"Discompose" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... together in peace and happiness, (which is my grand object),—when that joyful time comes, and God grant it may come soon!—then the right moment will have arrived, and the rest will depend on yourself. Do not, therefore, discompose yourself on the subject, and be assured that in every case where I know that your happiness and peace are involved, I shall invariably place entire confidence in you, my kind father and true friend, and detail everything to you minutely. If in the interim I have not done so, the fault is not ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... again over the panel, like water, as if nothing had happened. That portrait of Spedding, for instance, which Laurence has given me: not swords, nor cannon, nor all the Bulls of Bashan butting at it, could, I feel sure, discompose that venerable forehead. No wonder that no hair can grow at such an altitude: no wonder his view of Bacon's virtue is so rarefied that the common consciences of men cannot endure it. Thackeray and I occasionally amuse ourselves with ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... used by such a slut? And was coming to me: And indeed I began to be afraid; for I have but a poor heart, after all. But Mrs. Jewkes hearing high words, came in again, with the second course, and said, Pray your ladyship, don't so discompose yourself. I am afraid this day's business will make matters wider than ever between your good ladyship and your brother: For my ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... it was the engine-man. The isolation of his manner and colour lent him the appearance of a creature from Tophet, who had strayed into the pellucid smokelessness of this region of yellow grain and pale soil, with which he had nothing in common, to amaze and to discompose ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... answered Ahaback, "let not such a trifle discompose you. It is true, we could in a moment erect a pavilion more magnificent than the Sultan's; but it will be more glorious to dispossess him of that which he has built, and to set my Prince upon the throne of his father: for which purpose let the trumpet sound on the morrow,—the ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... the fair Imogen to the care of the attendant damsels. He charged them by every means to endeavour to restore her to sense and tranquility, and not to utter any thing in her hearing, which should have the smallest tendency to discompose her spirits. In obedience to orders, which they had never known what it was to dispute, they were so unwearied in their assiduities to their amiable charge, that it was not long before she began once again to exhibit the tokens of renewed perception. She raised by degrees ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... unequal war, carried on with circumstances of the greatest asperity and rigor. This, Sir, we conceive, could never have happened, but from a general sense of some grievance so radical in its nature and so spreading in its effects as to poison all the ordinary satisfactions of life, to discompose the frame of society, and to convert into fear and hatred that habitual reverence ever paid by mankind to an ancient and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the abode of the conjurer. In this state of mind, prepared for imposition, he arrives during the night at her residence. He prevails with her, by much solicitation, and probably by ample rewards, to call up Samuel. To discompose still further the disordered mind of Saul, she announces the pretended approach of the apparition by a loud acclamation, tells the king she knew him, which till now she affected not to do, and describes the resurrection of the prophet, under the awful semblance ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... "do not let my unexpected arrival here discompose you. Dr. Small, you will excuse the manner of my greeting; and you, Mr. Coates. One of the present party, I believe, was my father's medical ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... and said, 'Ay! Ay!—these weary bills, if they were but as the thing that is not—come, cheer me up with an account of the Roman Carnival.' And, accordingly, with my endeavour to do so, he seemed as much interested as if nothing had happened to discompose the usual tenor of his mind, but still our conversation ever and anon dropt back into the same subject, in the course of which he said to me, 'Do you know I experience a sort of determined pleasure ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... not my dinner hour,' said the stranger; 'I dine considerably later; taking anything now would only discompose me; I shall, however, be most happy to sit down with the young gentleman; reach me that paper, and, when the young gentleman has satisfied his appetite, we may perhaps have a little ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... viii. 131) describes Savage's 'superstitious regard to the correction of his sheets ... The intrusion or omission of a comma was sufficient to discompose him, and he would lament an errour of a single ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... him Enemies. I am therefore not disappointed or mortified. I flatter my self that no virtuous Man who knows me will or can be my Enemy; because I think he can have no Suspicion of my Integrity. But they say my Enemies "are plotting against me." Neither does this discompose me, for what else can I expect from such kind of Men. If they mean to make me uneasy they miss their Aim; for I am happy and it is not in their Power to disturb my Peace. They add, The Design is to get me recalled from this Service. ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... occasion for the exercise of that power, the end of this temporal connection being to establish a state of moral discipline and probation. The humors and distempers of the body likewise deprave, disorder, and discompose the soul.[672] "Pleasures and pains are unduly magnified; the democracy of the passions prevails; and the ascendency of reason is cast down." Bad forms of civil government corrupt social manners, evil education effects the ruin of the ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... with Cincinnatus. If so, Lapo might have reminded the poet of what Cicero says of his beloved Caesar;—that he once saw him scratching the top of his head with the tip of his finger, that he might not discompose the locks.] ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... certain air of embarrassment, she did also. She observed that he was sensitive about the ridiculous affair which had led to his turning out his household, besides this early call made her feel, but not in a way to discompose her as if she were taken into the number of those ladies, among whom he meant to make his selection. Yes, it was as she had hoped. It warmed her to the heart to see it, but not the less was she aware of the ridiculous side of it. ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... to labor! You are in a young case, You have not sixty years upon your face, To come and beg your neighbor— And discompose his music with a noise More worse than twenty boys— Look what a street it is for quiet! No cart to make a riot, No coach, no horses, no postillion: If you will sing, I say, it is not just To sing so loud." Says he, "I must! I'm singing for ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... to bring him up just in time for the exceptional action, which showed there was more to him than even his untiring energy and fearlessness had so far demonstrated. As when, in later years, burning anxiety pressed him to hasten after Villeneuve, yet failed so to discompose him as to cause the neglect of any preparation essential to due provision for the abandoned Mediterranean; so now, with every power at highest tension to rejoin the admiral, eager not to waste a moment, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... is, that it imitates what is divine, and looks upon all human concerns as inferior to virtue. Did you, then, say that it was your opinion that such a man was as naturally liable to perturbation as the sea is exposed to winds? What is there that can discompose such gravity and constancy? Anything sudden or unforeseen? How can anything of this kind befal one, to whom nothing is sudden and unforeseen that can happen to man? Now, as to their saying that redundancies should be pared off, and only what is natural remain; what, I pray you, can ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... to vivacity of feeling, I am not only sensible of in conversation, but even alone. When I write, my ideas are arranged with the utmost difficulty. They glance on my imagination and ferment till they discompose, heat, and bring on a palpitation; during this state of agitation I see nothing properly, cannot write a single word, and must wait till all is over. Insensibly the agitation subsides, the chaos acquires form, and each circumstance takes its proper place. Have you never seen ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... to be obliged to record it, but Escombe's threatened invocation of Britain's might and majesty seemed to discompose those obstinate Indians not at all; to use his own expression when talking of it afterwards, his threats glanced off them as harmlessly as water off a duck's back, and all that they seemed in the least concerned about was his welfare and comfort during the journey. ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... then (but tell it not to Shelley's Skylark, nor whisper to Wordsworth's Daffodils, the disconcerting secret)—I am incongruously beset by longings of which the Lake Poets never sang. Echoes and images of the abandoned City discompose my arcadisings: I hear, in the babbling of brooks, the delicious sound of London gossip, and newsboys' voices in the cries of birds. Sometimes the gold-splashed distance of a country lane seems to gleam at sunset with the posters of the evening papers; I dream at dawn of ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... if the Clothes-Volume itself was too like a Chaos, we have now instead of the solar Luminary that should still it, the airy Limbo which by intermixture will farther volatilise and discompose it! As we shall perhaps see it our duty ultimately to deposit these Six Paper-Bags in the British Museum, farther description, and all vituperation of them, may be spared. Biography or Autobiography of Teufelsdroeckh there is, clearly ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... keenness. Lord George and Lord North began to whisper together; and Welbore Ellis, an ancient placeman who had been drawing salary almost every quarter since the days of Henry Pelham, bent down between them to put in a word. Such interruptions sometimes discompose veteran speakers. Pitt stopped, and, looking at the group, said, with admirable readiness, "I shall wait till Nestor has composed the dispute between Agamemnon ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... then she would have seemed overtopped and mastered by wine. Which implies that priests, and all persons who devote themselves to the contemplation of divine things, ought to keep their minds sedate and calm, and avoid whatever might disturb and discompose their tranquillity, which nothing is more apt to ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... up with an eager respectfulness at Chris's sign, keeping a yard or two away lest the swinging luggage on his own horse should discompose the master, and answered a formal question or two about the roads and the bags, which Chris put to him as a gambit of conversation. The servant was clever and well trained, and knew how to modulate his attitude to the precise degree of deference due to his master and his master's relations; he had ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... past, (Not having been at church in all that time,) And is it fit, that now for the first time Thou shouldst offend the eyes of Christian people With a murderer's presence in the house of prayer? Thou wouldst but discompose their pious thoughts, And do thyself no good: for how couldst thou pray, With unwash'd hands, and lips unused to the offices?" And then I at my own presumption smiled; And then I wept that I should smile ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... cannot be shown that such a sportfulness of wit and fancy doth contain an intrinsic and inseparable turpitude; since it may be so cleanly, handsomely, and innocently used, as not to defile or discompose the mind of the speaker, nor to wrong or harm the hearer, nor to derogate from any worthy subject of discourse, nor to infringe decency, to disturb peace, to violate any of the grand duties incumbent on us (piety, charity, justice, sobriety), but rather ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... and booty he had taken from the Antiates, when he overran their country, which he had divided among those that had followed him, whereas it ought rather to have been brought into the public treasury; which last accusation did, they say, more discompose Marcius than all the rest, as he had not anticipated he should ever be questioned on that subject, and, therefore, was less provided with any satisfactory answer to it on the sudden. And when, by way of excuse, he began to magnify the merits of ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... unusual paleness in his face—you could not guess what pain he was suffering, or where he was suffering it. Latterly, I abstained from ever asking him to join us; for the effect on Margaret of his sudden attacks of illness was, naturally, such as to discompose her seriously for the remainder of the evening. Whenever I saw him accidentally, at later periods of the year, the influence of the genial summer season appeared to produce no alteration for the better in him. ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... skilfully avoided any chance of encountering the company, delivered her mother's errand, and was safe with Conny, cantering homewards. Even then she would not dwell on the notion, lest her father should allude to the stranger, and she should betray any feeling to discompose him. "I must take care of papa. Papa is my charge," repeated Joanna, proud as ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... bold, When it glances over the land, It is silent, it is vocal, It is clamorous, It is the most noisy On the face of the earth. It is good, it is bad, It is extremely injurious. It is concealed, Because sight cannot perceive it. It is noxious, it is beneficial; It is yonder, it is here; It will discompose, But will not repair the injury; It will not suffer for its doings, Seeing it is blameless. It is wet, it is dry, It frequently comes, Proceeding from the heat of the sun, And the coldness of the moon. The moon is less beneficial, Inasmuch as her ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... and delight, for whatever is most poetical in nature and fancy, and for such tranquil stirrings of thought and feeling as may flow out in musical expression. Any such tuggings of mind or heart as would ruffle and discompose the smoothness of lyrical division would be quite out of keeping in a course of dream-life. The characters here, accordingly, are drawn with light, delicate, vanishing touches; some of them being dreamy and sentimental, some gay and frolicsome, and others replete ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... will not too much hurry and discompose yourself. It is impossible he can be in town till Monday, at soonest. And if he resolve to come, I hope to be ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... smoke and a promenade on deck, where is no motion to discompose our steps, we think of a game of whist. We ask the brisk and capable stewardess from Ireland if there are ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... disaster proves most fully to me that you would make the best wife, mother, and mistress in the world. You and Anne are a pair for marvellous philosophical powers of endurance; no spoilt dinners, scorched linen, dirtied carpets, torn sofa-covers, squealing brats, cross husbands, would ever discompose either of you. You ought never to marry a good-tempered man, it would be mingling honey with sugar, like sticking white roses upon a black-thorn cudgel. With this very picturesque metaphor I close my letter. Good-bye, and ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... whether her guardian was come to see her, but she had not the courage to ask before her friend; and she in her turn was afraid by the too sudden mention of his name, to discompose her. Her maid, however, after some little time, entered the chamber, and whispered Miss Woodley. Miss Milner ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... her desk and written him letters all day. Brooke would answer them, with fair regularity, but in a most cursory manner,—sending seven or eight lines in return for two sheets fully crossed; but this did not discompose her in the least. He was worked hard at his office, and had hundreds of other things to do. He, too, could say,—so thought Dorothy,—more in eight lines than she could ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... last offices to the remains of this poor young lady, I was unwilling to discompose the gaiety of the society assembled here on my account by any show of grief. Accordingly, I joined the Bishop, or, as he is called, his Grace, and his canons, in their entertainments at different houses, and in gardens, of which the city and its neighbourhood afforded ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... once agreed to view the match, pleasing him mightily. For was not here a woman worthy the Golden Ages of the world? one who could look upon man as a creature divinely made, and look with a mind neither tempted, nor taunted, by the Serpent! Such a woman was rare. Sir Austin did not discompose her by uttering his praises. She was conscious of his approval only in an increased gentleness of manner, and something in his voice and communications, as if he were speaking to a familiar, a very high compliment from him. While ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... it ever was my opinion that the stage should be a place of rational entertainment; instead of which, I am very sorry to say, most people go there for their diversion: accordingly, I have formed my comedy so that it is no laughing, giggling piece of work. He must be a very light man that shall discompose his muscles from the beginning ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... stoops his face, and drinks with thirst unassuageable. In the cleft of her little breasts the fiery eye of the topaz and the pale florets of primrose fascinated him. He saw the breasts heave, and the flowers shake with the heaving, and marvelled what should so much discompose the girl. And Christina was conscious of his gaze—saw it, perhaps, with the dainty plaything of an ear that peeped among her ringlets; she was conscious of changing colour, conscious of her unsteady breath. Like a creature tracked, run down, surrounded, she sought in a dozen ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a question might perhaps discompose the gravity of his muscles, but I believe it would little affect the tranquillity ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... to see I had so much to read, and so sorry I had done so soon, that I resolved to begin them again, and had like to have lost my dinner by it. I know not what humour you were in when you writ it; but Mr. Arbry's prophecy and the falling down of the form did a little discompose my gravity. But I quickly recovered myself with thinking that you deserved to be chid for going where you knew you must of necessity lose your time. In earnest, I had a little scruple when I went with you thither, and but that I was assured it was too late to go ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... listening, forward his work. A disgusting arrangement, but Beckmesser is in such terror lest the lady leave her post before he have sung that he consents. "Begin!" hollaes Sachs, and Beckmesser, after preluding, sings, while Sachs punctuates the lines with smart taps on the last. These at first discompose the singer, and he stops at each tap to inquire angrily what it is that is not right; he shortly resolves, however, to pay no heed to the spiteful enemy, but cover over the interruptions with his voice. Louder and louder and ever more breathlessly he sings, a lyric that is more prosy than prose, ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall |
