Word: possession
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Things Past, and much funnier. Powell's thesis is that blood is thicker than almost anything; his social unit is the family, not the individual. Says his fictional spokesman: "There is something overpowering, even a trifle sinister about very large families, the individual members of which often possess in excess the characteristics commonly attributed to 'only' children: misanthropy: neurasthenia: an inability to adapt themselves . . . The corporate life of large families can be lived with a severity, even barbarity...
...mysterious way absorbs them selectively through its outer wall. Tiny, mysterious bodies move through its protoplasm, and inside the nucleus reside the powerful chromosomes, which most geneticists believe are like a chemical oligarchy controlling the activities of a chemical nation. If the cell is a fertilized egg, the chromosomes possess all the information needed to build the cell into a bug or a whale...
...triumph in bringing the ever-increasing harvest of impressionists together, Curator Bazin, with French pride, adds this footnote: "Those who deny that the French possess a sense of civic responsibility are advised to visit the Jeu de Paume. The impressionist gallery at the Louvre is not the accomplishment of the French government but of the people of France...
...Because of his rich patriotic heritage, no Venezuelan would accept orders from abroad." Such full-gushing benediction of Venezuela's bumptious Communists did indeed show an ideological naiveté. But it showed also a practical shrewdness that any man who hoped to become President of Venezuela should certainly possess...
...spirits or low, she is pale or red, grey or pink, cold or warm, fresh or wan, according to the weather or the hour . . . The place seems to personify itself, to become human and sentient and conscious of your affection. You desire to embrace it, to caress it, to possess it; and finally a soft sense of possession grows up and your visit becomes a perpetual love-affair...