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acquisition
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  • I ardently desired the acquisition of knowledge.   (source)
    acquisition = possession (to obtain or get)
  • Harvard dropout Bill Gates had returned to his alma mater to lend to the museum one of his priceless acquisitions—eighteen sheets of paper he had recently purchased at auction from the Armand Hammar Estate.†   (source)
  • In the middle of the table, Mrs. Weasley was arguing with Bill about his earring, which seemed to be a recent acquisition.†   (source)
  • No satellite acquisition of signal.†   (source)
  • Each step, each acquisition, no matter how small, involves deliberation, consultation with Bengali friends.†   (source)
  • From the mid-1970s to the end of the 1980s, the amount of money involved in mergers and acquisitions every year on Wall Street increased 2,000 percent, peaking at almost a quarter of a trillion dollars.†   (source)
  • So this seemed a good … how do you say … first acquisition in this country.†   (source)
  • He much preferred the acquisitions end— you know, going to auction —or being in the shop and chatting up the customers.†   (source)
  • Artemis was perhaps the only person alive who could take full advantage of his recent acquisition.†   (source)
  • The only thing I found worth acquisitioning was a handheld Tiger Woods golf game.†   (source)
  • He also remembered the joy he and Sarai had felt at the rapid acquisition of new skills Rachel had shown at that age.†   (source)
  • In March fortune brought him the perfect acquisition.†   (source)
  • Remember, as many commentators have said about the Persephone myth, it encompasses theyouthful female experience, the archetypal acquisition of knowledge of sexuality and of death.†   (source)
  • I fell in love with his books, filled as they were with not only great adventures but scientists and engineers who considered the acquisition of knowledge to be the greatest pursuit of mankind.†   (source)
  • Much like the french fry industry, the meatpacking industry has been transformed by mergers and acquisitions over the last twenty years.†   (source)
  • I now refer to a time only a few weeks after Mr Farraday had himself arrived at the house, a time when his enthusiasm for his acquisition was at a height; consequently, much of the Wakefields' visit was taken up with my employer leading them on what might have seemed to some an unnecessarily extensive tour of the premises, including all the dust-sheeted areas.†   (source)
  • I had several visitors, who had heard of my indisposition, among them Mrs. Henry Cartwright, who has a good heart although not always a very polished manner, as is often the case with those whose fortunes have been of recent acquisition; but that will come in time.†   (source)
  • However, my proudest acquisition was a dark blue cloak that I had bought off a fripperer's cart for only three jots.†   (source)
  • Our manhood was denned by acquisitions.†   (source)
  • The insurance on her ruined computer would cover a good part of the price, but with the warranty and the higher price of her new acquisition, she was still 18,000 kronor short.†   (source)
  • He makes the acquisition of knowledge feel like a secret, beautiful thing, and an ancient thing.†   (source)
  • The farm ranchers in Finney County, of which Holcomb is a part, have done well; money has been made not from farming alone but also from the exploitation of plentiful natural-gas resources, and its acquisition is reflected in the new school, the comfortable interiors of the farmhouses, the steep and swollen grain elevators.†   (source)
  • "I could only think that the reason Aro had decided to come himself, to bring so many with him, is because his goal is not punishment but acquisition," Eleazar said.†   (source)
  • Viktor will guard us from imperialist intruders, and we will conduct a four-day acquisition and tracking drill, with him hunting us—if he can.†   (source)
  • By this acquisition, Surda will nearly double in size.†   (source)
  • You spent your career in mergers and what, acquisitions.†   (source)
  • With a handshake, Durant gave Howard sole distributorship of Buick as well as GM's new acquisitions, National and Oldsmobile, for all of the western United States.†   (source)
  • Books filled our long fiat from floor to ceiling in row after row of gleaming leather volumes, as Claudia and I pursued our natural tastes and Lestat went about his lavish acquisitions.†   (source)
  • The count was a social acquisition for the Trueba family; from the moment he arrived at the hacienda, they were showered with invitations to neighboring properties, to meetings with the local political authorities, and to all the cultural and social events in the area.†   (source)
  • You've been buying up companies all over Europe through mergers and acquisitions using surrogate and misleading corporate entities.†   (source)
  • My family was living on my past acquisitions which were very moderate…… My children were growing up without my care in their education, and all my emoluments as a member of Congress for four years had not been sufficient to pay a laboring man on a farm.†   (source)
  • Elinor's childhood was filled with pleasure and with the acquisition of knowledge, which to her meant very much the same thing.†   (source)
  • It was not, therefore, difficult for a row to blow up, and the latest one occurred over Angus' acquisition of a pair of great-horses.†   (source)
  • Run along now while f show off my new acquisition.†   (source)
  • He regards the acquisition of material objects as the only goal of existence-and he laughs at the need to consider their purpose or their source.†   (source)
  • Her latest acquisition, a large ficus tree, sat by the window and thrived.†   (source)
  • So the census data do not provide evidence of a massive shift away from English acquisition, the first step in becoming assimilated.†   (source)
  • Given Rowan's professed need for its acquisition, I think our price is very reasonable.†   (source)
  • My wife's niece, Sara, is already a vice-president in mergers and acquisitions.†   (source)
  • We lived in the same building, so I would nod to her when I passed the acquisitions desk, or when I met her at the door in the hallway.†   (source)
  • But men's abilities are diverse, creating an insurmountable obstacle to equality of acquisitions.†   (source)
  • "He's made some ill-advised acquisitions over the past year or so." loss.†   (source)
  • He paid for these acquisitions by borrowing money or selling more company shares.†   (source)
  • Her latest acquisition was a new luxury car.†   (source)
  • When I made my acquisitions I was very careful to avoid buying the old, established maple sugar distilleries that had been around for generations.†   (source)
  • I slept three hours a night trying not to dream, and spent the other 21 at the forcible acquisition of faith.†   (source)
  • Like his host, Mr. Field was an art collector, and the conversation drifted toward the subject of acquisitions.†   (source)
  • Although illness in the family had prevented him from arriving in time to vote on ratification of President Jefferson's treaty for the purchase of the Louisiana Territory, he promptly aroused a storm of controversy by becoming the only Federalist to support that precedent-shattering acquisition actively on the floor and to vote for an $11 million appropriation to effectuate it.†   (source)
  • In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.†   (source)
  • The Instructors of Threes were in charge of the acquisition of correct language.   (source)
    acquisition = getting (obtaining)
  • At the meeting where Asher was discussed, we retold many of the stories that we all remembered from his days of language acquisition.   (source)
  • I declare he is that strange acquisition my late neighbour made, in his journey to Liverpool — a little Lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway.   (source)
    acquisition = obtaining; or possession
  • Be that as it may, he had directed Mrs. Pocket to be brought up from her cradle as one who in the nature of things must marry a title, and who was to be guarded from the acquisition of plebeian domestic knowledge.   (source)
  • Once it was gone, only another acquisition could restore it.†   (source)
  • "Theft implies acquisition of another's property.†   (source)
  • Minnie was an asset now, an acquisition to be warehoused until needed, like cocooned prey.†   (source)
  • "X," agreed X. "He's another one of Sam al-Abbas's acquisitions," T.J. said.†   (source)
  • As your newest acquisition battered both of them.†   (source)
  • We waited, Melanie tensed as if to run, while he lifted our acquisitions into the car.†   (source)
  • The Skofnung Stone was one of my first acquisitions.†   (source)
  • My primary acquisitions were from other corporations and land that was already on the market.†   (source)
  • "He's riding Fin's latest acquisition over.†   (source)
  • But eventually, to fund acquisitions, the families gave up majority ownership.†   (source)
  • There is much effort and little acquisition.†   (source)
  • You want one last acquisition that's personal from the heart.†   (source)
  • A surface acquisition would be pure luck, and you don't plan for luck.†   (source)
  • The humans always spoke with sadness when they asked about our newest acquisition.†   (source)
  • The EM tanks were dug into their hull-down positions, but Kassad noticed that now even their acquisition radars-visible to him as concentric purple arcs-were motionless.†   (source)
  • All his life he had had a fondness for things—not the acquisition of wealth or beautiful objects, but a genuine love of worn objects: a coffee pot that had been his mother's, a welcome mat from the door of a rooming house he once lived in, a quilt from a Salvation Army store counter.†   (source)
  • Monfort argued that the proposed acquisition would allow Excel to engage in predatory pricing and to reduce competition.†   (source)
  • The acquisition of gold.†   (source)
  • He works in acquisitions.†   (source)
  • What he craved was possession and the power it gave him; what he adored was anticipation—the slow acquisition of love, then life, and finally the secrets within.†   (source)
  • The subsequent articulation by his very talented friend Chappell constituted the final phase of acquisition, the triumphal phase, though he used Chappell's services only sparingly.†   (source)
  • A few months later, the Getty's curator of antiquities, Marion True, wrote a long, glowing account of the museum's acquisition for the art journal The Burlington Magazine.†   (source)
  • The answer has always been that language is a skill acquired laterally — that what children pick up from other children is as, or more, important in the acquisition of language as what they pick up at home.†   (source)
  • One member of the team that met to discuss the Emily tapes, Carol Fleisher Feldman, later wrote: In general, her speech to herself is so much richer and more complex [than her speech to adults] that it has made all of us, as students of language development, begin to wonder whether the picture of language acquisition offered in the literature to date does not underrepresent the actual patterns of the linguistic knowledge of the young child.†   (source)
  • The one bit of recent hope is the acquisition of the Book of Origins, achieved through the heroic efforts of Agent McDaniels, who has replaced Antonio de Lorca among the Red Branch.†   (source)
  • With the acquisition of Louisiana from Spain, Napoleon Bonaparte had begun planning a French empire in North America.†   (source)
  • But sloppy speech of course is their native language, and so not to do that requires the acquisition of something else.†   (source)
  • Whatever value you seek to acquire, be it wealth or food or love or rights, if you acquire it by means of your virtue, your code does not regard it as a moral acquisition: you occasion no loss to anyone, it is a trade, not alms; a payment, not a sacrifice.†   (source)
  • PAUL ROUSSEAU'S PARTICIPATION IN WHAT came next was limited to the acquisition of a safe property near the Belgian border, the cost of which he buried deep within his operating budget.†   (source)
  • Acquisition game, and the sub lost.†   (source)
  • Industrial profit margins are notoriously thin to begin with—typically in the low single digits—and reduced profits or losses would drive down Standard's stock price, making it a likely target for predatory acquisition.†   (source)
  • Foreign investment, global markets, corporate acquisitions, the flow of information through transnational media, the attenuating influence of money that's electronic and sex that's cyberspaced, untouched money and computer-safe sex, the convergence of consumer desire—not that people want the same things, necessarily, but that they want the same range of choices.†   (source)
  • Therewas a recent acquisition–here on Earth, they were calling the new hosts Dolphins for lack of a better comparison, though they resembled dragonflies more than marine mammals.†   (source)
  • The movement sees efforts at bilingual education in schools and government concessions to non-English speakers, such as election ballots in foreign languages, as wrongheaded, because they slow the acquisition of English and hence assimilation.†   (source)
  • The Nikolayev "Missile acquisition radars have ceased," the combat information center officer reported to the cruiser's captain, just now arrived from the bridge.†   (source)
  • Its on-board programming was designed to trace thermal receptors over the entire visible horizon, interrogating everything in sight and locking on any signature that fit its acquisition parameters.†   (source)
  • Okay, I got infrared acquisition.†   (source)
  • Probably an acquisition exercise.†   (source)
  • He fingered one of his newly-found acquisitions.†   (source)
  • He was goaded to actual fury at times when he saw how carefully she saved bits of old string, empty cans and bottles, paper, trash of every description: the mania for acquisition, as yet an undeveloped madness in Eliza, enraged him.†   (source)
  • A fact that will interest you is that Henschell began our collections of Chinese art, as well as our library and musical acquisitions.†   (source)
  • Self-terrorized, fear-haunted, alert at every hand to meet and battle back the anticipated aggressions of his environment, which are primarily the reflections of the uncontrollable impulses to acquisition within himself, the giant of self-achieved independence is the world's messenger of disaster, even though, in his mind, he may entertain himself with humane intentions.†   (source)
  • It was like Gerald that he never wasted regrets on his lack of height and never found it an obstacle to his acquisition of anything he wanted.†   (source)
  • The Eleven Kings were ready to fight their sovereign in the Norman way—in the foxhunting way of Henry the Second and of his sons—for sport and acquisition and without the real intention of doing each other a personal injury.†   (source)
  • The precondition for kitsch, a condition without which kitsch would be impossible, is the availability close at hand of a fully matured cultural tradition, whose discoveries, acquisitions, and perfected self-consciousness kitsch can take advantage of for its own ends.†   (source)
  • He believes in the studies whose servant he is; he believes in the value of mere knowledge and its acquisition, because he believes in progress and evolution.†   (source)
  • …some of them would have anticipated Miss Coldfield in this too: in divining that he was saving his clothes, since decorum even if not elegance of appearance would be the only weapon (or rather, ladder) with which he could conduct the last assault upon what Miss Coldfield and perhaps others believed to be respectability—that respectability which, according to General Compson, consisted in Sutpen's secret mind of a great deal more than the mere acquisition of a chatelaine for his house.†   (source)
  • Altogether Conway estimated the number of volumes at between twenty and thirty thousand; and it was tempting to speculate upon the method of selection and acquisition.†   (source)
  • ' " The pairs of opposites (being and not being, life and death, beauty and ugliness, good and evil, and all the other polarities that bind the faculties to hope and fear, and link the organs of action to deeds of defense and acquisition) are the clashing rocks (Symplegades) that crush the traveler, but between which the heroes always pass.†   (source)
  • She wanted to be sure that Helen realized the extent of her acquisition of one of the latter-day saints.†   (source)
  • Unfortunately, since the recent European War and the Russian Revolution, travel and exploration in Tibet have been almost completely held up; in fact, our last visitor, a Japanese, arrived in 1912, and was not, to be candid, a very valuable acquisition.†   (source)
  • Acquisitions, clothes, pretty rags—rags that would fly off at the first good shake.†   (source)
  • Donovan again laid his hand on his chest and said: —Our end is the acquisition of knowledge.†   (source)
  • I find the dead no acquisition, And never cared to have them in my keeping.†   (source)
  • ; and he walks off, with his acquisition, in another direction.†   (source)
  • "At any rate," murmured he, "if it be, so much the better, for I have made a rare acquisition."†   (source)
  • It was his naval way of mentioning generally that I was an acquisition to any society.†   (source)
  • Bedwin, his costumes, and black man, were hailed at Gaunt House as very valuable acquisitions.†   (source)
  • He was in the habit of doing this that he might surprise us with some new acquisition on his return.†   (source)
  • We pushed rapidly forward, Jack eager to display our latest acquisition.†   (source)
  • He loved poetry—science was merely an acquisition, which he laid aside when unobserved like his European dress—and this evening he longed to compose a new song which should be acclaimed by multitudes and even sung in the fields.†   (source)
  • In that way Vinteuil's phrase, like some theme, say, in Tristan, which represents to us also a certain acquisition of sentiment, has espoused our mortal state, had endued a vesture of humanity that was affecting enough.†   (source)
  • He familiarized himself with the new acquisition; with no one to disturb him now, he examined the treasury of works that came with it, inspected the contents of the heavy albums.†   (source)
  • Jude added to the furniture of his room by unpacking photographs of the ecclesiastical carvings and monuments that he had executed with his own hands; and he was deemed a satisfactory acquisition as tenant of the vacant apartment.†   (source)
  • The rangers surprised Duane with a roaring greeting, the warmth of which he soon divined was divided between pride of his acquisition to their ranks and eagerness to meet that violent service of which their captain hinted.†   (source)
  • I love the place—although I know how it hates all men like me—the so-called self-taught—how it scorns our laboured acquisitions, when it should be the first to respect them; how it sneers at our false quantities and mispronunciations, when it should say, I see you want help, my poor friend!†   (source)
  • WHAT NEW ACQUISITION of the Berghof was it, then, that rescued our friend of many years from his mania for solitaire and led him into the arms of another, nobler, if ultimately no less strange passion?†   (source)
  • He had stood quietly in the background while the director demonstrated this new acquisition, and although he had not laughed or shouted bravo, he had followed the performances intently, twirling one eyebrow between two fingers, an occasional habit of late.†   (source)
  • He had been without them for so many years that toothlessness was felt less to be a defect than hard gums an acquisition.†   (source)
  • I loved him; next place, I thought with his help, array influences which would enable me one day to unseal the mystery close-locking the fate of my mother and sister; and to these there was yet another motive of which I shall not speak except to say it controlled me so far that I devoted myself to arms, and the acquisition of everything deemed essential to thorough knowledge of the art of war.†   (source)
  • The sudden acquisition of ten thousand pounds was the most remarkable charm of the young lady to whom he was now rendering himself agreeable; but Elizabeth, less clear-sighted perhaps in this case than in Charlotte's, did not quarrel with him for his wish of independence.†   (source)
  • While Mary drew, Diana pursued a course of encyclopaedic reading she had (to my awe and amazement) undertaken, and I fagged away at German, he pondered a mystic lore of his own: that of some Eastern tongue, the acquisition of which he thought necessary to his plans.†   (source)
  • He is of a studious habit, and unusually energetic; he applies himself with great ardour to the acquisition of professional knowledge, to the conducting of experiments, to many things.†   (source)
  • Then there are in all classes a very large number of men constantly occupied with the serious affairs of the government; and those whose thoughts are not engaged in the direction of the commonwealth are wholly engrossed by the acquisition of a private fortune.†   (source)
  • My willful actions and acquisitions are but roving;—the idlest reverie, the faintest native emotion, command my curiosity and respect.†   (source)
  • I saw not then what I now clearly perceive, that the acquisitions of Ligeia were gigantic, were astounding; yet I was sufficiently aware of her infinite supremacy to resign myself, with a child-like confidence, to her guidance through the chaotic world of metaphysical investigation at which I was most busily occupied during the earlier years of our marriage.†   (source)
  • Traddles now informed me, as the result of his inquiries, that the mere mechanical acquisition necessary, except in rare cases, for thorough excellence in it, that is to say, a perfect and entire command of the mystery of short-hand writing and reading, was about equal in difficulty to the mastery of six languages; and that it might perhaps be attained, by dint of perseverance, in the course of a few years.†   (source)
  • His steadiness, his freedom from all dissipation, his incessant industry (except when he chose to throw himself into a standing revery behind his screen), his great, stillness, his unalterableness of demeanor under all circumstances, made him a valuable acquisition.†   (source)
  • Mrs. Lemon herself had always held up Miss Vincy as an example: no pupil, she said, exceeded that young lady for mental acquisition and propriety of speech, while her musical execution was quite exceptional.†   (source)
  • Fanny had not a word to say against its becomingness, and, excepting what remained of her scruples, was exceedingly pleased with an acquisition so very apropos.†   (source)
  • That she will faithfully apply herself to the acquisition of those accomplishments, upon the exercise of which she will be ultimately dependent.†   (source)
  • She wore hers in state at church at Brompton, and was congratulated by her female friends upon the splendid acquisition.†   (source)
  • And more than that, I tell you Pa considers her such a wonder, such a paragon of accomplishment, and such an acquisition to our family, that he is ready to get himself into a state of perfect infatuation with her at any moment.†   (source)
  • Mrs Smith's enjoyments were not spoiled by this improvement of income, with some improvement of health, and the acquisition of such friends to be often with, for her cheerfulness and mental alacrity did not fail her; and while these prime supplies of good remained, she might have bid defiance even to greater accessions of worldly prosperity.†   (source)
  • Of this fickle temper he gave a memorable example in Ireland, when sent thither by his father, Henry the Second, with the purpose of buying golden opinions of the inhabitants of that new and important acquisition to the English crown.†   (source)
  • If we remain one people, under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.†   (source)
  • M'Choakumchild reported that she had a very dense head for figures; that, once possessed with a general idea of the globe, she took the smallest conceivable interest in its exact measurements; that she was extremely slow in the acquisition of dates, unless some pitiful incident happened to be connected therewith; that she would burst into tears on being required (by the mental process) immediately to name the cost of two hundred and forty-seven muslin caps at fourteen-pence halfpenny;…†   (source)
  • All this is a long way round, however, for my word about my dim first move toward "The Portrait," which was exactly my grasp of a single character—an acquisition I had made, moreover, after a fashion not here to be retraced.†   (source)
  • Some wished to return at once to Falconhurst, to cook and taste our new acquisition; but this I overruled, and we continued our march, heavily laden, but delighted.†   (source)
  • She had once heard an enthusiastic musician, out of patience with a gifted bungler, declare that a fine voice is really an obstacle to singing properly; and it occurred to her that it might perhaps be equally true that a beautiful face is an obstacle to the acquisition of charming manners.†   (source)
  • 'An acquisition indeed.'†   (source)
  • He would be a valuable acquisition with such an assistant as Nancy, and must (thus Fagin argued) be secured without delay.†   (source)
  • 'A vast—ha—acquisition at home.†   (source)
  • *e As a nation becomes more engaged in manufactures, the want of roads, canals, harbors, and other works of a semi-public nature, which facilitate the acquisition of wealth, is more strongly felt; and as a nation becomes more democratic, private individuals are less able, and the State more able, to execute works of such magnitude.†   (source)
  • He was worn by anxiety and remorse almost to a shadow; talked in a wild, distracted way, of ruin and dishonour worked by himself; confided to me his intention to convert his whole property, at any loss, into money, and, having settled on his wife and you a portion of his recent acquisition, to fly the country—I guessed too well he would not fly alone—and never see it more.†   (source)
  • The acquisition of power made her serious; she scrutinised her power with a kind of tender ferocity, but was not eager to exercise it.†   (source)
  • CHAPTER XXVII On reaching home Fanny went immediately upstairs to deposit this unexpected acquisition, this doubtful good of a necklace, in some favourite box in the East room, which held all her smaller treasures; but on opening the door, what was her surprise to find her cousin Edmund there writing at the table!†   (source)
  • There was not such an eventful story in the whole range of anecdote, as Tim could tell concerning the acquisition of that very bird; how, compassionating his starved and suffering condition, he had purchased him, with the view of humanely terminating his wretched life; how he determined to wait three days and see whether the bird revived; how, before half the time was out, the bird did revive; and how he went on reviving and picking up his appetite and good looks until he gradually…†   (source)
  • " 'Ah,' continued my father, still frowning, 'their idolized emperor treated these madmen as they deserved; he called them 'food for powder,' which was precisely all they were good for; and I am delighted to see that the present government have adopted this salutary principle with all its pristine vigor; if Algiers were good for nothing but to furnish the means of carrying so admirable an idea into practice, it would be an acquisition well worthy of struggling to obtain.†   (source)
  • STUDENT I crave the highest erudition; And fain would make my acquisition All that there is in Earth and Heaven, In Nature and in Science too.†   (source)
  • [The actual result has fallen somewhat short of these calculations, in spite of the vast territorial acquisitions of the United States: but in 1899 the population is probably about eighty-seven millions, including the population of the Philippines, Hawaii, and Porto Rico.†   (source)
  • Equally formed for domestic life, and attached to country pleasures, their home was the home of affection and comfort; and to complete the picture of good, the acquisition of Mansfield living, by the death of Dr. Grant, occurred just after they had been married long enough to begin to want an increase of income, and feel their distance from the paternal abode an inconvenience.†   (source)
  • His calling is the acquisition of secrets and the holding possession of such power as they give him, with no sharer or opponent in it.†   (source)
  • …the kitchen-garden, having paid a high price for it, and being quite unable to find any one willing to take his bargain off his hands without a considerable loss, yet still clinging to the belief that at some future day he should obtain a sum for it that would repay him, not only for his past outlay, but also the interest upon the capital locked up in his new acquisition, contented himself with letting the ground temporarily to some market-gardeners, at a yearly rental of 500 francs.†   (source)
  • This monarch had an army in full force because he had jobbed to himself Poland, and was determined to keep it: another had robbed half Saxony, and was bent upon maintaining his acquisition: Italy was the object of a third's solicitude.†   (source)
  • The author was one of the most celebrated adventurers of a period of remarkable adventure; his book breathes that ardor for discovery, that spirit of enterprise, which characterized the men of his time, when the manners of chivalry were united to zeal for commerce, and made subservient to the acquisition of wealth.†   (source)
  • …in small pieces by the shirt-collar, that Mrs Merdle having completely used up her place in the country, and also her house at Brighton, and being, of course, unable, don't you see, to remain in London when there wasn't a soul there, and not feeling herself this year quite up to visiting about at people's places, had resolved to have a touch at Rome, where a woman like herself, with a proverbially fine appearance, and with no nonsense about her, couldn't fail to be a great acquisition.†   (source)
  • …which recitals produced a very different impression on the two: for, while the younger, who was of a timid and retiring disposition, gleaned from thence nothing but forewarnings to shun the great world and attach himself to the quiet routine of a country life, Ralph, the elder, deduced from the often-repeated tale the two great morals that riches are the only true source of happiness and power, and that it is lawful and just to compass their acquisition by all means short of felony.†   (source)
  • Yet I had read, I had even written a precise history of the Borgia family, for the sole purpose of assuring myself whether any increase of fortune had occurred to them on the death of the Cardinal Caesar Spada; but could only trace the acquisition of the property of the Cardinal Rospigliosi, his companion in misfortune.†   (source)
  • They sprang from their saddles, the animals were set at liberty to refresh themselves, and the riders eagerly came to exhibit their acquisitions and give an account of themselves.†   (source)
  • "Why, Mr. Carstone," said Mrs. Badger, "is very well and is, I assure you, a great acquisition to our society.†   (source)
  • There were views, like and unlike, of a multitude of places; and there was one little picture-room devoted to a few of the regular sticky old Saints, with sinews like whipcord, hair like Neptune's, wrinkles like tattooing, and such coats of varnish that every holy personage served for a fly-trap, and became what is now called in the vulgar tongue a Catch-em-alive O. Of these pictorial acquisitions Mr Meagles spoke in the usual manner.†   (source)
  • …more than possibility of the two young friends finding their natural consolation in each other for all that had occurred of disappointment to either; and the joyful consent which met Edmund's application, the high sense of having realised a great acquisition in the promise of Fanny for a daughter, formed just such a contrast with his early opinion on the subject when the poor little girl's coming had been first agitated, as time is for ever producing between the plans and decisions of…†   (source)
  • Turning now to our new acquisitions, we excited great interest by exhibiting each in turn; the large salmon, but more especially the kangaroo, surprised and delighted everyone.†   (source)
  • It was Fanny's first ball, though without the preparation or splendour of many a young lady's first ball, being the thought only of the afternoon, built on the late acquisition of a violin player in the servants' hall, and the possibility of raising five couple with the help of Mrs. Grant and a new intimate friend of Mr. Bertram's just arrived on a visit.†   (source)
  • For the present, we had barely time to get something to eat and hurry into the boat, where were collected our new acquisitions, namely, a copper boiler, iron plates, tobacco-graters, two grindstones, a small barrel of powder, and another of flints, two wheelbarrows besides Jack's, which he kept under his own especial care.†   (source)
  • During the process of curing our large supply of hams and bacon, which occupied several days, we roamed about the neighbourhood in all directions, finding no trace of the serpent, but making many valuable acquisitions, among which were some gigantic bamboos from fifty to sixty feet in length, and of proportionate thickness.†   (source)
  • To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain the first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive.†   (source)
  • I look upon it as a new acquisition of property—a property which one month ago I did not value at a single shilling, and would with pleasure have seen it in flames.†   (source)
  • If we remain one people under an efficient government. the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.†   (source)
  • Sir John was delighted; for to a man, whose prevailing anxiety was the dread of being alone, the acquisition of two, to the number of inhabitants in London, was something.†   (source)
  • And as to any fresh acquisition, he intended to become master of Tuscany, for he already possessed Perugia and Piombino, and Pisa was under his protection.†   (source)
  • My intention being to acquire the habitude of all these virtues, I judg'd it would be well not to distract my attention by attempting the whole at once, but to fix it on one of them at a time; and, when I should be master of that, then to proceed to another, and so on, till I should have gone thro' the thirteen; and, as the previous acquisition of some might facilitate the acquisition of certain others, I arrang'd them with that view, as they stand above.†   (source)
  • The knowledge both of the Poet and the Man of Science is pleasure; but the knowledge of the one cleaves to us as a necessary part of our existence, our natural and unalienable inheritance; the other is a personal and individual acquisition, slow to come to us, and by no habitual and direct sympathy connecting us with our fellow- beings.†   (source)
  • After a pause of several minutes, their silence was broken, by his asking her in a voice of some agitation, when he was to congratulate her on the acquisition of a brother?†   (source)
  • To Temperance he ascribes his long-continued health, and what is still left to him of a good constitution; to Industry and Frugality, the early easiness of his circumstances and acquisition of his fortune, with all that knowledge that enabled him to be a useful citizen, and obtained for him some degree of reputation among the learned; to Sincerity and Justice, the confidence of his country, and the honorable employs it conferred upon him; and to the joint influence of the whole mass of…†   (source)
  • The general reasons for the first have been discussed; it remains to name those for the second, and to see what resources he had, and what any one in his situation would have had for maintaining himself more securely in his acquisition than did the King of France.†   (source)
  • Elinor had some difficulty here to refrain from observing, that she thought Fanny might have borne with composure, an acquisition of wealth to her brother, by which neither she nor her child could be possibly impoverished.†   (source)
  • This follows also on another natural and common necessity, which always causes a new prince to burden those who have submitted to him with his soldiery and with infinite other hardships which he must put upon his new acquisition.†   (source)
  • When these things are remembered no one will marvel at the ease with which Alexander held the Empire of Asia, or at the difficulties which others have had to keep an acquisition, such as Pyrrhus and many more; this is not occasioned by the little or abundance of ability in the conqueror, but by the want of uniformity in the subject state.†   (source)
  • But in maintaining armed men there in place of colonies one spends much more, having to consume on the garrison all the income from the state, so that the acquisition turns into a loss, and many more are exasperated, because the whole state is injured; through the shifting of the garrison up and down all become acquainted with hardship, and all become hostile, and they are enemies who, whilst beaten on their own ground, are yet able to do hurt.†   (source)
  • This was far from the dear lines of problem-solving and the systematic acquisition of knowledge.   (source)
    acquisition = collection
  • For the hostess: disintegration of obsession, acquisition of correct Italian pronunciation.†   (source)
  • A philologist of Scandinavian extraction, Elias Molee, has gone so far as to argue that the acquisition of correct English, to a people grown so mongrel in blood as the Americans, has become a useless burden.†   (source)
  • She admired: a natural phenomenon having been explained by him to her she expressed the immediate desire to possess without gradual acquisition a fraction of his science, the moiety, the quarter, a thousandth part.†   (source)
  • As per prospectus of the Industrious Foreign Acclimatised Nationalised Friendly Stateaided Building Society (incorporated 1874), a maximum of 60 pounds per annum, being 1/6 of an assured income, derived from giltedged securities, representing at 5 % simple interest on capital of 1200 pounds (estimate of price at 20 years' purchase), of which to be paid on acquisition and the balance in the form of annual rent, viz.†   (source)
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