How we cite our quotes: Possession: A Romance. London: Vintage Books, 1991.
Quote #4
He felt suddenly angry with Maud, who was standing stock still, in the dark, not moving a finger to help him, not urging, as she with her emotional advantage might well have done, further exploration of hidden treasures or pathetic dead caskets. […] Then, behind him, chill and clear, Maud spoke a kind of incantation.
Dolly keeps a Secret
Safer than a Friend
Dolly's Silent Sympathy
Lasts without end. (5.139-40)
As we learn, Christabel LaMotte was a big fan of riddles. Fortunately for Maud Bailey and Roland Mitchell—and for all of the other twentieth-century scholars in the novel who study Randolph Henry Ash's and LaMotte's writings—Christabel used some of her poems as hiding places for secret clues and instructions. Thanks to this poem about "Dolly," Maud and Roland find the place where Christabel hid all of her correspondence with Ash.
Quote #5
It was a great pleasure to talk to you at dear Crabb's breakfast party. […] May I have the hope that you too enjoyed our talk—and may I have the pleasure of calling on you? I know you live very quietly, but I would be very quiet—I only want to discuss Dante and Shakespeare and Wordsworth and Coleridge and Goethe and Schiller and Webster and Ford and Sir Thomas Browne et hoc genus omne, not forgetting, of course, Christabel LaMotte and the ambitious Fairy Project. (5.188)
It's clear from Randolph Henry Ash's first letter to Christabel LaMotte that one of the main attractions in their relationship was their mutual love of literature. In each other, the two poets found kindred literary spirits.
Quote #6
Given this sympathy with Petrarchan adoration, it is not surprising that he should have waited so devotedly on what may be called the Christian scruples or caprices of Ellen Best and her father. (6.45)
In Mortimer Cropper's opinion, Randolph Henry Ash's admiration for the poetry of Petrarch had a profound influence on his own romantic ideals and desires. Although the novel itself doesn't confirm or deny Cropper's hypothesis, Possession does show us lots of other examples of characters whose love lives have been influenced by their favorite literary works.