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Compose   Listen
verb
Compose  v. i.  To come to terms. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Compose" Quotes from Famous Books



... Tetralogy was written with doubts, as he said, as to whether he should abandon art and all belonging to it and become a healthy, normal man—a son of nature. He began to compose the music of the poem while in a state of suffering, which ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland

... Captain Nemo by a supreme effort succeeded in folding his arms across his breast, as if wishing in that attitude to compose ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)

... Moved by their love of him, began To chant that verse, and ever more They marvelled as they sang it o'er: "Behold, the four-lined balanced rime, Repeated over many a time, In words that from the hermit broke In shock of grief, becomes a sloke." This measure now Valmiki chose Wherein his story to compose. In hundreds of such verses, sweet With equal lines and even feet, The saintly poet, lofty-souled, The ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... sons of human race He shines with a superior grace, Love from his lips divinely flows, And blessings all his state compose. ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts

... imagination, and to all he assigned off-hand their arms, colours, devices, and mottoes, carried away by the illusions of his unheard-of craze; and without a pause, he continued, "People of divers nations compose this squadron in front; here are those that drink of the sweet waters of the famous Xanthus, those that scour the woody Massilian plains, those that sift the pure fine gold of Arabia Felix, those that enjoy the famed cool banks of the crystal Thermodon, those that in many ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... perpetually rising from their decomposition; this source of it in hot climates, and in summer months, is so great as to exceed estimation. Now if this light gas passes through the atmosphere, without combining with it, it must compose another atmosphere over the aerial one; which must expand, when the pressure above it is thus taken ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin

... her own room a few moments to compose herself before going back to him, and during her absence, Mr. Graves went up to him with the will which he had ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... remarkably like those contained in the Book of Proverbs, which is attributed to Solomon, the King of Israel, and in "Ecclesiasticus," and the "Book of Wisdom." The priests of Egypt took the greatest trouble to compose Books of the Dead and Guides to the Other World in order to help the souls of the dead to traverse in safety the region that lay between this world and the next, or Dead Land, and the high officials who flourished under the Pharaohs of the early dynasties drew up works, the object of which was to ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge

... some sort of fit in the night, and if you do not compose yourself, I dread a return ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... composition. They make mistakes which they have never made when extemporizing the same type of tune. This seems to arise from the fact that they suddenly feel self-conscious—they have more time to think when writing than when singing or playing, and are inclined to compose one bar at a time instead of phrase by phrase. They will produce a tune of seven bars—they will end on a weak beat—they will come to a full stop in the middle of an eight-bar tune on the tonic chord, root at the top—the last half of the tune will have nothing to do with the ...
— Music As A Language - Lectures to Music Students • Ethel Home

... alone Marguerite made brave efforts to compose her nerves so as to obtain a certain modicum of sleep this night. But, strive how she might, sleep would not come. How could it, when before her wearied brain there rose constantly that awful vision of Percy in the long, narrow ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy

... legs to put on again, but they were instantly snatched away by a person behind him, who immediately mixed with the crowd. It was impossible for him to follow the man barefooted over the sharp coral rocks, which compose the shore, without having his feet cut to pieces. The boat was put back to the ship, his companions had each made his way through the crowd, and he left in this condition alone. Attago soon found out the thief, recovered his shoes ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... trop suspect, et il n'eut fallu que ce nouveau paradoxe pour le transformer en heretique dans le pais d'inquisition. Si bien qu'il ne communiqua son secret qu'au seul Aquapendente, qui n'osant s'exposer a l'envie.... Il attendit a l'heure de sa mort pour mettre le livre qu'il avoit compose touchant les valvules des veines entre les mains de la republique de Venise, et comme les moindres nouveautez font peur en cc pais-la, le livre fut cache dans le billiotheque de Saint Marc. Mais parcequ' Aquapendente ne fit pas difficulte de s'ouvrir a un jeune Anglois fort curieux nomme Harvee, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 47, Saturday, September 21, 1850 • Various

... Avenue through the driving snow, but the distance was not far and in a few minutes the great red quadrangle of the Samaritan Hospital loomed up on her right. And even before she was ready, before she quite had time to compose her mind in preparation for the questions she had begun to formulate, she was ushered into a private room by a nurse on duty who detained her a moment at ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers

... amused them. Thus with it all he managed to make the world believe that he was not laying plans of ambition, but simply wished to protect the state from the selfish designs of his rival. In this effort he was supported by the oratory of Cicero, who began to compose and deliver or publish a remarkable series of fourteen speeches known as Philippics, from their resemblance to the four acrimonious invectives against Philip of Macedon which the great Demosthenes launched at Athens during the eleven years in which he strove to arouse the weakened Greeks ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman

... go where there ought to be one, since it was advertised, and not a word said about rain. It isn't likely they stay out-doors when it actually pours. Very likely they go in somewhere and have a prayer-meeting. So now compose your nerves and walk fast, for if the spot is within walking distance I am going to find it. I tell you I am to get ten dollars at least for writing up this meeting, and I am going to write it if there is one to write about. If there isn't ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy

... 'Compose yourself, Bumble, and answer me distinctly. Do I understand that he asked for more, after he had eaten the supper allotted by ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... no extra charge; and if you wanted to eat apricots at the same time they only cost you a franc apiece. So when I saw how moderate they were every way, I didn't think I'd have any trouble about the illumination, specially as I heard that the three hotels which compose Schaffhausen subscribed to run the electric plant, and I'd already helped one hotel ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... likewise, when the lion is mentioned, he would fain play the lion in addition to both, promising to aggravate his voice in such a way as to roar you as gently as any sucking-dove. The managing partner would shrink from this kind of active employment. She would compose the play, distribute the parts, shift the scenes, and snuff the candles; but she would take no part in the performance. This makes her character a difficult study; but though difficult, it is not impossible for those who are gifted in that way to get to the bottom of it. Our theory ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various

... him to the reader he took the train to Charlotte and secured a berth on the steamer Corinthian for a port on the Canadian side, and as it would not start for an hour after he arrived, he thought he would endeavor to compose his perturbed mind by a quiet walk up the river. For in his sober moments he suffered intensely from the "pricks of an outraged conscience," and more than once he had been tempted to take his own life, ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter

... not thus, there's nothing certain yet; Wherefore, compose awhile your ruffled spirit, And bear with manly fortitude these trials: The tempest may th' inferior regions shake, Whilst those of higher sphere rest undisturb'd ...
— The Female Gamester • Gorges Edmond Howard

... formerly learnt, but even the alphabet; and was hence under the necessity of beginning to read again. His own poems and compositions were shown to him, but he could not he persuaded that they were his production. Afterwards, however, he began once more to compose verses; which had so striking a resemblance to his former writings that he at length became convinced of his being the author of them.—From ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 20, No. 567, Saturday, September 22, 1832. • Various

... Bajazet, "that the earth is covered with my warriors from sea-to sea. Kings compose my body guard, and range themselves as servants before my tent. Are you ignorant that the destiny of the universe is in my hands? Who are you? A Turkoman ant. And dare you raise your head against an elephant? If in the forests of Natolia you have obtained some ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... "Compose yourself. I cannot be composed if you are not, for to see you weep distresses me beyond expression. Speak ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens

... the strange adventures, and unlooked-for vicissitudes, of my naval life, I must be indulged with a few prefatory remarks. The royal navy, as a service, is not vilified, nor the gallant members who compose it insulted, by pointing out the idiosyncrasies, the absurdities, and even the vices and crimes of some of its members. Human nature is human nature still, whether it fawn in the court or philander in the grove. The man carries with ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... renowned and intrepid patriots in the struggle of the Corsicans to free themselves from the Genoese was Sampiero, born of poor parents towards the end of the 15th cent, in Dominicacci, one of the hamlets which compose Bastelica. His house having been burned down by the Genoese, the inhabitants in the 18th cent. constructed a new one on the same site, on which Mr. Wyse, an Irishman, affixed a tablet with an inscription ...
— Itinerary through Corsica - by its Rail, Carriage & Forest Roads • Charles Bertram Black

... make feelings and paint pictures in the minds of the people who hear it," Bibbs went on, musingly, "according to their own natures as much as according to the music itself. The musician might compose something and play it, wanting you to think of the Holy Grail, and some people who heard it would think of a prayer-meeting, and some would think of how good they were themselves, and a boy might think of himself at the head of a solemn ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington

... take effect when ratified by the members of the League whose representatives compose the Council and by a majority of the members of the League ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan

... in the Mediterranean, or on the caverns of the batteries of Gibraltar, or in the camp of Sir John Colborne in Canada, as of establishing it in Malta. A free press in Malta in the Italian language is an absurdity. Of the hundred thousand individuals who compose the population of Malta, three-fourths at least speak nothing but the Maltese dialect, and do not understand the Italian language. Of the one hundred thousand inhabitants of the island, at least three-fourths can neither read nor write. What advantages, then, can accrue ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

... camp Miss Mason has allowed me to come here an hour each morning to practice. May I show you the dance I have been trying to compose. I don't mind if you laugh at the dance or at me, I do it so badly. I shall learn some day. I like to call it 'The Dance of the ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook

... is possible to compose a Latin distich of the greatest beauty without knowing either the Latin language or prosody. We must examine the possibility and the impossibility, and afterwards see who is the man who says he is the author of the distich, for there are extraordinary people in the world. My brother, in ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... there {323} is in all of them, except George Herbert, a rich strand of mystical religion, but their mysticism is only an element, a single aspect, of a very much wider and completer type of religion which includes all the strands that compose what I have been calling "spiritual religion"—an inner flooding of the life with a consciousness of God, a rational apprehension of the soul's inherent relation to the Divine, and a transforming discovery of the meaning of life through ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones

... States, and hostilities broke out between Salvador and Guatemala, threatening to involve all Central America in conflict and to undo the progress which had been made toward a union of their interests. The efforts of this Government were promptly and zealously exerted to compose their differences and through the active efforts of the representative of the United States a provisional treaty of peace was signed August 26, whereby the right of the Republic of Salvador to choose its own rulers was recognized. General Ezeta, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison

... less than to the natural life they ought to express. The experience they respectively synthesise may therefore be no single experience. One pictured world may succeed another in the sphere of sensibility, while the body whose sensibility they compose moves in a single and constant physical cosmos. Each little mental universe may be intermittent, or, if any part of it endures while a new group of ideas comes upon the stage, there may arise contradictions, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... battle order, as shown in the first diagram, you will observe that each party has two ranks of men, on the first of which stand the superior Pieces, and on the next the eight Pawns. The eight squares which compose the first rank are each distinguished by the name of the Piece which occupies it when the men are first arranged. There are, therefore, the King's square, the King's Bishop's square, King's Knight's square, and King's ...
— The Blue Book of Chess - Teaching the Rudiments of the Game, and Giving an Analysis - of All the Recognized Openings • Howard Staunton and "Modern Authorities"

... has formed the state of his mind from God, the Sacred Scripture is like a mirror in which he sees God, each in his own way. The truths which he learns from the Word and which become a part of him by a life according to them, compose that mirror. The Sacred Scripture is ...
— The Gist of Swedenborg • Emanuel Swedenborg

... bad man has gone away." Then the wretched mother cried, with a touching accent, "Yet it is this notary who is the cause of all our troubles. Compose yourself, my child," resumed she, tenderly embracing her ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... taking the question up, came to this astonishing conclusion (working from this basis of the yeast), that the differences between animals and plants are not so much in the fundamental substances which compose them, not in the protoplasm, but in the manner in which the cells of which their bodies are built up have become modified. There is a sense in which it is true—and the analogy was pointed out very many ...
— Yeast • Thomas H. Huxley

... paper and pens, to write a letter, but they were refused him; and he was advised to use all his endeavours to compose himself. They then left him; and Mr Tow-wouse sent to a clergyman to come and administer his good offices to the soul of poor Joseph, since the surgeon despaired of making any successful applications to ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding

... hands, Latin, always Latin, he crossed the room to a small writing-desk, turned on the lights and sat down. He smiled as he took up the pen to begin his composition. Not one chance in a thousand. And after several attempts he realized that the letter he had in mind was not the simplest to compose. There were a dozen futile efforts before he produced anything like satisfaction. Then he filled out a small check. A little later he stole down-stairs, round the corner to the local branch of the post-office, and returned. It was only a blind ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... or defend any peculiar geological views of the structure of the earth, or of the depositions or formations that compose its surface, it may be said, that very often the first four feet of subsoil is composed of strata, or layers of ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French

... he cried.... "Hello, there's a Roxton sign post. Now let's compose our features. ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy

... himself before the typer and began to compose, struck out his first words and started again, and again and again. It had to be exactly right. A mere cancellation of the previous message wouldn't do after all. Too pat. And a suspicion, brooded on during ...
— The Burning Bridge • Poul William Anderson

... doings has been to compose a serenade, with a vulgar melody that would disgust you, and which he has dedicated 'A la bella Italia.' He wrote the Italian words himself, but as he knows no music, he had a pianist come here and write out his serenade. What he especially wants ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja

... increased distance, I continue my regular visits to Diou-djen-dji. When night has fallen, and the four couples who compose our society have joined us, as well as Yves and the "amazingly tall friend"—we descend again into the town, stumbling by lantern-light down the steep stairways and slopes of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... mission of Mackinack, its influence, on the whole, has been eminently good, and not evil. Mr. Ferry possessed business talents of a high order, with that strict reference to moral responsibilities and accountabilities, which compose the golden fibres of the Gospel net. He sought to bring all, white and red men, into this net; and its influences were extensively spread from that central point into the Indian country. He gathered, from the remotest quarters, the half-breed children of the traders and clerks, ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... more solemn task to compute the influences that proceed from us, and to discover how, unknown to ourselves, we are swaying the circles of other lives. Why, the mightiest forces go silently. You do not see the gases that compose the vital air. You do not feel the aroma that steals along loaded with poison, or wafts a blessing through the sick man's window. You do not hear the electric pulse that beats in the summer light and ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... artistic, if not less natural; less productive of situations, if capable of greater variety of illustrations. The circumstances under which Moliere undertook to compose the play explain his resort to the weaker manner of analysis. The Superintendent-General of finance, [Footnote: In Sir James Stephen's Lectures on the History of France, vol. ii. page 22, I find: "Still further to centralize ...
— The Bores • Moliere

... up tenderly; Lift her with care; Fashion'd so slenderly, Young, and so fair! Ere her limbs frigidly Stiffen too rigidly, Decently,—kindly,— Smooth and compose them; And her eyes, close ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... She does not care. She's been told,—oh, a hundred times over!—to compose herself and keep her features calm, and not let her voice be ruffled; and move slowly, so that her elbows are not square, and all on in that way; and she has about learned it by this time. I know how to sit still and look unconcerned, if ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt

... say? He had had his mind full for days of the most tender sentiments and prettily turned phrases, but the turmoil of the last hour, the vital value of every moment to Jack's plans, left him no time to compose the poem he had meditated so long. Rosa's own pretty desk was open, and on a sheet of her own paper he wrote, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... by the Spirit of God, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him; his courtiers persuaded him to command his servants to seek out somebody that was a good player on the harp, who might sooth or compose him by his music, when the evil spirit from God was upon him." Which when Saul had done, by sending messengers for David; "whenever it happened that Saul was seized with that evil spirit, David took his harp, and play'd ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead

... down and compose yourself, Mrs. M.," he said—he abbreviated her name thus on principle, for the avoidance of unnecessary labor—"perhaps we shall be able by and by to understand each other. You say a blacksmith has ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon

... mistake sophistry for reason. Surely, if power belonged only to the poor—and the poor, or the comparatively poor, always compose the mass—they would exercise it in a way to strip the rich of ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... my partial friends, the few whose affection has followed me from childhood, remember me. My early love for lyric harmony had led me to a fondness for the more sublime scenes of dramatic poetry. I embraced every leisure moment to write verses; I even fancied that I could compose a tragedy, and more than once unsuccessfully ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson

... man Gifts as she is willing; I compose my verses when Good wine I am swilling, Wine the best for jolly guest Jolly hosts are filling; From such wine rare fancies fine ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various

... this date, however, in 1854, serious disputes concerning the settlement of their accounts had arisen between the company and the Government, threatening the interruption of the route at any moment. These the United States in vain endeavored to compose. It would be useless to narrate the various proceedings which took place between the parties up till the time when the transit was discontinued. Suffice it to say that since February, 1856, it has remained closed, greatly to the prejudice of citizens of the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson

... nobis, we've thought good To save the expense of Christian blood, And try if we, by mediation Of treaty, and accommodation, Can end the quarrel, and compose This bloody duel without ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... he had been longing was now within his grasp, and from the date of his appointment at Weimar he began to compose those masterpieces for the organ which in after-years were to help to make his name famous. Hitherto we have followed the fortunes of Sebastian Bach as a zealous student, self-dependent, and almost entirely self-instructed as regards ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham

... out of the nest and quite expert on wing, the redwing's relations with them puzzled me also. I often saw the two who appeared to compose the family flying about with their mother, and I knew they were his because he frequently joined the party. But their conduct seemed unnatural, and a doubt stole over me whether this bird—this individual, ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller

... grand-chamberlain and the first gentleman hand him his dressing-gown; he puts this on and seats himself in the chair in which he is to put on his clothes. At this moment the door opens and a third group enters, which is the "entree des brevets;" the seigniors who compose this enjoy, in addition, the precious privilege of assisting at the "petite coucher," while, at the same moment there enters a detachment of attendants, consisting of the physicians and surgeons in ordinary, the intendants of the amusements, readers and others, and among the latter those who ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... removing it, though they may displease the rulers for the day, they are certainly of service to the cause of Government. Government is deeply interested in everything which, even through the medium of some temporary uneasiness, may tend finally to compose the minds of the subjects, and to conciliate their affections. I have nothing to do here with the abstract value of the voice of the people. But as long as reputation, the most precious possession of every individual, and as long ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... the other members. They exchanged confused glances, and then, with one accord, turned a gaze of mingled relief and interrogation on their rescuer. The expression of each denoted a different phase of the same emotion. Mrs. Plinth was the first to compose her features to an air of reassurance: after a moment's hasty adjustment her look almost implied that it was she who had given ...
— Xingu - 1916 • Edith Wharton

... interspersed through the speeches are really of a slower movement than the dramatic body of the poem; they are, by comparison, resting-places. The perfumed closet of the song of Paracelsus in Part IV. is "vowed to quiet" (did Browning ever compose another romanza as lulling as this?), and the Maine glides so gently in the lyric of Festus (Part V.) that its murmuring serves to bring back sanity to the distracted spirit of the dying Aureole. There are ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... and said, "Esme, the curate comes to dine to-morrow. Remember to be very sweet to him. I want to play the organ on Sunday morning, and he must let us do an anthem. I will compose one. We can get up a choir practice on Friday night, if Mrs. Windsor does ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens

... of accession and remission. Having thus accounted satisfactorily to himself for the origin of the disease, the idea struck him that he could operate a certain cure if he could ascertain beyond doubt, what he had long believed, that there existed between the bodies which compose our globe an action equally reciprocal and similar to that of the heavenly bodies, by means of which he could imitate artificially the periodical revolutions of the flux and reflux before mentioned. He soon ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... are not afraid. The Blessed Mother has not deserted her children. Believe in her. She is resolved to allow the azymite Emperor to exhaust his vanity that in the last hour he and his Latin myrmidons may not deny her the merit of the salvation. Compose yourselves, and fear not. The angel will find the poor man at the ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... said with some warmth. "Fortunately I'm not obliged to depend upon the whims or upon the money of the people whose judgment you consider so important to an artistic success. I have no interest in the people who compose fashionable society, not in their money nor their aims, ideals or the lack of them. I paint what interests me—and shall ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs

... a moment in the dark entrance below, trying to compose their faces before going out. They did not dare look at each other. Then they went out and ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp

... Sir Asinus kicked aside a volume of Coke which obstructed his way, seized a pen, and frowning dreadfully, began to compose. ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous

... criticizing Elizabeth's dress; and though Elizabeth could have wished Winifred's mind to have been occupied with other things at such a time, yet she was glad of the opportunity this diversion gave her to compose herself ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge

... cool; in the midst of catastrophes he keeps level his mind. Earthquakes do not shake him, he laughs at storms. We admire him as truly great, who, in the menacing presence of danger or death, retains his self-possession; who, for instance, can compose a poem under impending peril or hum a strain in the face of death. Such indulgence betraying no tremor in the writing or in the voice, is taken as an infallible index of a large nature—of what we call a capacious mind (yoy[u]), which, ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe

... compose yourself!" said Louise rising. "Some one might come, and you would not be able to conceal your emotion. All may yet be well! Confide only in ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen

... indolent, he would rebel Against the toil of writing, writing WELL, Not writing MUCH; for that I grant you. See, Here comes Crispinus, wants to bet with me, And offers odds: "A meeting, if you please: Take we our tablets each, you those, I these: Name place, and time, and umpires: let us try Who can compose the faster, you or I." Thank Heaven, that formed me of unfertile mind, My speech not copious, and my thoughts confined! But you, be like the bellows, if you choose, Still puffing, puffing, till the metal fuse, And vent your windy nothings with a sound That ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... the point he is most likely to excel in; and to preserve the respect due to his own character from every one, he must not be a busy body in the family, a whisperer, a tale-bearer, but of a benevolent turn of mind, ready to compose differences; who shall avoid, of all things, that foppishness of dress and appearance, which distinguishes the petit-maitres, and French ushers (that I have seen at some boarding schools), for coxcombs rather than guides of education: for, as I have heard you, my ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... deathblow to Afy's vanity. The worst it had ever received; and she took a few minutes to compose herself, and smooth her ruffled feathers. Then she turned and sailed back toward Mr. Jiffin's, her turban up in the skies and the plume de coq tossing to the admiration of all beholders, especially of ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... me very objectionable. The scene remains the same, as noted from Capell in Cam. Sh., and the entrance of the king follows immediately on the exit of Hamlet. He finds his wife greatly perturbed; she has not had time to compose herself. ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... only from the point of view—and pace—of the pedestrian, and he knows of few more lovely or more tiring. Fanny Burney described the drive as "the most beautiful to which my wandering feet have sent me; diversified with all that can compose luxuriant scenery, and with just as much approach to the sublime as is in the province of unterrific beauty." The long ascent of "Chiddick" Hill commences soon after leaving the mill pool just outside Bridport. To the right, a ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes

... a career of going about and observing (and it is well known that what a man of genius calls 'observing' is uncommonly like ordinary people's enjoyment), being famous and flattered, and sitting down in moments of inspiration to compose with a clear head and a mind unhampered by all other considerations. Now the responsibility of legal work would hamper him—he felt his muse to be of that jealous disposition which will suffer no rival—if he meant to be free at all, he must strike the blow at once. And so, as ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey

... The tents which compose their summer habitations are principally supported by a long pole of whalebone, fourteen feet high, standing perpendicularly, with four or five feet of it projecting above the skins which form the roof and sides. ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... therefore form the principium individuationis. By what marks, however, may we recognize the identity of an individual at different times and in different places? The identity of inorganic matter depends on the continuity of the mass of atoms which compose it; that of living beings upon the permanent organization of their parts (different bodies are united into one animal by a common life); personal identity consists in the unity of self-consciousness, not in the continuity of bodily existence (which is at once excluded ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... an enormous pace, do not change their places in the sky when regarded by ordinary observers. It would take thousands of years for any of the constellations to appear at all different from what they are now, even though the stars that compose them are moving in different directions with a great velocity, for a space of many millions of miles, at the distance of most of the stars, would be but as the breadth of a fine hair as seen by us on earth. So thousands of years ago men looked up at the Great Bear, ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton

... ruling love that awaits him after death, and this is in no way changed to eternity. Everyone has many loves; but they are all related to his ruling love, and make one with it or together compose it. All things of the will that are in harmony with the ruling love are called loves, because they are loved. These loves are both inner and outer; some directly connected and some mediately; some nearer ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg

... hay as well as fertility, the clovers and timothy compose the greater part of a desirable mixture wherever the clovers and timothy thrive. Probably this condition always will continue. The clovers are needed to supply nitrogen to the soil and to put protein into the hay for livestock. They give way, in large part, or entirely, the second ...
— Crops and Methods for Soil Improvement • Alva Agee

... herself at His feet. She was young, her hair streamed loose, her limbs were trembling with fear; she knelt down and put her arms round His legs. He bent down to her and tried to raise her, but she held fast to His feet and could not compose herself. Then the people began to shout: "The traitress, the Bethany serpent, what has she to ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger

... he had now written only three acts of his Irene, and that he retired for some time to lodgings at Greenwich, where he proceeded in it somewhat further, and used to compose, walking in the Park[312]; but did not stay long enough at ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... reforming the world is to be done. And see you not how the mighty engine of moral power is dragging in its rear the Bible and peace societies, anti-slavery and temperance, sabbath schools, moral reform, and missions? or to adopt another figure, do not these seven philanthropic associations compose the beautiful tints in that bow of promise which spans the arch of our moral heaven? Who does not believe, that if these societies were broken up, their constitutions burnt, and the vast machinery with which they are laboring to regenerate mankind was stopped, that ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke

... sat at his table. He talks incessantly. There is no subject upon which he has not something worth while to say. His memory is remarkable; he can quote poet after poet, or compose a poem on anything that crops up at the table. I do not think it can be said that Chesterton is a good listener. This is not in any way conceit or boredom, but is rather that he is always thinking out some new story or article or poem. Yet he is a good host in the niceties of ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke

... returned the Doctor, with gravity; "I am still so young. Oh, hang him!" he added to himself. And he took his seat again and observed the boy sardonically. "He has spoiled the quiet of my morning," thought he. "I shall be nervous all day, and have a febricule when I digest. Let me compose myself." And so he dismissed his preoccupations by an effort of the will which he had long practised, and let his soul roam abroad in the contemplation of the morning. He inhaled the air, tasting it critically as a connoisseur tastes a vintage, and prolonging ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... against the window, playing with the strings of the blinds, and silhouetted against the leaden light. She seemed to be, physically, a little tired; and the lines of her figure to interlace almost tenderly—to "compose" well, after the ideas of a certain school. I knew so little of her—only just enough to be in love with her—that this struck me as the herald of a new phase, not so much in her attitude to me as in mine to her; she had even then a sort of gravity, the gravity ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad

... from him. One of the company expressing his astonishment at the number, "Oh," said he, "they are blank sonnets, or rhymes (bouts rimes) of all the sonnets I may have occasion to write." This ludicrous story produced such an effect, that it became a fashionable amusement to compose blank sonnets, and in 1648, a quarto volume of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various

... with inaudible murmurings, hastened to the tea-tray, and tried to compose her agitated nerves by bringing her attention to bear on the silver tea-kettle which Primmins had just brought in, and in which the water was beginning to bubble, in obedience to the newly-kindled flame ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... be said to have founded the vernacular in which Dante wrote; and Longfellow rendered into English a poem of Richard's which he composed during his cruel imprisonment in Austria. A knight who could not compose a song and sing it to the guitar was as rare as a modern gentleman of fashion who cannot play golf. When James Russell Lowell resigned the chair of poetry at Harvard no one could be found who could exactly fill his place, and it was much the same at Oxford ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns

... stupidity makes them continual butts for all kinds of practical jokes; refined, educated, poetical men, and men of boorish habits. In short, any camp presents such specimens of humanity as would be furnished if all the ingredients of character and experience that compose the world had been collected in a huge pepper box and sprinkled miscellaneously throughout ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... separate the particles of any material body relatively like the interstellar spaces that separate the heavenly bodies. Just as all the so-called solid matter revealed by our astronomy is almost infinitesimal compared with the space through which it is distributed, so the electrons which compose the matter with which we deal are comparable to the bodies of the solar system moving in vast spaces. It is indeed a fantastic world where science conceives of bodies a thousand times smaller than the hydrogen ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs

... the most notable consequences of the influence of a collectivity upon the individuals who compose it is the unification of their sentiments and wills. This psychological unity confers a remarkable ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon

... bells are ringing for church, Mountain. Let us try, if you please, and compose ourselves," said the widow, and she looked with eyes of extreme affection, certainly at one, perhaps at both, of her children. George kept his head down, and Harry, who was near, got quite close to him during the sermon, and sat with his ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... been adopted by the Mohawks, and of a Mohawk mother. That he was not of pure Mohawk blood is shown by the fact, which is remembered, that his father had had successively three wives, one belonging to each of the three clans, Bear, Wolf, and Turtle, which compose the Mohawk nation. If the father had been a Mohawk, he would have belonged to one of the Mohawk clans, and could not then (according to the Indian law) have married into it. He had seven sons, including Dekanawidah, who, with their families, dwelt together in one of the ...
— Hiawatha and the Iroquois Confederation • Horatio Hale

... 136.).—In reply to JARLTZBERG, I can answer that Lord Byron did not compose the English part of Aucher's Armenian and English Grammar. A very learned friend of mine was at St. Lazero, in Venice, and knew both Aucher and Lord Byron. Lord Byron was taking lessons in Armenian, and a few of his exercises were introduced into Aucher's Grammar, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 42, Saturday, August 17, 1850 • Various

... friendship. In return, she received an allegiance which refused none of her behests, and a regard which abolished all formality between them, except when Nettie got a pen in her hand and set herself to compose a polite letter. The expedition was, of course, to see the Court—the old home of the Warmleys, for which Agatha felt a sentimental attraction. She had told herself that some day, if she were rich (and, Lord Thrapston not being rich, she must have had some other resource in her mind), she would ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope

... such subjects as were suitable and pleasant to her, and which they varied every day in the week, weaving each recital into a little story, sometimes telling from history; at another time, Mrs. Carleton would compose a story about Virginian life, and Miss Vyvyan would tell one about foreign countries; but the hour Cora liked best, was the one devoted to poetry and fairy tales. She was now in her eighth year, and could read very well; but there were no fairy ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul

... see like dry bones on hoardings and the fronts of buildings. There are official proclamations, full of the notion of liberty and rights, which would be beautiful if they said truly what they say. But they who compose them do not attach their full meaning to the words. What they recite they are not capable of wanting, nor even of understanding. The one indisputable sign of progress in ideas to-day is that there are things which ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse

... is no longer in Ireland. He must be on his way home—or would be, long before you arrived, for his grandfather, I know, wrote for him to come at least ten days ago. I want you now to go with me to Stoniton. I have ordered a horse for you to ride with us, as soon as you can compose yourself." ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... It appears that Erasmus had it in contemplation to compose three dialogues, upon the important subject of religious pacification: the speakers were to have been Luther, under the name of Thrasimacus, and a Catholic divine, under that of Eubolus. In the first dialogue, they were to have discussed the proper ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler

... foolscap and trimmed with tissue-paper such as Rosie made for Elizabeth. It proved far more interesting and twice as tractable as a beau. A new era dawned in Forest Glen, an age of learning, when one racked one's brains to compose a poem for a friend's book, and the age of chivalry ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith

... girded as it were with a gir of brass and adamant, and, therefore, to reason more or farther concerning aught but of the means to achieve my purpose, was a thing I could not abide. Only I said to him, that being weary, and not in my wonted health, I would try to compose myself to sleep, and he would waken me when he thought fit, for that I would not go with him to Glasgow, but shape our way towards the South Country. So I stretched myself out, and my dear son laid himself at ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... for the graphic touch of Virgil's "brown bees," which certainly are better than his gods. "Lucretius" is very finely painted. "Ossian" looms large through the mist, but walk up to him, and the pyramid is but a cairn. "Spenser" and "Ariosto," with their locks blended in one, compose a very sweet picture. "Dante" we will not answer for. "Goethe" is a perfect enigma. What does the word "fell" mean? [Greek: deinos], we suppose—that is, "not to be trifled with." But surely it sounds very strange, although it may be true enough, to say that this "fellness" is occasioned by "inner ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... follows, among other things, that in Egypt, as in China and Japan, literary style and mere penmanship and brushwork are to be conceived as inseparable. No doubt the Egyptian scholar was the man who could not only compose a poem, but write it down with a brush. Talent for poetry, deftness in inscribing, and skill in mural painting were probably gifts of the same person. The photoplay goes back to ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay

... proof that there are more white women in the United States than colored men and women together; that there are more American-born women than foreign-born men and women combined; that women form only one-eleventh of the criminals in the jails and penitentiaries; that they compose more than two-thirds of the church membership, and that the percentage of illiteracy is very much less among women than among men. Therefore we urge that this large proportion of patriotism, temperance, morality, religion and intelligence may be allowed to impress itself upon the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... Darnley grasped the authority he had coveted. He dictated forthwith a proclamation which was read next morning at Edinburgh Market Cross—commanding that the nobles who had assembled in Edinburgh to compose the Parliament that was to pass the Bill of Attainder should quit the city within three hours, under pain of ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini

... lashins more Of things in store, But thim I don't remimber; Nor could disclose Did I compose From ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... at the door, with a laugh and wave of the hand, "sit down and compose yourself till you ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis

... Letter to the Earl of Oxford. He had touched on the problem earlier in the Tatler (No. 230), but this is a more considered effort. In June, 1711, he first broached to Harley the idea of "a society or academy for correcting and settling our language," and with Harley's approval he began to compose the Letter. Yet it was eight months before the document reached Harley and another two months, during which it circulated among friends, before Swift retrieved it for the printer. Thus, and this fact has significance, the Proposal had its inception and its first ...
— Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley (1712) and The British Academy (1712) • John Oldmixon

... among them even that sort of influence that might arise from personal intercourse. I can have none with Blacksmiths, Millers, and Shopkeepers; even the Avocats and Notaries who compose so considerable a portion of the House, are, generally speaking, such as I can nowhere meet, except during the actual sitting of Parliament, when I have a day of the week expressly appropriated to the receiving a large portion of them ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton

... fought that day to compose herself, fought and prayed! Prayed wildly to a God whose help, nevertheless, she felt she had forfeited, who was visiting her with just anger. At half-past four she heard the carriage on the far driveway, going to the station, and she ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... their days, walked next to the noble pair. Then appeared the section of a dwelling, which was made to portray the interior of domestic economy, having its kitchen, its utensils, and most of the useful and necessary objects that may be said to compose the material elements of an humble menage. Within this moiety of a house, one female plied the wheel, and another was occupied in baking. The notary, bearing the register beneath an arm, with hat in hand, and dressed in an exaggerated costume ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper



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