct language, and in other respects, important elements of a separate nationality, which the Anglo-Saxon race in this country did not possess; and if the United States wish success to countries contending for popular constitutions ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... working for his master, he was engaged in prayer or in making sundry experiments. By intuition he, in a rude way, manufactured paper, gunpowder, pottery and other articles in common use. This knowledge which he claimed to possess was tested by actual demonstration during the trial for his life. His superior skill in planning was universally admitted by his fellow workmen. He did not, however, attribute this superior influence to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... possess guns," Jean Martin remarked, "and that they should carry them shows how disturbed a state of mind all these people are in. They know that their priests may be arrested and carried off, at any moment; and no doubt the report that an ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... I should observe that I have a great delight in pictures. I am no painter myself, but I have studied pictures and written about them. I have seen all the most famous pictures in the world; my education and reading have been sufficiently general to possess me beforehand with a knowledge of most of the subjects to which a Painter is likely to have recourse; and, although I might be in some doubt as to the rightful fashion of the scabbard of King Lear's sword, for instance, I think I should know King Lear tolerably well, ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... first drove out to the cottage every evening; but soon afterwards fell into the habit of visiting his bride only two or three times a week. He neither carried her into society nor brought home any visitors. Yet he seemed to possess immense wealth, and bestowed it upon Juliet with a liberal, nay, profuse hand. My young friend, what kind of a character do you suppose this Mr. Nicholson to have been?" said the old man, pausing, ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... the American backwoodsman. A tumult of delighted greeting broke from the audience. The bright color came to the pink, girlish cheeks, gratified vanity danced in her violet eyes, and as she piquantly bowed her acknowledgments, this great breath of praise seemed to transfigure and possess her. A very young actor who represented the giddy world in a straw hat and with an effeminate manner was alternately petted and girded at by her during the opening exposition of the plot, until the statement that a "dark destiny" obliged her to follow her uncle in an emigrant train across ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... Assassination of Abraham Lincoln," by O.H. Oldroyd, is a book that will be found to possess a distinct value of its own. The qualifications of the author for a work of this kind are shown to ...
— The Good Old Songs We Used to Sing, '61 to '65 • Osbourne H. Oldroyd
... question of the humanity of the Negro, hinged upon the question as to whether he possessed the intellectual, ethical, aesthetical and religious potentialities and possibilities which white men possessed, hinged upon the question as to whether the Negro did or did not possess a soul. The South said that the Negro was a beast and not a man, and was not capable of intellectual or moral improvement. In Georgia and other states, they took particular pains to see that the Negro ...
— Alexander Crummell: An Apostle of Negro Culture - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 20 • William H. Ferris
... a tie links me to any living thing: not a claim do I possess to admittance under any roof ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... McLaws, with his own division and that of General R. H. Anderson, will follow General Longstreet. On reaching Middletown he will take the route to Harper's Ferry, and by Friday morning possess himself of the Maryland Heights and endeavour to capture the enemy ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... to the company of a young lady with such a genius for intrigue as Isabel Fulford seems to possess. If we had only ourselves to consider, no doubt it would be well for you to take her in hand, but in the sort of house ours will be, there must be no one we cannot depend upon in our ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it was destroyed, with much other valuable property, in the fire which burnt to the ground the Birmingham Theatre. Suett's grief was extreme. "My wig's gone!" he would say, mournfully, for some time after the fire, to every one he met. Suett, Mathews, and Knight were at one time reputed to possess the most valuable stock of wigs in the profession. Knight's collection was valued, after ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... absence of individuality about his dwelling rooms. They might have been prepared for a rich American traveller in some hotel. Through a large portion of his career in Germany he lived in furnished rooms, not because he did not possess furniture of his own, which was stored up, but because he paid no sort of homage to his own penates. He had friends, but he did not cultivate them; he rather permitted them, at intervals, to cultivate him. To Georg Brandes (March 6, 1870) ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... sad dreams of Ian in the embrace of a lovely woman, without word or look for her. She woke weeping, and said to herself that it could not be. He COULD not be taken from her! it was against nature! Soul, brain, and heart, claimed him hers! How could another possess what, in the testimony of her whole consciousness, was hers and hers alone! Love asserts an innate and irreversible right of profoundest property in the person loved. It is an instinct—but how wrongly, undivinely, falsely interpreted! ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... in the shape of lending any influence I may possess in Mr. Nixon's behalf I will be most happy to do so on the strength of what Mary says in commendation, and should be most happy if it could so be that our lot would cast ...
— Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, - 1857-78 • Ulysses S. Grant
... troubles? The times are no longer the same. To destroy our finances? Finances founded on a flourishing agriculture can never be destroyed. To take from France her colonies? The colonies are to France only a secondary object; and does not your Majesty already possess more than you know how to preserve? If your Majesty would but reflect, you must perceive that the war is without an object, without any presumable result to yourself. Alas! what a melancholy prospect to cause two nations to fight merely for the sake of fighting. ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... excellent little book, How to Judge of a Picture, Van Dyke speaks of the things that constitute a good painting as follows: "First, it is good in tone, or possess a uniformity of tone that is refreshing to the eye; second, it is good in atmosphere—something you doubtless never thought could be expressed with a paint-brush; third, it is well composed, and a landscape requires composition as well as ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... embody and combine. Yet the experience and the feelings to which I refer do not in themselves constitute men Poets, but only prepares them to be the auditors of those who are. How far I shall be found to possess that more essential attribute of Poetry, the power of awakening in others sensations like those which animate my own bosom, is that which, to speak sincerely, I know not; and which, with an acquiescent and contented spirit, I expect to be taught by ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... conversing as much as he well could in his weak state, he held out his hand to me and wished me success. When I left him I felt much dejected; it appeared to me as if it would be in this case, as it is often in that of other earthly things, that we scarcely possess what we repute a treasure when ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... very strong ones, too, I don't doubt—about this vessel; they would be fools if they had not, seeing the length of time that she has been hanging about in these waters. But whatever their suspicions may be, they cannot possess an atom of proof, or they would have seized the craft before now, and clapped all hands of us into prison. No, it is not that, but—Jack—I don't know what you will say, or what you will think of me—I give ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... on her new acquaintance. Such wonderful beauty, of the fully-developed kind, had never confronted her before inside the lines of a human face. She seemed to shine with every light and grace that woman can possess. Her finished Continental manners, her expanded mind, her ready wit, composed a study that made the other poor lady sick; for she, and latterly Sir Ashley himself, were rather rural in manners, and she felt abashed by new sounds and ideas from without. She hardly knew ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... night that the shells began to fall into the city. From then onward they must have averaged about ten a minute, and most of them came from the largest guns which the Germans possess, 'Black Marias,' as Tommy Atkins has christened them. Before the bombardment had been long in operation the civil population, or a large proportion of it, ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... screens, rails, gates, and the like, render it, to my mind, the first in interest among churches. It has not the coloured glass of Chartres, or the marble glory of Milan, or such a forest of aisles as Antwerp, or so perfect a hue in stone as Westminster, nor in mixed beauty of form and colour does it possess anything equal to the choir of Cologne; but, for combined magnificence and awe-compelling grandeur, I regard it as superior to ...
— John Bull on the Guadalquivir from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... our great statesman, Benjamin Franklin proved that "honesty is the best policy," so many a successful woman has proved that a pleasant, tactful manner is one of the most valuable assets a girl can possess, and should be practised steadily. At home, at school, in the office and in the world in general, the girl with the courteous manner and pleasant voice rises quickly in popularity and power above other girls of equal ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... similar to yours. Often they will come by dozens—scores—hundreds. My time and attention would be pretty well occupied without them, and the claims upon me (some very near home), for all the influence and means of help that I do and do not possess, are not commonly heavy. I have no power to aid you towards the attainment of your object. It is the simple exact truth, and nothing can alter it. So great is the disquietude I constantly undergo from having to write to some new correspondent ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... plant did not already possess enough popular names, it needs must share with the European goldenrod and our common mullein the title of Aaron's rod. Sedere, to sit, the root of the generic name, applies with rare appropriateness to this entire group that we usually find seated on garden walls, rocks, ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... that either he or Klitz must have managed to kill a deer, judging from the ample supply of meat they appeared to possess. Their rifles lay at a little distance, and close to their wheelbarrow, which seemed to be well loaded. There was no danger, therefore, of their firing at us before they discovered who we were; and, besides, they were not likely men to offer any ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... 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 such a course would be brought to a successful issue, I must ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... very grateful for the various intelligence which you were pleased to communicate. I should have replied ere this; but I am one of those, as I believe you are aware, who are averse to writing, especially from a considerable distance, unless they possess matter of sufficient consequence to fill creditably the pages of an epistle. I could wish that at the present moment I had more to write upon, and more interesting details to send you than these which follow. For two or three ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... that it had been so with him, their spiritual father, and that out of them all the Lord had delivered him." This dedication ends thus: "My dear children, the milk and honey is beyond this wilderness. God be merciful to you, and grant you be not slothful to go in to possess the land." ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... 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 justify his interference. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... overcoat to the chin and settle his cap well over his ears. Acton threw out jokes, too, from behind, which made Jack feel no end clever to listen to them, and the driver now and then restrained his horse's "freshness" with the soothing mellow whistle which only drivers possess. The farmhouses, hayricks, and an occasional village, drifted past now to the right, now to the left, and occasionally they overhauled a leisurely belated cyclist, who at once began to take an unimportant position in the rear, his lamp growing less and less ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... the maturity and mastership of the composer come to their fullest expression, should be studied by the most advanced members of the class, according to their ability, and afterward played by the teacher himself, should he happen to possess the necessary technical qualifications. When the maturity of the teacher comes in to supplement the immaturity of the pupil, after the latter has done his best, the best ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... wroth At your poor vassal's loyal ignorance. Remember, too, Susskind retains your bonds. The old fox will not press you; he would bleed Against the native instinct of the Jew, Rather his last gold doit and so possess Your ease of mind, nag, chafe, and toy with it; Abide his natural death, and other Jews Less devilish-cunning, franklier Hebrew-viced, Will claim ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... Wace tells us: "It may be asked how far we can rely on the accounts we possess of our Lord's teaching on these subjects." And he seems to think the question appropriately answered by the assertion that it "ought to be regarded as settled by M. Renan's practical surrender of the ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... of them; we must gain our bread by the sweat of our brow. Everything which our Lord has done for us in time must produce fruit for eternity; but we must gather these fruits in time, without which we cannot possess them in eternity. The Church is the most prudent and thoughtful of mothers; the ecclesiastical year is an immense and magnificent garden, in which all those fruits for eternity are gathered together, that ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... "The Mem-sahib has every right in the world to this treasure. You possess the documents to prove it, and nothing more would be necessary ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... long and a yard broad, which serves as a petticoat, as the Dutch women only are permitted to wear petticoats; neither are any of the men allowed to wear hats, except the king or rajah. The natives are numerous, yet the Dutch possess the whole sea-coast, and have here a strong castle, built of stone, mounted by sixty pieces of cannon, besides several small forts in other parts of the island. Near the castle is a small town ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... his advantage, and pushing it unscrupulously, "now, that, in your infinite wisdom, you have ordained that he should be a mule, he naturally can't possess property. Therefore all his effects will have to be sold, and amongst them will be that seal of yours, which, like many other things in his collection, will probably be bought up by the British Museum, where it will be examined and commented upon by every Orientalist in Europe. I ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... offered to cede the kingdom of Concan, giving a revenue of about a million, then possessed by Abraham, a good man and a friend of the Portuguese. As this territory was very valuable, particularly from its neighbourhood to Goa, the governor declared in favour of Meale Khan, and prepared to possess himself of the Concan which was offered by Aceda Khan. This was a notorious act of injustice; and as De Sousa was naturally of a haughty disposition, none of his officers dared to remonstrate; but Pedro de Faria, then four-score years of age, trusting to his quality and the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... to this most gifted of the czars to behold these mountains and get a glimpse of the fair Asiatic vales beyond, but not to possess them. In leaving, however, to his successors the legacy of his boundless ambition, he pointed with his dying hand to the peaks of Elbrus and Kasbek; and ever since his race, extending itself on all sides, has not ceased to press onward in this pathway to ward ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... that the representative of Philip had a perfect right to possess himself of any fortress within his government; there could be as little that the sudden stratagem by which he had thus made himself master of this citadel would prove offensive to the estates, while it could hardly be agreeable to the King; and yet ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Adams and by his order, at a cheap rate, a hotel at the Hague, where we shall live happily together, if God please, the first of next month. This purchase, besides the economy of it, has produced politically very good effects. Only France, Spain and now the United States, possess hotels as their own at the Hague. All the other foreign Ministers occupy, at a ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... assembled in convention, have that full knowledge of the situation and wants of the people of the South, as to legislate for them, and propose ultimatums to which the South must submit, or leave the Union? Could the South possess that full knowledge of the situation and wants and interests of the people of all the other States, as to enable them to dictate the terms on which the Union should be governed or dissolved? No; it is only in a meeting of all the States, in Congress or convention, that that ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... nine men and nine women can be employed in preparing and manufacturing the flax, which barely keeps them in practice. There is only one loom on the island, and the slay or reed is designed for coarse canvas; nor do they possess a single tool required by flax-dressers or weavers, beyond the poor substitutes which they are obliged to fabricate themselves. If there were introduced proper slays or reeds, brushes, and other ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... our family, and so much inveighed against in all companies by them) to inquire into the provocation he had to say what was imputed to him; and whether the value some of my friends put upon the riches they possess (throwing perhaps contempt upon every other advantage, and even discrediting their own pretensions to family, in order to depreciate his) might not provoke him to like contempts. Upon the whole, Madam, said I, can you say, that the inveteracy ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... about religion, a great deal of pleading for religion, namely, as to the formalities of this and the other way.35 But to choose to be religious, that I might be possessed with holiness, and to choose that religion that is most apt to possess me with it, if I suffer for this, I suffer for righteousness' sake. Wherefore say thus to thy soul, thou that art like to suffer for righteousness, How is it with the most inward parts of my soul? What is there? What designs, desires, and reachings ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... sand and smaller hills at their base, dotted with the beautiful ethel-tree; palms rise in abundance on all sides; gardens surround the wells; and animals feed about on the plain. The scenery is quite rich, and even suggests the idea of fertility. The Tuaricks possess many similar ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... blank and hopeless. His reason told him that she was right. More than that, a certain admiration for her clear-sightedness began to possess him, with the feeling that he would like to have "shown up" a little better than he had in this interview. If Chris had fallen in love with HER—but Chris was a fool and wouldn't have ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... of angels, and hum with the zeal of seraphs; to them might be given in trust "the everlasting Gospel," which, like the apocalyptic angel, they were carrying through "the midst of heaven" to the inhabitants of the earth, "to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people;" they might indeed possess the power not only of placing facts in the clearest light, or urging arguments in the most forcible manner, but even of working miracles; still they could not "open the heart." Indefatigable as they were in their labours, they could not ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... any of the sticks thus carried were held to possess magic powers, I was assured by many country people that there were men who knew a peculiar method of "arranging" sticks so that to touch any person with them even lightly, and through any thickness of clothing, would ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... charged in the lease, or compound with him by paying two guineas a year. This gentleman had many methods of squeezing money out of poor tenants; and he was not inclined to spare the Grays, whose farm he now more than ever wished to possess, because its value had been considerably increased, by the judicious industry of the farmer and ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... statues in armour that one sees in the squares of the German towns. There is a gallery and a few good pictures, particularly a Rembrandt or two. One of the latter is in the same style as the "Tribute-money" that I possess, and greatly encourages me as to the authenticity of that picture. The late Queen of Wurtemberg was the Princess Royal of England, and she inhabited this palace. Being mistaken for English, we were shown her apartments, in which she died lately, and which ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... he reinstated the King of Desmond, and received for his reward a district in Kerry, where his youngest son, Maurice, became the founder of the family of FitzMaurice, and where his descendants, the Earls of Lansdowne, still possess immense property.[300] The Irish princes were again engaging in disgraceful domestic feuds. Roderic now interfered, and, marching into Munster, expelled ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... the people with much joy. The form of government is a constitutional monarchy. There are neither titles nor privileged classes among the people. The only qualification for voting is that of a prescribed age, and all citizens are eligible to the offices of the state, who possess the required mental qualifications. Unfortunately for Greece, the article of the constitution of 1843 is retained, which, while it grants toleration, prohibits proselytism from the Established Church, which it declares ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... food must be conducted as scientifically as any other function, if it is to reach the highest point of utility possible. Knowledge and equipment are thereto requisite. That our women, upon whom to-day mainly devolves the preparation of food, do not and can not possess this knowledge, needs no proof. They lack all the necessary equipments therefor. As every well equipped hotel kitchen, the steam kitchen of barracks or of hospitals and especially the cooking expositions teach us, the cooking apparatuses, together with many technical arrangements for all ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... or Darwin. What Darwin did was to work out in detail and with masses of minute evidence a definite hypothesis of the specific conditions under which new forms are evolved. Emerson, of course, had no definite hypothesis of this sort, nor did he possess any of the knowledge necessary to give it value. But it was his good fortune that some of his strongest propositions harmonise with the scientific theory of the survival of the fittest in the struggle for material existence. He connects his exhortation ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... that there is by this act given, or that under this act there can be given, to the government of India, a power of dividing its unity into two parts, each of which shall separately be a unity and possess the power given to the whole. Yet, my Lords, an agreement was made between him and Mr. Wheler, that he (Mr. Hastings) should have every power, civil and military, in the upper provinces, and that Mr. Wheler should enjoy equal authority ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... you; your eyes ask me for leave to engage elsewhere a heart I possess. Be at peace, I consent. I yield you up to this union; it is a marriage which will establish ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)
... nothing but speculation in those eyes. His coat was examined and tossed aside, as possessing few attractions. Clitheroe's heart sunk within him; and it sank deeper and deeper as it began to dawn upon him that the Hebrew had no wish to possess the garment, and, if he did so, he did so only to oblige the Christian youth. A bargain was at last struck; Paul departed with five dollars in his pocket—his dress-coat was a thing of ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... American cause, with the provision that it should be subject to the order of the General, it aroused, a writer states, "the jealousy of Congress, the members of which were not satisfied that the head of the army should possess such an agency in ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... a man's or a woman's reason for taking literature as a vocation, what sort of success ought they to desire, what sort of ambition should possess them? These are natural questions, now that so many readers exist in the world, all asking for something new, now that so many writers are making their pens "in running to devour the way" over so many acres of foolscap. The legitimate reasons for enlisting (too often without receiving the ...
— How to Fail in Literature • Andrew Lang
... Few dogs possess the fertile, resourceful brain of the Collie. He can be trained to perform the duties of other breeds. He makes an excellent sporting dog, and can be taught to do the work of the Pointer and the Setter, as well as that of the Water Spaniel and the Retriever. He is clever ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... is not truly miraculous. It is hoped that intelligent readers will not disapprove of the manner in which appearances are solved, but that the solution will be found to correspond with the known principles of human nature. The power which the principal person is said to possess can scarcely be denied to be real. It must be acknowledged to be extremely rare; but no fact, equally uncommon, is supported by the same strength of ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... not onely of right, I call ye and declare ye now, returnd Successful beyond hope, to lead ye forth Triumphant out of this infernal Pit Abominable, accurst, the house of woe, And Dungeon of our Tyrant: Now possess, As Lords, a spacious World, to our native Heaven Little inferiour, by my adventure hard With peril great atchiev'd. Long were to tell What I have don, what sufferd, with what paine 470 Voyag'd the unreal, vast, unbounded deep Of horrible confusion, over which By Sin and Death ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... was on the fourth day of the week at a town called Bledlow (two miles from me), in the house of one Thomas Saunders, who professed the truth; but his wife, whose name was Damaris, did possess it (she being a woman of great sincerity and lively sense), and to that meeting also ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... buildings which do not possess some tiles, the oldest, those of Moorish design, are rare, and, the best collection is to be found in the old palace at Cintra, of which the greater part was built by Dom Joao I. towards the end of the fourteenth and the beginning ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... of the ceremony, the sakaki branches used in it were eagerly bid for, and sold at high prices, being believed to possess talismanic virtues. ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... fight three frigates and seven sloops, and when as many as ten vessels are met it is exceedingly probable that they represent the fair average; so that James' strictures, so far as true, simply show that the average British ship was very apt to possess, comparatively speaking, an incompetent captain or unskilful crew. These disadvantages were not felt when opposed to navies in which they existed to an even greater extent, but became very apparent when brought into contact with a power whose few officers knew how to play their own parts ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... a mistake if one confounded Illuminism with Freemasonry. These two associations, in spite of the points of resemblance they may possess in the mystery with which they surround themselves, in the tests that precede initiation, and in other matters of form, are absolutely distinct and have no kind of connexion with each other. The lodges of the Scottish Rite number, it is true, a few Illumines amongst the ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... particularly uranium and thorium, have been found to possess many of the properties of radium ...
— An Elementary Study of Chemistry • William McPherson
... attained by reading writers who possess it: be it, for example, persuasiveness, imagination, the gift of drawing comparisons, boldness or bitterness, brevity or grace, facility of expression or wit, unexpected contrasts, a laconic manner, naivete, and the like. But if we are already gifted with ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... glory of their hopelessness: So that, in truth, you had me less In days when necessary zeal For my perfection made you feel My faults the most, than now your love Forgets but where it can approve. You gain by loss, if that seem'd small Possess'd, which, being gone, turns all Surviving good to vanity. Oh, Fred, this makes it sweet to die! Say to yourself: ''Tis comfort yet I made her that which I regret; And parting might have come to pass In a worse season; as it was, Love an eternal ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, 'God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.'" Here we have a picture of a proud man. He pretended to pray, but asked for nothing, because he did not feel his need of anything. And so his pretended ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton
... for this new proof of disobedience, for God said to Moses: "If I were to deal with them now in accordance with strict justice, they should never enter the land. After a while, however, I shall let them 'possess the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... to do with this? Why, yes, gentlemen, I had the same right as every man that has a footing in his country, or that has a posterity to possess liberty and claim right, must have, to preserve the laws, liberty, and government of that country to which he belongs, and he that charges me with meddling in what does not concern me, meddles himself with what 'tis ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... them; they are subject to few diseases; are generally robust; and live in perfect liberty; they are ignorant of want and acquainted with but few vices. Their inexperience of the elegancies of life precludes any regret that they possess not the means of enjoying them, but they possess what many princes would give half their dominion for, health, content, and tranquillity of mind.—Andrew Burnaby: Travels Through ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... of the United States possess his mind in peace. Our reply to his address to us the other day has been brief, for the belt he gave us is deposited with us, and we have taken firm hold of it. We return our united thanks for his address, in welcoming us to the seat of the great council, and for the ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... a close fight, bet your boots about that, If we get a clear course without serious obstruction, Of which I'm not sanguine; the practice of PAT Has proved to possess universal seduction. Our last spin was muffed; never mind whose the fault; Let bygones be bygones! But now comes the crisis! It's now win or lose. Every man worth his salt Will pull like a Titan from ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 25, 1893 • Various
... the mine which lay concealed in his family under modesty and reserve, and then, for the first time, he resolved that she should try her fate upon the stage, his fond heart prognosticating that his darling would, ere long, be the darling of the people. That she should possess such an affluence of endowment, without letting it earlier burst upon her father's sight, is evidence of a share of modesty and diffidence as rare as lovely, and well worthy imitation, if under the present regime the imitation of such virtues ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... face to face with this supreme and definite test, would have retreated from it but for Laura Sloly. She expected him to do it, believed that he could, said that he would, herself arranged the day and the hour, and sang so much exaltation into him, that at last a spurious power seemed to possess him. He felt that there had entered into him something that could be depended on, not the mere flow of natural magnetism fed by an outdoor life and a temperament of great emotional force, and chance, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... administration, these now involve the sum of five hundred millions annually. Hence the obvious obligation on the part of the Government of putting in circulation the most reliable currency, and of avoiding those of local banks, which do not possess the confidence of the people at a distance. This can be done only by maintaining a currency of Government paper which every holder will have full confidence in, and in which ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... of toys and other objects of a more or less useful character has certain advantages over buying them. In the case of the more elaborate and costly articles, it may enable one to possess things which otherwise would be unobtainable. Secondly, a home-made article may give a satisfaction more lasting than is conferred by a bought one, though it may be less beautiful to look upon. Thirdly, the mere making should be a pleasure, ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... looking beyond the sphere of our own local activities, obtain higher views of the breadth and magnitude of the principles we cherish, and perceive that freedom's battle is identical wherever waged, whether her sons fight to abolish the relics of feudalism or to possess the ballot, the reflex influence of their example is ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... can boast of great antiquity, and possess several charters and documents of much interest, and also the Tin-plate Workers, alias Wire Workers' Company. The Tylers and Bricklayers formed a fraternity in 1356, and have received charters from Queen Elizabeth and subsequent monarchs, ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... avenger arrive on the spot, he finds the miserable huts either deserted or tenanted by women and old men. How can these be made to suffer for other men's offences, or forced to give information which they declare themselves not to possess? ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... he is of a lighter color, less ferocious aspect, and inferior strength to those of the Old World. Both the bison and musk ox are varieties of the domestic cow, with a covering of shaggy hair; they possess considerable strength and activity. There are different descriptions of deer: the black and gray moose or elk, the caribou or reindeer,[187] the stag[188] and fallow deer.[189] The moose deer[190] is the largest wild ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... western highlands, with the verdure of the south of France. Near this place, about ten miles to the right, is the palace of Mafra, the boast of Portugal, as it might be of any other country, in point of magnificence without elegance. There is a convent annexed; the monks, who possess large revenues, are courteous enough, and understand Latin, so that we had a long conversation: they have a large library, and asked me if the English had any books in ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... is the teaching of the words: "The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair." Why did they not see the daughters of God and desire those in the Church and possess the promise of the seed? Are they not convicted of contempt for the sisters of their own generation, that is the true Church, and of mingling with the carnal and impious generation of Cain? They despise the simplicity and reserve of their ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... are also learning to use the needle; and most of them can read, for all the novels that I happen to possess have been removed from the bookshelves. The girls can read, they can write, and they can use their needles. They are thoroughly happy, and they are healthy. They do not feel the heat of summer or the cold of winter. The food is plain, and perhaps not over-abundant, ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... in this case? Who is the witch? It may well be supposed, that the suffering person, and all surrounding friends, would be most earnest and anxious in pressing this question and seeking its solution. The accusing girls at the village were thought to possess the power to answer it. This gave them great importance, gratified their vanity and pride, and exalted them to the character of prophetesses. They were ready to meet the calls made upon them in this capacity; would be carried to the room of a sick person; and, on entering it, would ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... the United States is to introduce and establish a political constitution, which, while it retains all the advantages of the constitutions of states thus far known, is unlike any of them, and secures advantages which none of them did or could possess. The American constitution has no prototype in any prior constitution. The American form of government can be classed throughout with none of the forms of government described by Aristotle, or even by later authorities. Aristotle knew only ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... husband thus spoke, Lady Cecilia made another attempt to possess herself of the letter. This time she rose decidedly, and, putting aside the little ecarte table which was in her way, pressed forward to the drawer, saying something about "counters." Her Cachemere caught ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... said, without looking up. He sat for a long time, musing, and then he shook himself, a habit which he had lately formed in trying to free himself from meditations that sought to possess him. ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... have been full of good works; I am no extortioner, unjust, nor adulterer, nor yet as this wretched Publican. I have kept myself strictly to the rule of mine order, and my order is the most strict of all orders now in being: I fast, I pray, I give tithes of all that I possess. Yea, so forward am I to be a religious man, so ready have I been to listen after my duty, that I have asked both of God and man the ordinances of judgment and justice; I take delight in approaching to God. What less now can be mine than the ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... of Charles the Bald, populations widely differing in race, language, manners, and geographical affinity, and it required many great events and the lapse of many centuries to bring about the degree of national unity they now possess. To say nothing touching the agency of individual and independent forces, which is always considerable, although so many men of intellect ignore it in the present day, what would have happened, had any one of the three new kings, Lothair, or Louis the Germanic, or Charles ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... who was worsted in an engagement that occurred on the 15th of February, 1760. On this the Emperor adopted the bold plan of a flank march, by which he should cut between the Bengal troops and their capital, Murshidabad, and possess himself of that town in the absence of its defenders. But before he could reach Murshidabad, he was again overtaken and repulsed by the activity of the English (7th April), and, being by this time joined by a small body of French under ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... 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 ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... "Gammer Gurton's Needle," is based upon the extreme rarity of these domestic implements, and the calamity occasioned in a family by their loss. There is a curious old story about a needle, which was supposed to possess magic powers. This needle is reported to have worked at night while its owner was resting, saving her all personal responsibility about her mending. When the old lady finally died, another owner claimed this charmed needle, and began at once to test ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... a circumstance of the greatest value for the science of religion that the Old Testament is so well known. That book is the most valuable literary storehouse we possess of the facts and ideas connected with the early religion of mankind; it is the best text-book of the earlier portion of our subject. In our chapters on primitive worship, as well as in that on the Semites, we have drawn largely ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... introduced into the domain of American aviation by an English aeronaut. Doubtless as the science progresses many other variations will appear in the field. Most machines, though fashioned on similar lines, possess universal features. For instance, the Wright biplane is characterized by warping wing tips and seams of heavy construction, while the surfaces of the Herring-Curtiss machine, are slight and it looks very light and buoyant as if well suited to its element. The Voisin biplane ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... believe they could wish that some small part of the abbey lands had been applied to the augmentation of poor bishoprics, and a very few acres to serve for glebes in those parishes where there are none; after which I think they would not repine that the laity should possess the rest. If the estates of some bishops and cathedrals were exorbitant before the Reformation, I believe the present clergy's wishes reach no further than that some reasonable temper had been used, instead of paring them ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... there is no lack of corroboration. Enough, I think, would be afforded by the assault made by this rogue upon Mr. Green, of which, no doubt, you are already informed, sir. His object—this proved object—was to possess himself of those papers that he might destroy them. I but caught him in time, as my servants can bear witness, as they can also bear witness to the circumstance that we were compelled to force an entrance here, and to use force to him to ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... publicity the old French monarchy was infinitely more democratic than any of the monarchies of today. Practically anybody who chose could walk into the palace and see the king playing with his children, or paring his nails. The people possessed the monarch, as the people possess Primrose Hill; that is, they cannot move it, but they can sprawl all over it. The old French monarchy was founded on the excellent principle that a cat may look at a king. But nowadays a cat may not look at a king; unless it is a very tame cat. Even where the press is free ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... messenger was duly dispatched on the following morning; and then, as he was not expected back until the evening of the third day, I had to possess my soul in patience; meanwhile Don Luis, who seemed to have taken a most extraordinary liking for me, allowed matters on the estate practically to look after themselves while he and Dona Inez gave themselves up almost entirely to me, taking me short walks into ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... lay the result of these inquiries before the public, for the benefit of others. There is, perhaps, no stronger and more peculiar reason for wishing American physicians to write, than the opportunities they possess, of describing and recording many important varieties of morbid affection, which were either unknown to our predecessors, or the descriptions of which, uncombined and uncompared, are only to be found by searching among ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... My eager love: I'll give myself the lie. The very hope is a full happiness, Yet scantly measures what I shall possess. Fancy itself, even in enjoyment, is But a dumb judge, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... accompany an Indian warrior who deems the eyes of his nation upon him. When first the brave was discovered thus wantonly, and with no other purpose but the shedding of blood, intruding on the dominions of the spirits, no words can tell the rage which appeared to possess their bosoms. Secure in the knowledge of their power to repel the attacks of every living thing, the intrepid Maha was permitted to advance within a few steps of Karkapaha. He had just raised his spear to strike the unmanly lover, when, all at once, he found himself riveted to ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... began to walk up and down, up and down to the gate and back, to the gate and back, thinking of Cyclona and the wind. A restlessness began to possess him, a longing for the sound of the wind, for the sound of the voice of Cyclona which had mingled from the first, from first to last, with the sound of the wind. The windless stillness oppressed him. He stopped at the gate and looked again across at the quiet grass of ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... image of her mother. She too was just such an excellent housekeeper, a model of order, of neatness, of propriety. And she was pretty, like Doretta, even though she did not possess the fair hair and captivating eyes ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various
... endured much fatigue, and the storm does not awaken her; but it can disturb the slumbers it does not possess the power to destroy entirely. The turmoil of the elements wakes the senses, although it cannot entirely break the repose they ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... spoken, venting his strainings in a skyrocket burst of phrases upon the inanity and stupidity of his fellow creatures for which he seemed to possess an almost uncanny vision, he fled through these days like the victim of some spiritual satyriasis. No longer a wind at his heels riding him into easy heights, he found himself weighted down with his love, ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... exception of the anthropoid apes all mammals possess the homing sense in a higher or lower degree; this is true also of birds. Experiments with the nesting robin show conclusively that this bird can find its way back to its nest when carried fifty miles from its home and then set free among wholly unknown surroundings. ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... been reasoned that, as the earth was accompanied by a moon, and Jupiter had at least four, Mars, the intermediate planet, might be expected to possess a satellite. The planet itself being small, its moon would probably be very small, and likely to be overlooked when observing with the telescope, because its light would be overpowered by the light of the planet, which would make the telescopic field of view very bright. Up to the year 1877 ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... bring me a pipe of his and some of his tobacco. And, ah yes, does he possess such a thing as ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... goods, where every one has already more than enough? Why give rise to property, where there cannot possibly be any injury? Why call this object MINE, when upon the seizing of it by another, I need but stretch out my hand to possess myself to what is equally valuable? Justice, in that case, being totally useless, would be an idle ceremonial, and could never possibly have place in the catalogue ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... and the spang of these. Did he imagine the difference? Cold as he felt, he began to sweat, and continually, as he wiped the palms of his hands, they grew wet again. A queer sensation of light-headedness and weakness seemed to possess him. The roots of his will-power seemed numb. Nevertheless, all the more revolving ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... to possess money, but she had a good deal of native pride, and it worried her constantly to think that her good friends were spending money that she could see no ...
— A Campfire Girl's Happiness • Jane L. Stewart
... These combinations now possess a power which it is highly perilous to let them keep. They can disable their rivals by foul play, which would be impossible under proper rules of the ring. By securing control of raw materials, by selling goods below cost in the territory where ...
— Social Justice Without Socialism • John Bates Clark
... have often been said to possess a sixth sense in place of the one they have lost. Though I am sure we made no noise, I soon perceived that he was aware of our presence. Stepping hastily forward he said, in the high and vibrating tone ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... to the foot of the mountain, and leaving Hagen to guard the hall and sing a very fine solo which has often figured in the programs of the Richter concerts, explaining that his interest in the affair is that Siegfried will bring back the Ring, and that he, Hagen, will presently contrive to possess himself of that Ring and become ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... nobles as he indicates as being likely to take my part against Augustus, you could ascertain the feeling of the trading class, and endeavour to induce them, not only to favour me, but to exert all the influence they possess on my behalf. As there are many Scotch merchants in the city, you could begin by making yourself known to them, taking with you letters of introduction from your colonel, and any other Scotch gentleman whom you may find to have acquaintanceship, if not with ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... few letters by Fielding already known to exist have been doubled in number; and a reason for the extraordinary rarity of these letters has been found in the unfortunate destruction, many years ago, of much of his correspondence. The charm of the one intimate letter that we possess from the pen of the 'Father of the English Novel,' that written to his brother John, during the voyage to Lisbon, enhances regret at the loss ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... Sara's charms, and only thought of how he could possess her. He was still a young man, full of romantic notions, and she would have become odious in his eyes if he could have guessed that she would have to be bought ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... spirits, will either recoil in awkward cowardice, or fly into a passion, and appeal to the halter and the sword. Such a Government can never take itself for granted, because it knows that it is not taken for granted by the people. It never can possess the quiet assurance, the courteous dignity, without swagger, yet without hesitation, which belongs to hereditary legislators; by which term is to be understood, not merely kings, not merely noblemen, but every citizen of a free nation, however democratic, ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... "If you possess a more becoming one than this," Lord Arranmore said, with a bow, "it is well for our peace of mind that ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... rational calculations. Our menders excel in this class of work. They have as their guide their sense, which measures the holes, cuts the new piece to size and fits it into its proper place. Does the Spider possess the counterpart of ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... other, arising from the practice of the Government. Although frequently and strenuously attempted, the power to this extent has never been exercised by the Government in a single instance. It does not, in my opinion, possess it; and no bill, therefore, which admits it can receive ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... very happy in picking out what was most characteristic and picturesque, and every street into which he directed the driver to take them seemed to possess some building or monument that was of peculiar interest. They did not know that he had mapped out this ride many times before, and was taking them over a route which he had already travelled with them in imagination. King knew what the capital would be like ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... advisedly, because I am sure that if some music is good for man and elevates him, other melodies are equally bad and enervating. An experience far wider than any we yet possess is necessary to enable us to say how far this influence is capable of extension. How far, that is, the mind may be directed on the one hand to ascetic abnegation by the systematic use of certain music, or on the other to illicit and dangerous pleasures by melodies of an opposite tendency. ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner |
