"Compose" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... arrived at the door, Louis dismissed every one, with the exception of Malicorne—a circumstance which excited no surprise, for it was known that the king was in love; and they suspected he was going to compose some verses by moonlight; and, although there was no moon that evening, the king might, nevertheless, have some verses to compose. Every one, therefore, took his leave; and, immediately afterwards, the king turned towards Malicorne, who respectfully waited until his ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... especially this year, which is one of scarcity." In the next place, it is written that "all property belongs to the nation," and that is the reason why "it has taken the possessions of the Church." Now, all Frenchmen compose the nation, and the conclusion is clearly apparent. Since, in the eyes of the tailor, the property of individual Frenchmen belongs to all the French, he, the tailor, has a right to at least the quota which belongs to him.—One travels fast and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... actualities of experience. The poet himself is never cynical; his joyousness is all too apparent in the very manner and intensity of expression. The "lads" of Ludlow are so human to him, the hawthorn and broom on the Severn shores are so fragrant with associations, he cannot help but compose under a kind of imaginative wizardry of exultation, even when the immediate subject is grim or grotesque. In many of these brief, tense poems the reader confronts a mask, as it were, with appalling and distorted lineaments; but behind it the poet smiles, perhaps sardonically, but smiles nevertheless. ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... the theatre, I look at pictures; and in a way they have something for me." If we make this distinction between art and technique, the matter becomes simplified. The layman does not himself paint pictures or write books or compose music; his contact with art is with the purpose of appreciation. Life holds some meaning for him, as he is engaged in living, and there his chief interest lies. So art too has a message addressed to him, for art starts with life and in the end ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... adoration for Voltaire reaches the ludicrous, though we can seldom laugh with him. It led him once to compose one of the very dullest books in literature, Le Citateur, a string of anti-Christian gibes and arguments from his idol ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... colonies did not compose one nation together; it was merely a confederacy among the governments: It somewhat resembled the league of the Amphictyons, which you remember in Grecian history. But to return to our chair. In 1644 it was highly honored; for Governor Endicott sat in it ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... sat a long time in the arbor to compose the tale she would tell in the evening when they would be on the veranda, with Sky-High on ...
— Little Sky-High - The Surprising Doings of Washee-Washee-Wang • Hezekiah Butterworth
... she said, after a pause, "try to compose yourself. I am afraid you will make me worse, Ellen, if you ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... laying up his poor Wife and Children; and hope her Imperial Majesty will have pity on that poor creature, who is fallen so miserable.' [Helden-Geschichte, iii. 713.] So that Excellency Peubla had nothing for it but to compose himself; to honor the unstainable fidelity of Weingarten Senior by a public piece of promotion, which soon ensued; and let the Junior run. Weingarten Junior, on the first suspicion, had vanished with due promptitude,—was ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle
... am supported by the consciousness of my own right intentions, and by my dependence upon the protection of almighty God. It will be my care to strengthen our institutions, civil and ecclesiastical, by discreet improvement wherever improvement is required, and to do all in my power to compose and allay animosity and discord. Acting upon these principles, I shall upon all occasions look with confidence to the wisdom of parliament and the affections of my people, which form the true support of the dignity of the crown, and ensure ...
— Queen Victoria • Anonymous
... the Stamp Act in the year 1766, I affirm, first, that the Americans did not in consequence of this measure call upon you to give up the former Parliamentary revenue which subsisted in that country, or even any one of the articles which compose it. I affirm also, that, when, departing from the maxims of that repeal, you revived the scheme of taxation, and thereby filled the minds of the colonists with new jealousy and all sorts of apprehensions, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... stage-properties, and scenic effects—and our party had just ridden through the squalid hive of human vermin which still holds the ancient Biblical name of Endor; I was bringing up the rear on my grave four-dollar steed, who was about beginning to compose himself for his usual noon nap. My! only fifteen minutes before how the black, mangy, nine-tenths naked, ten-tenths filthy, ignorant, bigoted, besotted, hungry, lazy, malignant, screeching, crowding, struggling, wailing, begging, cursing, hateful spawn of the original Witch had swarmed out of the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Entertainment. The casual observer can form no idea of the quantity of unfettered genius that is soaring, like a healthy Eagle, round this Hall, in connection with this Entertainment. In fact, the following gifted persons compose the ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 6 • Charles Farrar Browne
... reached her own room—that in which the children usually slept—she made a great effort to compose herself, but not altogether successfully. She got out her paper and blotting-book, intending, as she said to herself, to write to Fanny, knowing, however, that the letter when written would be destroyed; but ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... in Lombardy was concluded; but the dissensions in the kingdom of Naples continued, and the inability to compose them occasioned the resumption of those arms which had been so recently laid aside. Alfonso, of Aragon, had, during these wars, taken from Rene the whole kingdom except Naples; so that, thinking he had the victory in his power, he resolved during the siege of Naples ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... cover the holes bored in his ears—the mark of old-time servitude. He was the darling of waiting-maids; the collector of all current scandal; the master spirit in arranging dinners, able to tell a Tuscan from a Lucanian boar by mere taste. He used also to help his patron compose billets-doux, and had, by his twistings and scrapings, repeatedly staved off Phormio, Lucius's importunate creditor. As for Phaon's heart, it was so soft and tender that the pricks of conscience, if he ever had any, went straight through, without ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... that I cannot conscientiously see my way to writing to the Bishop in your behalf. Any testimonial I could compose would be doubtful at best, for I cannot agree with you that the Church is your true vocation. I do not believe that one who has deserted his family, as you have, and whose record (even on the most charitable interpretation) cannot be described ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... instruction gratis from the organist at the Cathedral, who, originally attracted by her lovely voice singing in the choir, took her up with enthusiasm, and taught her harmony and thorough bass. Thus, instead of only practising a desultory accomplishment, she was able to compose and arrange her ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... being a fairly good imitation of Grimm and Dickens, mixed with a little true Alpine feeling of my own, it has been rightly pleasing to nice children, and good for them. But it is totally valueless, for all that. I can no more write a story than compose a picture." The final statement may be taken for what it is worth, written as it was at a time of disillusionment. The first part of Ruskin's analysis is certainly true and has been thus expanded by his biographer, Sir E. T. Cook: "The grotesque and the German setting of the tale ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... drops a curve across the upper part of the figure, and this curve is repeated a little lower down by the creases in the drapery across the lap. Such are the few strong, simple lines which compose the picture, producing an effect of grandeur which a confusion of many ...
— Michelangelo - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Master, With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... a mind perceiving them;" that "their esse is percipi, nor is it possible that they should have any existence out of the minds, or thinking things, which perceive them;" and that "all the choir of heaven and the furniture of the earth,—in a word, all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any subsistence without a mind."[162] Nay, others who are not Idealists, but who believe equally in the existence of "mind" and "matter," will tell them that Berkeley's arguments are conclusive, at least to the extent of showing that the existence of "matter," ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... and marines taken in their prime. He inspired in Mark a sense of shame that he had ever thought of people in the aggregate, that he had ever walked along a crowded street without perceiving the importance of every single human being that helped to compose its variety. While he sat there listening to the Missioner and watching the large tears roll slowly down his cheeks from beneath the closed lids, Mark wondered how he could have dared to suppose last night that he was qualified to become ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... of Chapter I. of "The Dolliver Romance" came to me from the Wayside on the 1st of December. Hawthorne was very anxious to see it in type as soon as possible, in order that he might compose the rest in a similar strain, and so conclude the preliminary phase of Dr. Dolliver. He was constantly imploring me to send him a good pen, complaining all the while that everything had failed him in that line. In one of his notes begging me to hunt him ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... formerly advanced. The Subject of this Satyr is Woman. He describes the Sex in their several Characters, which he derives to them from a fanciful Supposition raised upon the Doctrine of Praeexistence. He tells us, That the Gods formed the Souls of Women out of those Seeds and Principles which compose several Kinds of Animals and Elements; and that their Good or Bad Dispositions arise in them according as such and such Seeds and Principles predominate in their Constitutions. I have translated the Author very faithfully, and if not Word for Word (which our Language would not bear) at least so ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... actual passing across the interval which separates those positions. But such a conception of Change is quite false. All true change or movement is indivisible. We, by constructing fictitious states and trying to compose movement out of them, endeavour to make a process coincide with a thing—a movement with an immobility. This is the way to arrive at dilemmas, antinomies, and blind-alleys of thought. The puzzles of Zeno about "Achilles ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... Vrilliere, one of the most scandalous persons of the century, was an honorary member of the Academy, and he was the brother-in-law of Maurepas. It was expected from the perpetual secretary that he should compose a eulogy upon the occasion of his death, and Condorcet was warned by friends, who seldom reflect that a man above the common quality owes something more to himself than mere prudence, not to irritate the powerful minister ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... endeavouring to get rid of all my brain-oppressing fancies: and this, happening to come uppermost as I write, finds itself caught, to my comfort. It is commended, if worth any thing, to the musical proficient: for I might as well think of adding a note to the gamut as of trying to compose an oratorio. ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... she returned to the house and sat by the window of her room, striving to compose her mind for sleep. She was forcing herself to jot down instructions for her housekeeper, whom she had taught to read, when she heard a chaise and a pair of galloping horses enter the avenue. A moment later, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... looking eagerly about for chances to snub. But, on the other hand, there's the university, and Arthur—and Dory." She dismissed Lorry and Estelle and Saint X's fashionable strivings and, in the library, sat down to compose a letter to Dory—no easy task in those days, when there were seething in her mind and heart so much that she longed to tell him but ought not, so much that she ought to tell but ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... after he had regained the quiet of his own room ere de Sigognac could compose himself sufficiently to set about the light task imposed upon him by Isabelle. He was at once enchanted and cast down; radiant with joy, and filled with sorrow; in a seventh heaven of ecstasy, and in the depths of despair. He laughed ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... miles, that upsets me. I often take that run for exercise and think nothing of it but tonight I was so mad I made extra-good time, I fancy. Now don't you worry, but compose your mind and 'sip your dish of tea,' as Evelina says," answered Mac, artfully turning the ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... constructionists among its members, the Court on the whole has steered a fairly straight course. What has really altered is the environment in which the Court moves. The earth has been turning on its axis. The frame of mind of the people who compose states ...
— Our Changing Constitution • Charles Pierson
... might achieve them! What books would I not write! What novels, in which, fashioning the hero out of my own heart, I could tell scores of impressions the world had made upon me in its aspect of religion, or of politics, or of society! What essays could I not compose here—the mind elevated by that buoyancy which comes of the consciousness of being free for a great effort! Free from the vulgar interruptions that cling to poverty like a garment, free from the ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... Myra undressed in the dark and crept into bed, but, tired though she was, it was a long time before she could compose herself ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... becomes my duty to come to thee, and suggest words of comfort. For these are the good offices friends ought to render each other. But go thou into the house, O unfortunate sister, and, stretched at full length, compose thy sleepless eyelids to sleep, and take refreshment, and pour the bath upon thy fair skin. For if thou forsakest me, or gettest any illness by continually sitting by me, we perish; for thee I have my only succor, by the ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... genius is exceptional, as well as his experience. He can compose his verses while the battle is going on around him. During the engagement with Fort Powell, he was actually pencilling down some portions of the "Bay Fight," when he received a polite invitation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... some friends at Hamburgh; after that business was over, I took the Tower Wharf in my way back. Here I found the sun very powerful, and I was so much fatigued that I stepped into one of the cannon to compose me, where I fell fast asleep. This was about noon: it was the fourth of June; exactly at one o'clock these cannon were all discharged in memory of the day. They had been all charged that morning, and having no suspicion of my situation, I was shot over the houses ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... tells of the wicked man who tolls it. For twenty-five years he has made penance for his wicked sins. He was doomed to toll the bell and never speak; now he cannot to speak one word, but tolls on. That's not dead easy. I have of sorrow for that man. Tonight I will to compose a ...
— Seven Maids of Far Cathay • Bing Ding, Ed.
... some Pain to compose himself to hear her Confession, and was oblig'd to turn away his Eyes, that his Mind might not be perplex'd with an Object so diverting; when Miranda, opening the finest Mouth in the World, and discovering ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... my gendarmes are very worthy fellows; and that among the gentlemen who compose our clergy there are some of the very best rank and talent: besides, my wife is niece to ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "Let us leave God alone." And now she will "withdraw from earth and man to her own soul," will "compose herself for God" . . . but even as she speaks, the flood of gratitude to her one friend again sweeps back, ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... sparhawk, or a laneret, or a marlin, and the young gallants carried the other kinds of hawks. So nobly were they taught, that there was neither he nor she amongst them, but could read, write, sing, play upon several musical instruments, speak five or six several languages, and compose in them all very quaintly, both in verse and prose. Never were seen so valiant knights, so noble and worthy, so dexterous and skilful both on foot and horseback, more brisk and lively, more nimble and quick, ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... listened to that most ethereal of all sounds, the song of crickets, coming in full choir upon the wind, and fancied that, if moonlight could be heard, it would sound just like that. Finally, he took a draught at the Shaker spring, and, as if it were the true Castalia, was forthwith moved to compose a lyric, a Farewell to his Harp, which he swore should be its closing strain, the last verse that an ungrateful world should have from him. This effusion, with two or three other little pieces, subsequently ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... so great a mass of weighty metal in so volant an attitude, has been admirably overcome by the artist. The sweep of the tail, with the hinder parts of the horse, are interwoven with the curvatures of the expiring snake; and together compose a sufficient counterpoise to the figure and forepart ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various
... sense of the word an obdurate or exacting guardian. Come along, Mr. Hamel. That seat opposite to us is quite comfortable. You see, I resign myself to the inevitable. I have come to fetch golfers home to luncheon, and I compose myself to listen. Which of you will begin the epic of missed putts and brassey shots which failed ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... refreshing sleep I wake to hear outside my window-pane The uncurbed fury of the wild spring rain, And weird winds lashing the defiant deep, And roar of floods that gather strength and leap Down dizzy, wreck-strewn channels to the main. I turn upon my pillow and again Compose myself for slumber. Let them sweep; I once survived great floods, and do not fear, Though ominous planets congregate, and seem To foretell strange disasters. From a dream— Ah! dear God! such a dream!—I woke to hear, Through the dense shadows ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... wise, at night, after the care and bustle of the day is over, to read, but for a few minutes, some book which will compose and soothe the mind; which will bring us face to face with the true facts of life, death, and eternity; which will make us remember that man doth not live by bread alone; which will give us, before we sleep, a few thoughts worthy ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley
... universal suffrage excluding the negro and the woman, who are by far the largest number in this country. It is not the majority that rules here, but the minority. White men are in the minority in this nation. White women, black men, and black women compose the large majority of the nation. Yet in spite of this fact, in spite of common sense, in spite of justice, while our members of Congress can prate so long about justice, and human rights, and the rights of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... said the Angel, answering the look in his friend's eyes, "I believe no one on earth understands the anguish those of us who compose suffer from noise. It is not nervousness which causes us this anguish. It is the creating spirit,—the power of the man who brings words to life in literature or who brings tones to life in music. It is part of the artistic temperament, and ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... functions of life. They are composed of the accidental aggregation of particles, which, under certain circumstances, take a constant and regular figure, but which are more frequently found without any definite conformation. They also occupy the interior parts of the earth, as well as compose those huge masses by which we see the land in some parts guarded against the encroachments of the sea. The Vegetable Kingdom covers and beautifies the earth with an endless variety of form and colour. It consists of organized bodies, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... existence, in the noble sense of the word. What a cube, or tetrahedron, is to organic form, ungradated and unconfused colour is to organic colour; and a person who attempts to arrange colour harmonies without gradation of tint is in precisely the same category, as an artist who should try to compose a beautiful picture out of an accumulation of ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... of life was like his former one at Jena: his business was to study and compose; his recreations were in the circle of his family, where he could abandon himself to affections, grave or trifling, and in frank and cheerful intercourse with a few friends. Of the latter he had lately formed a ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... tell one of the numberless adventures which compose the life of Arsene Lupin, I feel a genuine embarrassment, because it is quite clear to me that even the least important of these adventures is known to every one of my readers. As a matter of fact, there is not a move on ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... have called her beautiful, and yet she possessed many of the factors that go to compose feminine beauty. She had all the beauty of colouring, a white skin that was healthy white and that was emphasized by the darkness of her lashes, brows, and hair. And, in the same way, the darkness of lashes and brows and the whiteness of skin set ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... thought of as opposed to work, and to be designated as play. Now art is very obviously carried on for its own sake: experience, even of our mercantile age, teaches that if a man does not paint a picture or compose a symphony from an inner necessity as disinterested as that which makes another man look at the picture or listen to the symphony, no amount of self-interest, of disadvantages and advantages, will enable him to do either otherwise than ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... above his belt, rolling the cigarette. They had four times as far to go. But Plimsoll knew that if anything went wrong with his performance, if he failed to kill outright, that nothing would go wrong with Sandy's shooting. The mention of Butch and Sim Hahn did not compose him. He had had the stage all set that time and Butch had been shot down, Sim Hahn's capacities as a crooked dealer had been spoiled for ever. But—if he did not take his chance and, failing it, did not ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... with his relics of the dead and the revelations of the present to compose himself, while he went out to make arrangements for ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... British Socialism lies in the fact that it leads to the deterioration of the national character. "The strength of every community must finally depend on the character of the individuals who compose it. If they are self-reliant, energetic, and dutiful, the community will be strong; if, on the contrary, they have been taught to rely upon others rather than on themselves, to take life easily and to avoid unpleasant duties, then the community will be weak. Teach men that ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... it is to compose the little Body of Hermaphrodites, is very much disturb'd to meet with a Matter that is intractable for the regular forming of the Genital Parts. On one side the Matter is moist and loose, on the ...
— Tractus de Hermaphrodites • Giles Jacob
... are to compose the new army, are making up in the different States as fast as possible; but arms, artillery, tent cloth and clothing will be greatly wanted. For these our reliance is on the favor and friendship of his Most Christian Majesty. If you are so fortunate as to ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... principal methods of imparting the illustrations that, in their entirety, compose the body of precedents, by which the primary teachings of the Art of War are at once elucidated and established. By the first, the several principles may be separately stated, more or less at large, each being followed closely by the appropriate illustrations, ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... Hystrix, which compose this sub-family, are distinguished by long tail and flattened spines (Atherura); and short tail and ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... Government of President Rivas. Previous to 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 ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... is burdened with no heavy crime, and therefore I compose myself to tranquillity; endeavour to abstract my thoughts from hopes and cares, which, though reason knows them to be vain, still try to keep their old possession of the heart; expect, with serene humility, that hour which nature cannot long delay; and ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... think that were I certain of success, I hardly could compose another line: So long I've battled either more or less, That no defeat can drive me from the Nine. This feeling 't is not easy to express, And yet 't is not affected, I opine. In play, there are two pleasures for your choosing— The one is ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... walls are gardens with grass, and trees, and gravel walks. In the interior, on the south side, is a magnificent esplanade and terrace overlooking the river, and the strange jumble of coloured buildings which compose the city. The rest of the ground is occupied with a collection of churches of all shapes and sizes and colours, and towers, and convents, and palaces. One palace, however, surpasses them all in beauty and size, though its shining white walls and richly-carved facade and general bran-new ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... commanding power and purity of language, in positive instinct of expression and direct eloquence of inspiration, the author of "The Revenger's Tragedy" stands alone in the next rank to Shakespeare. Many if not most of their contemporaries could compose a better play than he probably could conceive—a play with finer variation of incidents and daintier diversity of characters: not one of them, not even Webster himself, could pour forth poetry of such continuous force and flow. The fiery jet of his molten verse, ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... them, saw Pete coming from the stables, tried to compose himself, but could not get rid of the boyish grin, which provoked Ma Bailey to mutter something which sounded like "idiot," to which the cowboys nodded in ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... compose it in church or in temple. He never meant it, perhaps, to be sung in public worship. He little dreamed that we, and millions more, in lands of which he had never heard, should be repeating his words in ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... dangerous invasion of the rights of property, plunged into the discussion of the matter with all the ardor of his fiery temperament. He worked himself into the highest state of excitement over the proceedings. It was his interest in this matter that led him to compose the three works which are collectively called the Anti-rent novels. These purport to be the successive records of the Littlepage family, and each is in the form of an autobiography. They cover a period extending from the first half of the eighteenth century ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... re-union of returned Australians, held at Glasgow shortly before his death, he had to speak, and it was evident to all that he had quite broken down. He said that "his eyesight and his memory were so far gone that he was unable to compose a speech, or, indeed, to recollect many of the incidents that happened throughout the course of his explorations." This was the sad ending of one of our greatest explorers. Eight full years of his life had ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... most fondly during his life; viz. my being called to the bar with some credit. For my own part, I know there is no great difficulty in passing these formal examinations, else how have some of our acquaintance got through them? But, to my father, these formalities compose an august and serious solemnity, to which he has long looked forward, and my absenting myself at this moment would wellnigh drive him distracted. Yet I shall go altogether distracted myself, if I have not an instant assurance ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... breast was not yet so callous as to be wholly insensible to the stings of conscience. Wearied at length with thinking on the past, and terrified by the prospect of the future, he threw himself on the straw with which the cage was littered, and endeavoured to compose himself to slumber. When he awoke, it was late in the day; but though he heard voices outside, and now and then caught a glimpse of a face peeping at him through the iron grating over the door, no ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... hope of Thy mercy. Give her a sincere repentance for all her transgressions and omissions, and a firm resolution to pass the remainder of her life in endeavouring to her utmost to observe all Thy precepts. We beseech Thee likewise to compose her thoughts; and preserve to her the use of her memory and reason during the course of her sickness. Give her a true conception of the vanity, folly, and insignificancy of all human things; and strengthen her ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... world. Naive as may have been the Renaissance expression of this need of formal training, blind as it frequently was to the beauty which we recognize in the undisciplined vernacular literatures of mediaeval Europe, those groping scholars were essentially right. No one can paint or compose by nature. One must slowly master an art ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... "Compose yourself," cried Smith, as gently as though he held an infant in his arms. "See, even your dog is satisfied that we mean no harm; he led us to this place, or you would have perished before morning. Tell us what has happened, and how ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... admirable sentiments, and I think it fit to fix his memory by a suitable inscription on his tombstone. Both of you, gentlemen, are learned enough to do that successfully, and I engage myself to have the epitaph of the defunct engraved on a large white stone, in the manner and style wherein you compose it. But remember, in making the stone speak, to make it proclaim nothing ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... And that brave weather-battered Peter, Whose stout faith only stood completer For buffets, sinning to be pardoned, As, more his hands hauled nets, they hardened,— All, down to you, the man of men, Professing here at Goettingen, Compose Christ's flock! They, you and I, Are sheep of a good man! And why? The goodness,—how did he acquire it? Was it self-gained, did God inspire it? Choose which; then tell me, on what ground Should its possessor dare propound His claim to rise o'er us an inch? Were goodness all some man's ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... 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
... received the possession of Britain together with the rest of the world, the great commanders and well-appointed armies which were sent over abated the confidence of the enemy; and Petilius Cerealis struck terror by an attack upon the Brigantes, [78] who are reputed to compose the most populous state in the whole province. Many battles were fought, some of them attended with much bloodshed; and the greater part of the Brigantes were either brought into subjection, or involved in the ravages of war. The conduct and reputation of Cerealis were so brilliant ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... students from the mother city herself; it was the last refuge of Graeco-Roman culture in the west. But at the end of the sixth century Gregory of Tours deplores the fact that in his time there were neither books, nor readers, nor scholar who could compose in verse or prose, and that only the speech of the rustic was understood. He playfully scolds himself for muddling prepositions and confusing genders and cases, but his duty as a Christian priest is to instruct, not to charm, and so he tells the ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... science exists in that application of the principles of biology to the interpretation of the animal and vegetable remains imbedded in the rocks which compose the surface of the globe, which is ...
— On the Method of Zadig - Essay #1 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... afterward many more. The senators begged that a monarchy be established, and directed all their remarks to that end until (naturally) they forced him to assume the reins of government. At once they saw to it that twice as much pay was voted to the men who were to compose his body-guard as to the rest of the soldiers, that this might incite the men to keep a careful watch of him. Then he began to show a real interest ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... accordingly to lie down and compose herself—for even so short a conversation, following on the excitement of our arrival, had exhausted her to a painful degree—I took the youth, who had just returned from stabling our horses, a little aside, and learning that he lodged in a smaller chamber on the ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... cabin, however; nor did I find anything much the matter with my child, who had evidently unconsciously cried out in some dream she had, Ivan, of course, gushing in sympathy and waking her up. So, telling Elsie to compose herself and go off to sleep again, as everything was going on all right and there was nothing to be alarmed about, beyond the snoring of Monsieur and Madame Boisson at the further end of the cabin, I, feeling greatly ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... found in vol. i. p. 21 of the present work. So far the only systematic attempt to reconstruct the Chaldaean world, since Lenormant, has been made by Jensen, who, after examining all the elements which went to compose it, one after another, sums up in a few pages, and reproduces in a plate, the principal results of his inquiry. It will be seen at a glance how much I have taken from his work, and in what respects the drawing here reproduced differs ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... danger of too much wear and tear, and at Miss Harper's suggestion it was placed temporarily in the school museum, so that everybody might have a chance of seeing it, yet it should be safe from careless hands. Enid was, of course, asked after this to compose so many poems for so many various albums, that had she consented her collected effusions might have filled a ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... charming bird extends to the latter part of July, but varies with the latitude and season. Bark strips and leaves interwoven with various vegetable substances compose the nest, which is usually built on a horizontal or drooping branch, near its extremity and situated at the edge of a grove near the roadside. Davie says: "All the nests of this species which I have seen collected in Ohio are very thin and frail ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II., No. 5, November 1897 - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... water the propeller of a steamship churns up where the Atlantic Ocean shallows to the rocky shore of the north coast of Ireland. The clouds themselves caught a deep dull red from the sunrise, which the snow gave back in blush pink. Such an exquisite colour harmony did the scene compose that the wind, lulling for a moment on the crest of the hill, seemed charmed into peace ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... said the Abbot, "we exhort thee to say thy prayers, compose thyself, and banish that foolish chant from thy mind;—it is but a ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... present day. Rough Cortes saw with surprise the luxurious Aztec composing himself for the siesta in the middle of the day as invariably as his fellow Dons in Castile. But he was amazed that the barbarians had discovered in tobacco a sedative to promote their reveries and compose them to sleep, of which the hidalgos were as yet ignorant, but which they were soon to appropriate with avidity, and to use with equal zest. Humboldt says that it had been cultivated by the people of Orinoco from time immemorial, and was smoked all over America at the time of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... "pray compose yourself. A tragedy has happened in this room—but we are not sure. ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... humble claim; Thou art my hope, my joy, my rest; The glories that compose thy name Stand all engaged to ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... with disgust. 'A nice pair, aren't they, my dear fellow?' said Shubin; 'won't you graciously compose a suitable title? For the first two I have already thought of titles. On the bust shall be inscribed: "A hero resolving to liberate his country." On the statuette: "Look out, sausage-eating Germans!" And for this work what do you think of ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... heart of him who owns it; this can only be alienated, obscured, or destroyed, by collecting this species of property into such masses that the owner is not personally acquainted with the individuals who compose it. In the relation, however, which can exist in the Northwestern Territories, the mere domestic connection of one, two, or at most half a dozen servants in a family, associating with the children as they ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... Brother Copas, slightly embarrassed, and slightly the more embarrassed because the Master, after asking the question, seemed inclined to relapse into his own thoughts, "the Petition was not mine only. I had to compose it for all the signatories; and that, in any public business, involves striking ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... beside her, of course, sprawled flat on his stomach among the grasses, one hand clutching his black curls, with his dream book on a small, round stone before him—for only so can Peter compose at all, and even then he finds it hard work. He can handle a hoe more deftly than a pencil, and his spelling, even with all his frequent appeals to Cecily, is a fearful and wonderful thing. As for punctuation, he never attempts it, beyond an occasion period, jotted down ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... sat a woman, clad in the shapeless dress of black serge, and wearing the widely projecting white bonnet and cape, black veil, white band across the brow, and beneath the chin, which compose the attire of a sister de bon secours. She was one of that community of self-abnegating women, who, bound by holy vows, devote their lives to the care of the suffering, and are the most skilful, tender, and ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... certain colours; and yet whose eyes, in other respects, were not imperfect. Philos. Transact. Which seems to have been owing to the want of irritability, or the inaptitude to action, of some classes of fibres which compose the retina. Other permanent defects depend on the diseased state of the external organ. Class I. 1. 3. 14. I. 2. 3. ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... about it under the concentred gaze of half a dozen old mariners hauled ashore, who haunt his yard uninvited, slow of speech but deadly critical. Nor has the language a word for their appalling candour. Often, admiring how cheerfully he tolerates them, I have wondered what it would feel like to compose a novel under the eyes of half a dozen reviewers. But to him, as to his critics, the ship was a framework only until the terrible moment when with baptism she took life. Did he in the rapture, the brief ecstasy of creation, realise that she had passed from him? Ere ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of the ancients. Pickle, struck with this idea, eagerly embraced the proposal, which he honoured with many encomiums, as a plan in all respects worthy of his genius and apprehension; and the day was appointed at some distance of time, that the treater might have leisure to compose certain pickles and confections which were not to be found among the culinary preparations of these degenerate days. With a view of rendering the physician's taste more conspicuous, and extracting from it the more diversion, Peregrine ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... celebrated Titus. The result is too well known to require details. A series of sanguinary battles deprived the Jews of their principal towns one after another, until they were at length shut up in Jerusalem; the siege and final reduction of which compose one of the most affecting stories that are anywhere recorded in the annals of ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... and fifty-seven children and youths—compose fourteen families, or rather households, for they are all related, and the eighty-one may be called one family. They are all in easy circumstances, some even rich, one family being worth as much as $50,000. They were all land owners in this State, and have sold ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... remember the crucial point, without which I should still be puzzling over it. It is that a perfectly innocent message, on its face, may be used to carry a secret, hidden message. The letters which compose the words, instead of being written continuously along, as we ordinarily write, have, as you will observe if you look twice, breaks, here and there. These breaks in ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... of high antiquity and extended popularity. The prose is doubtless as old as our own era; but the intercalated verses and proverbs compose a selection from writings of an age extremely remote. The Mahabharata and the textual Veds are of those quoted; to the first of which Professor M. Williams (in his admirable edition of the Nala, 1860) assigns the modest date of 350 ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... discussion, there is a great difference of opinion. There ought not to be uncertainty or room for a difference of opinion upon a question of this kind. It ought to be settled. On the one hand it is insisted by Senators who compose the majority of the committee on finance that the legal limit of United States notes is $356,000,000; that the amount which has been already issued, of what is known as the $44,000,000 reserve, was unlawfully issued, although under great press of circumstances and without any intention ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... friend, that you saw, who is taking us with him, will not tell me either. But I shall find out soon, and if I thought you might like to know where we are gone, I would write to you. I am glad that mother taught me to write, though I do not compose very well; but if you will allow me, I will send a letter to Swampville, from the first place we come to, to tell you the name of the country where we are going. I know your name, for it is upon this paper, ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... on hearing that the Empress had asked me to sing in the chapel of the Tuileries, offered to compose a Benedictus for me. The orchestra of the Conservatoire was to accompany me, and Jules Cohen was to play the organ. I had several rehearsals with Auber and one on the preceding Saturday with the orchestra. The flute and I have a little ramble ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... about the same time an invitation came from the Empress Maria Theresa inviting the young musician to compose a dramatic serenade in honor of the wedding of the Archduke Ferdinand in Milan. It was a great compliment to pay so young a ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... readily to the counter-persuasions of electricity. Hydro-carbons had been shown by the spectroscope to be present in comets, and were fitted by their specific weight, as compared with that of hydrogen, to form tails of the second type; while the atoms of iron were just heavy enough to compose those of the third, and, from the plentifulness of their presence in meteorites, might be presumed to enter, in no inconsiderable proportion, into the mass of comets. These three substances, however, were by no means supposed ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... idea of such a measure. I descended; I stood on my frail raft; I cut the rope by which it was fastened to the ship. I was confused to think of my situation; I could hardly believe that I had dared to enter alone on the waste of waters. I endeavoured to compose myself, but in vain. As far as I could see, nothing presented itself to my view but the vessel I had left; the sea was perfectly still, for not the least wind was stirring. I endeavoured, with two pieces of board, which ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... man took her hand. "Don't, please don't," he said gently; "unless you want the child to die. Compose yourself, my dear girl, and tell me what has happened. I'm a stranger to you, yes, but misery brings us together and makes us old friends." He seated himself beside her. "Tell me; I am old enough to be your father! You ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... key fell from her shaking hand, her heart stopped beating, and she almost fell to the floor in horror and amazement. Recovering herself after a while, she stooped and picked up the key, locked the door and hurried back to her chamber. In vain she tried to compose herself and meet her guests again. She was too frightened to control herself, and when she looked at the little key of that awful little room at the end of the long gallery on the first floor, she saw that it was stained with ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... time a dreadful headache, and she wanted to try and get rid of it in time for breakfast—that was her first object; but her thoughts were so confused that they could not fix upon anything rightly. She tried to compose herself, and to think the whole affair over again; but she could not. There was something so strange in what had passed! The sudden—the total change in her opinion—her total loss of confidence! She tried to put all thoughts and feelings out of her mind, and just ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... amongst the Learned, I resolved to leave all this world here to their disputes, and to speak onely of what would happen in a new one, if God now created some where in those imaginary spaces matter enough to compose it, and that he diversly and without order agitated the severall parts of this matter, so as to compose a Chaos of it as confused as the Poets could feign one: and that afterwards he did nothing but lend his ordinary concurrence to Nature, and leave her to work ...
— A Discourse of a Method for the Well Guiding of Reason - and the Discovery of Truth in the Sciences • Rene Descartes
... 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 procession, carrying a banner and riding ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... of human eyes. Amongst them there is the Archer—Sagittarius—the chase in the shape of man; greatest and grandest of all the constellations is Orion, the mighty hunter, the giant who slew the wild beasts by strength. There is no assemblage of stars so brilliant as those which compose the outline of Orion; the Hunter takes the first place in the heavens. Art exists in the imagination—imagination drew lines from star to star, and repeated its life ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... once presume to instruct the times To know the Poet from the Man of Rhymes: 'Tis he, who gives my breast a thousand pains, Can make me feel each passion that he feigns, Enrage, compose, with more than magic art, With pity and with terror tear my heart; And snatch me o'er the earth or through the air, To Thebes, to Athens, when ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... patient, I sent word to the stranger that I could not see him, but, in an undertone, instructed the servant to say that the man might call at my office the next morning. Then, turning to Burwell, I begged him to compose himself and save his strength for the ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... and very still on the green settee, he tried to compose his mind for the coming interview with Mrs. Gusty. Directly across the road was Aker's old carpenter-shop, a small, square, one-story edifice, shabby, and holding out scant promise of journalistic possibilities. Mr. Opp, however, ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... was amused—and pleased—to note that she was struggling to compose herself to endure his candors as a necessary part of the duties and obligations she had taken on herself when she gave ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... relatives in general manner of growth, we note that its oblong involucre, rounded at the base, has blunt, not sharply pointed, bracts; that the flower-heads are densely set close to the wand for from four to fifteen inches; that the five to thirteen bright rose-purple florets which compose each head occasionally come white; that its leaves are long and very narrow, and that October is not too late to find the ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... of the countless multitudes that turn their longing eyes in the direction of a metropolis like this, yearning for a visit, and sending off by frequent Opportunities, never by mail, those remarkable epistolary compounds of hopes and wants which no other race of beings can compose in perfection: 'Hope JOHN is well, and BETSEY will come and see us next summer; and want'—LAWSON and STEWART! what do they not want? Every thing; from twenty yards of silk down to a penny's-worth of tape. The letters run somewhat in ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... returned to it, my time and attention were so entirely engrossed, to the day of my final departure from it, by a variety of other more important occupations, of which, Sir, I may safely appeal to your testimony, grounded on the large portion contributed by myself of the volumes which compose our Consultations ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the great tragedienne returned to Paris, where she remained true to her false friend, and from time to time wrote him letters full of magnanimous counsel and generous tenderness. But she could not have been so good company as Lady Craven, who was a very gifted person, and knew how to compose songs and sing them, and write comedies and play them, and who could keep the Margrave amused in many ways. When his loveless and childless wife died he married the English woman, but he grew more and more weary of his dull little court and his dull little country, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... working at something else. Thus, by virtue of a tacit agreement between us, I did not complain of learning nothing, and he kept secret my book-borrowing. This precocious passion led me to neglect my studies and instead to compose poems, which indeed were of no high promise, if judged by the following verse: 'O Inca! O roi infortune,' commencing an epopee on the Incas. The line became only too celebrated among my companions, and I was derisively nicknamed the poet. Mockery, however, ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... created by the general state of the world in every successive epoch and which no people or state can mould at its own pleasure. Without doubt, a nation will never conquer a noteworthy greatness if the men that compose it fail of a certain culture, a certain energy, a social morale sufficiently vigorous; but though these qualities are necessary, they are not equally productive in all periods, but serve more or less, in different ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... officers of the Army will, with a like number of officers of the Navy selected for the purpose, compose the guard of honor and accompany the remains of their late Commander in Chief from the national capital to Cleveland, Ohio, and continue with them until they are consigned to their final resting place: The General of the Army, Major-General Winfield S. Hancock, Quartermaster-General M.C. Meigs, ...
— Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VIII.: James A. Garfield • James D. Richardson
... that he is of them; he has just come out of nature, or from being a part of that thing. Animated chlorine knows of chlorine, and incarnate zinc, of zinc. Their quality makes this career; and he can variously publish their virtues, because they compose him. Man, made of the dust of the world, does not forget his origin; and all that is yet inanimate will one day speak and reason. Unpublished nature will have its whole secret told. Shall we say that quartz mountains will pulverize into innumerable Werners, Von Buchs, and Beaumonts; ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... together, both nervously. Piers' eyes wandered, and Mrs. Hannaford, as she sat down, made an obvious effort to compose herself. ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... "your daughter tells you the truth: Isabella left us by your command, and has not returned since;—but, my good Lord, compose yourself: retire to your rest: this dismal day has disordered you. Isabella shall wait your ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole |
