(5) As the object of a preposition, the word toward which the preposition points, and which it joins to another word:  “He must have a long spoon that would eat with the devil.”

The preposition sometimes takes the possessive case of a noun, as will be seen in Sec. 68.

(6) In apposition with another objective:  “The opinions of this junto were completely controlled by Nicholas Vedder, a patriarch of the village, and landlord of the inn.”

Exercise.

Point out the nouns in the objective case in these sentences, and tell which use each has:—­

1.  Tender men sometimes have strong wills.

2.  Necessity is the certain connection between cause and effect.

3.  Set a high price on your leisure moments; they are sands of precious gold.

4.  But the flood came howling one day.

5.  I found the urchin Cupid sleeping.

6.  Five times every year he was to be exposed in the pillory.

7.  The noblest mind the best contentment has.

8.  Multitudes came every summer to visit that famous natural curiosity, the Great Stone Face.

9.  And whirling plate, and forfeits paid,
     His winter task a pastime made.

10.  He broke the ice on the streamlet’s brink,
     And gave the leper to eat and drink.

III.  Uses of the Possessive.

60.  The possessive case always modifies another word, expressed or understood.  There are three forms of possessive showing how a word is related in sense to the modified word:—­

(1) Appositional possessive, as in these expressions,—­

     The blind old man of Scio’s rocky isle.—­BYRON.

     Beside a pumice isle in Baiae’s bay.—­SHELLEY.

In these sentences the phrases are equivalent to of the rocky isle [of] Scio, and in the bay [of] Baiae, the possessive being really equivalent here to an appositional objective.  It is a poetic expression, the equivalent phrase being used in prose.

(2) Objective possessive, as shown in the sentences,—­

     Ann Turner had taught her the secret before this last good lady
     had been hanged for Sir Thomas Overbury’s murder.—­HAWTHORNE.

     He passes to-day in building an air castle for to-morrow, or in
     writing yesterday’s elegy.—­THACKERAY

In these the possessives are equivalent to an objective after a verbal expression:  as, for murdering Sir Thomas Overbury; an elegy to commemorate yesterday.  For this reason the use of the possessive here is called objective.

(3) Subjective possessive, the most common of all; as,—­

     The unwearied sun, from day to day,
     Does his Creator’s power display. 
     —­ADDISON.