"Composing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of men in the highest positions in a state must influence the masses powerfully either for good or evil. A species of moral obliquity pervades a large class of the community, by which the individuals composing it are prevented from discerning between truth and falsehood, except as either tends to their own personal aggrandisement. Thus truth is at a fearful discount, and men exult in successful roguery, as though ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... unconquered King of England, a prince adorned with all the virtues that become a great monarch, having some differences of no small consequence with Charles the most serene Prince of Castile, sent me into Flanders, as his ambassador, for treating and composing matters between them. I was colleague and companion to that incomparable man Cuthbert Tonstal, whom the King, with such universal applause, lately made Master of the Rolls; but of whom I will say nothing; not because I fear that the testimony of a friend will be suspected, ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... of infantry, when retreat was ordered, implies a serious lack of supervision both by the staff and by the officers then left in command of the battalions. Yet in weighing the responsibility for these errors, it must be borne in mind that the units composing the force had only just come together for the first time, that General, staff, and troops were all new to one another, and that the men engaged were not yet ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... friends. Charon, however, refused to remove him, and asked, "What life, what safety could be more honorable, than to die bravely with his father, and such generous companions?" Thus, imploring the protection of the gods, and saluting and encouraging them all, he departed, considering with himself, and composing his voice and countenance, that he might look as little like as possible to what in ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... Ambition, indeed, yet burned within, strong, undying, mighty; aye, perhaps mightier than ever, as the power of satisfying that ambition glided from his grasp. He had rested, indeed, a brief while, secure in the fulfilment of his darling wish, that every rood of land composing the British Isles should be united under him as sole sovereign; he believed, and rejoiced in the belief, that with Wallace all hope or desire of resistance had departed. His disease had been at its height when Bruce departed from his court, and disabled him a while from composedly considering how ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... of the career of Joseph Smith, Jr., and of his family and his associates, up to the year 1827, will fail to find any ground for the belief that he alone, or simply with their assistance, was capable of composing the Book of Mormon, crude in every sense as that work is. We must therefore accept, as do the Mormons, the statement that the text was divinely revealed to Smith, or must look for some directing hand behind the scene, which supplied the historical part and applied the theological. ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... dreams are made on." Often we do not recognize them. They may be very old memories, forgotten during waking hours, drawn from the most obscure depths of our past, or memories of objects we have perceived distractedly, almost unconsciously, while awake. They may be fragments of broken memories, composing an incoherent and unrecognizable whole. In a waking state our memories are closely connected with our present situation (unless we be given to day-dreams!). In an animal memory serves to recall to him the advantageous or injurious consequences which have formerly arisen ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... demeanor of Franklin attracted the attention of a merchant in Boston by the name of Matthew Adams. He invited him to his library and loaned him books. The lad's Uncle Benjamin, in England, who was very fond of composing rhymes which he called poetry, sent many of his effusions to his favorite nephew, and opened quite a brisk correspondence with him. Thus Benjamin soon became a fluent rhymester, and wrote sundry ballads which were sold in ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... severe fall while playing with little Isabel, and it is said she will be confined to bed for several weeks. I am very sorry for her." And, composing her face, she descended ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... or reconnoissance of the whole army, the qualities of the individual soldiers composing it were brought out in bold relief. The effect on our own division was marked. During the months we had been in winter quarters, many officers and men had established marvelous reputations for bravery and hardihood, merely by constantly ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... figure of selfe saying.] Ye haue another manner of composing your metre nothing commendable, specially if it be too much vsed, and is when our maker takes too much delight to fill his verse with wordes beginning all with a letter, as an English rimer that said: The deadly droppes of darke disdaine, Do ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... into the dim hallway and Mr. Edwards gave honest expression to his sense of relief by elevating his feet to the seat of a neighbouring chair, dropping the newspaper and, with a luxurious sigh, composing himself for his Sunday afternoon nap. But peace was not yet his, for a minute or two later Steve came hurrying in again. Mr. Edwards opened his eyes ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... of her pen-handle between her teeth, her eyes fixed absently upon the green park beyond the open window, composing a gorgeous costume in her mind. Before she could even decide whether to advise a ball-dress with CREPE DE CHINE, or a tea-gown with Oriental cashmere, one of the noiseless library doors swung back, and a ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... no distinction amongst men; that all are upon an equality, and that the only legitimate right to govern is an express grant of power from the governed. The Constitution of the United States is the instrument containing this grant of power to the several departments composing the Government. On an examination of that instrument it will be found to contain declarations of power granted and of power withheld. The latter is also susceptible of division into power which the majority had the right to grant, but which ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... almost be discredited, but the facts from which it was taken bear the signature of the officers composing the court-martial who sat upon the two remaining men. Mr. Maclean is at the present moment alive, and is now serving as a lieutenant in the coast-guard. Meldrum was promoted for his gallantry to the rank of gunner, and died ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... Great, and had composed a flock, or short poem, in his praise. When the king heard of this he was very angry, and ordered him to bring the next day a drapa, or long poem, by the time he went to table; and if he failed to do so, said the king, "he shall be hanged for his impudence in composing such a small poem about King Canute." Thorarin then composed a stave as a refrain, which he inserted in the poem, and also augmented it with several other strophes or verses. ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... tutor in more than appertained to affairs of State. It is more than likely that in Carr's wooing of Lady Essex he had held the role of Cyrano de Bergerac, writing those gracefully turned letters and composing those accomplished verses which did so much to augment and give constancy to her ladyship's love for Rochester. It is certain, at any rate, that Overbury was privy to all the correspondence passing between the pair, and that even such events as the supplying by Forman and ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... archbishop and a remonstrant ci-devant duchess,' cried Berkeley, lightly, 'upon the moral guilt and religious sinfulness of rebellion against the constituted authority of a communist phalanstery. It would be simply charming. I can imagine myself composing a dignified exhortation to deliver to his grace, entirely compiled out of his own printed pastorals, on the duty of submission and the danger of harbouring an insubordinate spirit. Do make me chaplain-in-ordinary to your house of correction for irreclaimable aristocrats, Le Breton, as soon as you ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... precious monument of the early history of the Teutonic invaders of the Empire, and it is from its pages that much of the information contained in the previous chapters is drawn. The object of the original statesman-author in composing his "Gothic History" is plainly stated in the above sentences. He wishes to heal the wound given to Roman pride by the fact of the supremacy in Italy of a Gothic lord; and in order to effect this object he strings together ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... hastily. "This is Mr. Harrington Surtaine. Mr. Surtaine, this is Max Veltman, foreman of our composing-room." ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... faculties, no cramping of legal acumen upon the farm; no suppressing of forensic oratorical powers at the shoemaker's bench; no stifling of exuberance of physical strength, of visions of golden crops and blooded cattle amid the loved country life in the dry clergyman's study, composing sermons to ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... good hands, that all the visions, and other tracts of that way of writing, with a very great number of the most exquisite pieces of wit and raillery through the 'Lucubrations' are entirely of this Gentleman's composing: which may, in some measure, account for that different Genius, which appears in the winter papers, from those of the summer; at which time, as the 'Examiner' often hinted, this friend of Mr. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... was an English journalist, poet, and miscellaneous writer. He was especially popular as a writer of songs, composing both words and music. Other well-known poems of his are "The Miller of Dee" and "Tubal Cain." "Little and Great" presents a familiar idea through a series of illustrations—the idea that great and lasting results may spring from unstudied ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... recently abandoned by the adult Indians, were now resumed by mere boys. The whole picture was one of strong animation, contrasting as it did with the quiet of the little post on the Island, where some twelve or fifteen men, composing the strength of the detachment, were now sitting or standing on the battery, crowned, as well as the fort and shipping, and in compliment to the newly arrived Indians, with ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... Emanuel. Monsieur Emanuel's eye was certainly often upon her. He would sit and watch her perseveringly for minutes together. I have seen him give her a quarter-of-an-hour's gaze, while the class was silently composing, and he sat throned on his estrade, unoccupied. Conscious always of this basilisk attention, she would writhe under it, half-flattered, half-puzzled, and Monsieur would follow her sensations, sometimes looking appallingly acute; for in some cases, he had the terrible unerring penetration ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... descend into the arena myself. I am an old athlete, whose business it is to judge of blows he can no longer give. In this sense, criticism is altogether within my sphere, and all the more because I have certain views on the proper method of composing dramatic feuilletons which I think novel. The 'castigat ridendo mores' ought to be, according to my humble lights, the great law, I may say the only law of the stage. I should therefore show myself pitiless for those works, bred of imagination, in which morality ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... A facility in composing, a lively, and what is called a masterly handling the chalk or pencil, are, it must be confessed, captivating qualities to young minds, and become of course the objects of their ambition. They endeavour to imitate ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... Consider why is the skeleton of this horse capable of supporting the masses of flesh and the various organs forming the living body, unless it is because of the action of the same forces of cohesion which combines together the particles of matter composing this piece of chalk? What is there in the muscular contractile power of the animal but the force which is expressible, and which is in a certain sense convertible, into the force of gravity which it overcomes? ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... observed that each colour may comprehend an indefinite series of shades between the extremes of light and dark, as each compound colour also may comprise a similar series of hues between the extremes of the colours composing it. And as the relations of colours have been deduced regularly, from white or light to black or shade; so the same may be done, inversely, from black to white. On this plan the tertiaries, olive, russet, and citrine, take the place ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... branch of elder tree, strip off the bark, split off a piece, hold this skewer near the wart, and rub the wart three or nine times with the skewer, muttering the while an incantation of your own composing, then pierce the wart with a thorn. Bury the skewer transfixed with the thorn in a dunghill. The wart will rot away just as ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... this view clearly before his countrymen, he set about composing the extremely vivid and successful play, perhaps the most successful pamphlet-play that ever was written, which was to put forward in the clearest light the claim of the minority. He was very busy with preparations for it all through the summer of 1882, ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... possessions of their neighbors, there was no permanence in their loves or their hatreds. The enemies of to-day were the allies of to-morrow. Guided entirely by the fleeting desires and passions of the moment, with no far-reaching plans to restrain, the sixty or more tribes composing the Gallic people were in perpetual state of feud and anarchy, apparently insensible to the ties of brotherhood, which give concert of action, and stability in form of national life. If they overran a neighboring country, it seemed not so much for permanent ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... but who, most likely from not supposing it could be an enemy, did not throw out the ardently looked-for signal, and therefore not a gun was fired. This is mentioned to show the state of discipline on board the ships composing Sir Samuel Hood's division, and that he, though second in command, would not fire a single shot until directed to do so by his commander-in-chief. 'It is more than probable that Sir S. Hood's reason for having ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... the principal focus depends not only on the shape of the lens, but also on the refractive power of the material composing the lens. A lens made of ice would not deviate the rays of light so much as a lens of similar shape composed of glass. The greater the refractive power of the lens, the greater the bending, and the nearer the principal focus to ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... violent; but, to my surprise and satisfaction, when my articles were finally brought together in book form, the opposition seemed to have exhausted itself. There were even indications of approval in some quarters where the articles composing it had previously been attacked; and I received letters thoroughly in sympathy with the work from a number of eminent Christian men, including several doctors of divinity, and among these two bishops, one of the Anglican and one of the American ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... friends, for he was too honest for intrigue and too proud to sue for favours, and there was much opposition on the part of many members, who declared that their purposes were at war, as they had assumed the task of composing the language, while he seemed to aim at its decomposition; but Mme. de Tencin had set her mind upon making of him an academician, and spared no pains to accomplish her purpose. The influence of this brilliant, scheming, unprincipled, and headstrong woman, aided by Bouhier, president of ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... day, and to his remonstrances laughingly observed that he was not in a proper state of mind to be trusted with the charge of a night-watch, and that Robinson, the oldest boat-steerer, should take his place. Coffin earnestly recommended a glass of hot punch, as "composing to the nerves;" but the patient declined, though he permitted Captain Hazard to qualify a tumbler of warm wine and water with thirty drops ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... belonging to the princess, to write a few letters home. A dinner was to be given to the state officials that night, and she knew from experience that after that solemn event was concluded it would be too late for the departing mails. She seemed to have no difficulty in composing her thoughts and transferring them to paper. There were times when she would lean back, nibble the end of her pen and smile in a dreamy, retrospective fashion. No doubt her thoughts ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... slid past, the boys fending her off, and the Parson already composing himself at the bottom of the boat, Nelson leaned over ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... the other side of the table looking quite as bored as I felt, his next neighbor being a young lady the exact counterpart in ideas and aims of the youth beside me. The dinner itself was a triumph of cook's skill, and, as is usually the case with a dinner suitably prepared, its effect was composing. Mr. Winthrop neither drank wine nor smoked, and did not encourage these habits in his guests; so that we all left the table together and proceeded to the drawing-room. I was the last of the ladies to pass from the room, and Mr. Bovyer joined ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... certain to profit them in New York, and it promised the special revenge which they desired in the defeat of Cass. The various local and State movements were merged in one great convention, which met at Buffalo on the 9th of August, with imposing demonstrations. Many of those composing it had held high rank in the old parties. Salmon P. Chase of Ohio was selected as president. The convention represented a genuine anti-slavery sentiment, and amid excitement and enthusiasm Martin Van Buren was nominated for President, and Charles ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... been practicable to enforce all the provisions of the act of June 28, 1898, "for the protection of the people of the Indian Territory, and for other purposes," it is having a salutary effect upon the nations composing the five tribes. The Dawes Commission reports that the most gratifying results and greater advance toward the attainment of the objects of the Government have been secured in the past year than in any previous year. I can ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... of works in Chinese, which were highly esteemed and appreciated by the Chinese themselves. He extended Christianity in the celestial empire more than anyone else, by his tolerance and keen diplomacy, by composing with great skill what he could not combat openly. This excited the wrath of the Dominicans, and gave rise to many controversies....Father Ricci was the associate of the famous ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... which he had purchased with some spare halfpence. Towards the close of the American war, he joined the army as a recruit, and soon thereafter followed his regiment across the Atlantic. His rhyming propensities continued; and he occupied his leisure hours in composing verses, which he read for the amusement of his comrades. At the conclusion of the American campaigns, he returned with the army to Britain; and afterwards procuring his discharge, he made a settlement in his native parish. For the period of seventeen years, according ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... in which only the form moves forward, while the water composing it moves up and down only, the sand dune and the material of which it is composed are both moving in the direction of the wind. A breeze even of five or six miles an hour will keep the lighter surface dust moving ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... distinction that the result of cell-division in the Metazoa is not merely to multiply cells all of the same kind: on the contrary, the process here gives rise to as many different kinds of cells as there are different kinds of tissue composing the adult organism. But no one, I should think, is likely to oppose the doctrine of continuity on the ground of this distinction. For the distinction is clearly one which must necessarily arise, if the doctrine ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... career of medicine, and he was bound apprentice some years ago to a worthy apothecary in town. But all has been undone by a sudden attack of the malady to which we have alluded. Whether Mr. John had been sent home with a diuretic or composing draught to some patient far gone in the poetical mania, we have not heard. This much is certain, that he has caught the infection, and that thoroughly. For some time we were in hopes, that he might get off with a violent fit or two; but of late the symptoms ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... was midnight, and very cold. De Lisle was a dreamer; his heart was moved, his head heated. The cold seized on him, and he went staggering to his lonely chamber, endeavouring, by degrees, to find inspiration in the palpitations of his citizen heart; and on his small clavicord, now composing the air before the words, and now the words before the air, combined them so intimately in his mind, that he could never tell which was first produced, the air or the words, so impossible did he find it to separate the poetry from the music, and ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... neither uniforms, tents, stores nor ammunition, many of them had no arms. There was no organisation, and little discipline. Even the exact numbers composing this army were not known. They were, in fact, as one of Washington's own officers said, "only a gathering of ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... furnished himself with a further sum for his own exigencies. It was late in the evening when he arrived on board of the Ter Schilling, which lay at single anchor, surrounded by the other vessels composing the Indian fleet. The captain, whose name was Kloots, received him with kindness, showed him his berth, and then went below in the hold to decide a question relative to the cargo, leaving Philip on deck to ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Admiral de Saint Vilquier did not often have occasion to meet during those days spent by each of them in entertaining official personages and in composing answers to the messages and inquiries which went on dropping in, both by day and by night, at the town hall and at the Admiral's quarters. But there came an hour when Admiral de Saint Vilquier at last sought to have a private word with the Mayor ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... literally the juice of any ingredient from which it is made—the extract of the meat, grains, or vegetables composing it. The most economical of soups, eaten with bread, will satisfy the hunger of the hardest worker. The absolute nutritive value of soup depends, of course, upon its ingredients; and these can easily be chosen in reference ...
— Twenty-Five Cent Dinners for Families of Six • Juliet Corson
... returned from Herts, where I have passed a few red-letter days with much pleasure. I would describe the county to you, as you have done by Devonshire; but alas! I am a poor pen at that same. I could tell you of an old house with a tapestry bedroom, the 'Judgment of Solomon' composing one pannel, and 'Actaeon spying Diana naked' the other. I could tell of an old marble hall, with Hogarth's prints, and the Roman Caesars in marble hung round. I could tell of a wilderness, and of a village church, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... with the small English ships, the big ships of the Spaniards, with their huge superstructures, looked like castles floating on the sea, and the ocean seemed to groan beneath its heavy burden. But how astonished the English must have been, both at the vast number and size of the ships composing the Armada, proudly floating up the Channel in a formation resembling an arc or segment of a circle ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... hope to expresse our selves both concerning the present Dangers and present Duties, as in a conscionable and Brotherly freedome, so in, a fair and in offensive way; for we have no pleasure nor purpose to provoke any Person or Party whatsoever, not to encrease, but to endeavour the allaying and composing of the present unhappy differences. If any shall offend at our discharging our conscience & doing our duty, yet we shall rather chose to take our hazard of that, then of displeasing God by neglect of duty. But we hope better things, then to be mis-understood, or mis-interpreted by such as ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... love you once:"—"I lov'd you not:"—and particularly in his enumeration of the faults of the sex from which Ophelia is so free, that the mere freedom therefrom constitutes her character. Note Shakespeare's charm of composing the female character by the absence of characters, ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... one occasion I avoided a certain thicket, one of my favourite daily haunts for three whole days, not to hear that one everlasting sound; then I returned and to my great relief the birds were all at their old game of composing, and not one uttered—perhaps he didn't dare—the too hackneyed phrase. I was sharply reminded one day by an incident in the village of this old Patagonian experience, and of the strange human-like weakness or passion ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... them. More lasting effect was produced by translators, who in later times have corrupted our idiom as much as, in early ones, they enriched our vocabulary; and to this injury the Scotch have greatly contributed; for composing in a language which is not their mother tongue, they necessarily acquired an artificial and formal style, which, not so much through the merit of a few as owing to the perseverance of others, who for half a century seated themselves on the bench of criticism, ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... of April 22 contained a review of Browning's 'Dramatic Lyrics,' charging him with taking pleasure in being enigmatical, and declaring this to be a sign of weakness, not strength. It spoke of many of the pieces composing the volume as being rather fragments and sketches than having any right ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... night just after you left, and I found him hard at it this morning when I went to see them. He must have been the life of the ship before she went ashore, for he goes about continually trolling out some verses of his own composing, though he has got no more idea of tune in him than the main-top-mast back-stay, to which, or something of the same kind, he makes very frequent reference. Here is a verse of ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... enter into the person of those Rishis. The goddess, for the good of the worlds did what she was ordered. In consequence of the entrance of the goddess of speech into their persons, those Rishis, well conversant with penances, succeeded in composing that foremost of treatises in respect of vocables, import, and reason.[1797] Having composed that treatise sanctified with the syllable Om, the Rishis first of all read it to Narayana who became highly pleased with what he ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... a leetle patience, your honour, and all will be out as quick as directly—in the twinkling of a bed-post.—For three successive nights I sat up in a brown study, with a four-in-the-pound candle burning before me till almost cock-crow, composing a love-letter, a most elaborate affair, the pure overflowing of la belle passion, all about Venus, Cupids, bows and arrows, hearts, darts, and them things, which, having copied neatly over on a handsome sheet of foolscap, turned up with gilt, (for, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... conscience of the artist or the composer. This lack of perceiving is too often shown by an over-interest in the material value of the effect. The pose of self-absorption, which some men, in the advertising business (and incidentally in the recital and composing business) put into their photographs or the portraits of themselves, while all dolled up in their purple-dressing-gowns, in their twofold wealth of golden hair, in their cissy-like postures over the piano keys—this pose of "manner" sometimes sounds out so loud that ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... of business. He thought in terms of human relationships, and out of them composed—never ceased composing—dramas, vivid, ruthless, terrible. It was very bad for him, of course, because it forced him into a strained detachment from the life all around him, and when he met people he was always bent on finding out what they were really thinking, instead of accepting what they ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... that abridges a ceremonial evermore tiresome than pleasing on such pressing occasions; and now, hurrying towards the main point, we found no conveniency to our purpose, two or three disabled chairs, and a rickety table, composing the whole furniture of the room. Without more ado, he plans me with my back standing against the wall, and my petticoats up; and coming out with a splitter indeed, made it shine, as he brandished it, in my eyes; and going ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... of setting a crowd in order, but they all go upon the same plan. The individuals composing the crowd are parcelled off into companies, each company having a distinguishing mark peculiar to those who compose it. Thus the first division is into a few large companies, which are afterwards subdivided into smaller ones, and those into others still less, ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... phantoms which represented every phase of the last bloody drama which was to close the career of those who loved, too dearly, our ill-fated land. But, come what might, my purpose was definitely fixed. I spent the evening in the deepest gloom, which I endeavoured to dissipate by composing the following stanzas, suggested at the time by involuntary visions of my wife and children at the ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... was as unshaken as any whose history has been recorded by the pen of inspiration. It doubtless was to the disciples of that age, as well as to himself, a most unaccountable dispensation that he should have been impeded in his great work by the necessity of composing dissensions and rectifying errors which were constantly arising in the churches which he had planted, and, most of all, that so many years of his life should have been spent in prison. Yet it is to these, at the time untoward circumstances, that we owe the writing of ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... Wynne had knocked at the door and had been confronted by Essec Powell himself, who presented such an extraordinary appearance that she had some difficulty in composing her face to a proper degree of gravity. His trousers of brown cloth, burnt at the knees into a green hue, were turned up above each ankle, exhibiting his blue woollen stockings and a tattered pair of black cloth shoes, his coat was of black cloth, very ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... to our narrative. Our space will not allow us to give more than a very brief sketch of the several searching expeditions which have been sent out, and the names of the ships and officers composing them. ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... composing these boards are designated by statute. The secretary of the organization is always a member. He is usually assisted by two or ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... indeed, I am aware that the Corinthians were remarkably attentive to provide for the maintenance and good condition of their cavalry by taxes levied on the inheritance of widows and orphans. To the first equestrian orders Lucius also added new ones, composing a body of three hundred knights. And this number he doubled, after having conquered the AEquicoli, a large and ferocious people, and dangerous enemies of the Roman State. Having likewise repulsed from our walls an ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... composing his features as he addressed me, "you are not desirous of bearing my commission and fighting my ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... exceptional fate. This caused him a solemn excitement. But he also knew that he owed himself a significant experience. Of course Billy was a part of it, that was settled, and now he was devising plans, busily composing the destiny of the beautiful, beloved youth. Occasionally he would stand still at the end of the avenue and look up at the house, up at the balcony on which the white figures of the two girls sat motionless, their shining faces turned ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... to a writer he had in view, thus giving her a visual demonstration. He took it to the office the next morning, intending to have it copied, but the manuscript accidentally attached itself to another intended for the composing-room, and it was not until the superintendent of the composing-room during the day said to him, "I didn't know Miss Ashmead wrote," that Bok knew where his ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... wrongly it is impossible to say—to Jesus among his materials, thought they were, or might be, records of a continuous discourse, and put them in at the place he thought likeliest. Ancient historians of the highest character saw no harm in composing long speeches which never were spoken, and putting them into the mouths of statesmen and warriors; and I presume that whoever is represented by "Matthew" would have been grievously astonished to find that any one objected to his following the ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... striving to give the fund a direction in favor of science; he (p. 304) hoped to make it subservient to a plan which he had long cherished for the building of a noble national observatory. He had much committee work; he received many visitors; he secured hours of leisure for his favorite pursuit of composing poetry; he delivered an enormous number of addresses and speeches upon all sorts of occasions; he conducted an extensive correspondence; he was a very devout man, regularly going to church and reading three chapters in his Bible every day; and he kept up faithfully ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... emeralds, all large perfect stones, he was completely surprised, and said to his son-in-law, "This palace is one of the wonders of the world; for where in all the world besides shall we find walls built of massy gold and silver, and diamonds, rubies, and emeralds composing the windows? But what most surprises me is, that a hall of this magnificence should be left with one of its windows incomplete and unfinished." "Sire," answered Aladdin, "the omission was by design, since I wished that you should have the glory of finishing this hall." "I take your intention ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... (Tenochtitlan), he remarks, "Four quarters had been formed by the localizing of four relationships composing them respectively, and it is expressly stated that each one might build in its quarter (barrio) as it liked." [Footnote: Duran (Cap V p. 42), Acosta (Lib. VII, cap. VII, p. 467), Herrera (Dec. III, Lib. ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... is my sole enthusiasm. Drinking thus, I meditate, discourse, resolve, and conclude. After that the epilogue is made, I laugh, I write, I compose, and drink again. Ennius drinking wrote, and writing drank. Aeschylus, if Plutarch in his Symposiacs merit any faith, drank composing, and drinking composed. Homer never wrote fasting, and Cato never wrote till after he had drunk. These passages I have brought before you to the end you may not say that I lived without the example of men well praised and better prized. It is good ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... is dying on my hands. Dost thou know that that Lygian hostage whom thou gavest him has been found, and Vinicius, when leaving for Antium, left her in care of a certain Linus? I did not mention this to thee, for thou wert composing thy hymn, and that was more important than all besides. Vinicius wanted her as a mistress; but when she turned out to be as virtuous as Lucretia, he fell in love with her virtue, and now his desire is to marry her. She is a king's daughter, hence she ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... neutrality of the United States between the belligerent nations of Europe. This proclamation was not issued until after Mr. Adams's articles urging this course had been before the public for some time. It is an honorable testimony to the sagacity of his views, that Washington, and the eminent men composing his cabinet, adopted a policy which coincided so perfectly with opinions he had formed purely from the strength of his own convictions. The proclamation pleased neither of the belligerent nations in Europe. It aroused the enmity of both; and laid open ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... and slender figures, the attitudes, and the general mise-en-scene vividly recall the earlier style of Carpaccio, who was at this very time composing his delightful fairy tales of the "Legend of S. Ursula."[21] Common to both painters is a gaiety and love of beauty and colour. There is also in both a freedom and ease, even a homeliness of conception, ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... a class of foods that are more digestible when cooked rare; also, that in these cases digestibility decreases in proportion to the length of time, as well as the number of times, the article has been cooked. The meat or fish composing such dishes should not come into direct contact with the source of heat; after being freed from skin, bone and fat, they should simply be heated in a hot sauce ...
— Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing-Dish Dainties - With Fifty Illustrations of Original Dishes • Janet McKenzie Hill
... into his house with the determination to assert his authority at once. Within all was very quiet. He looked into the dining-room—it was quite empty; into the study—also empty. He went slowly upstairs, composing his face into the appropriate expression. At the door of that chamber which to him should have seemed of all earthly chambers the most ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... definition and epigram—failure seemed to him almost impossible. And when he could feel able to lay claim legitimately to the title of genius, surely then the memory of his fraud would cease to reproach him—the means would be justified by the result. He amused himself by composing various critiques on the book (all of course highly eulogistic), and thus pleasantly occupied the way until he gained the cheerful Kensington High Street, the first half of which seems to belong to some bright ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... poets must have been composing or arranging the Lyrical Ballads, which were published the following year, i.e. 1798. Coleridge also in 1797 wrote the "Remorse," or rather the play he first called Osorio, the name of the principal character in it, but finding afterwards that there was a respectable family of ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... was constructed for the purposes of the festival, which was to continue five days. On the 15th of June, in the city of Boston, "The National Jubilee and Great Musical Festival" was begun. The number of instruments and performers composing the great orchestra was 1,011; and an organ of immense proportions and power, built expressly for the occasion, was employed. The grand chorus and solo vocalists numbered 1,040. Besides, one hundred anvils (used in the rendering of Verdi's "Anvil Chorus") were played upon by ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... all that I had before said, which often forced me into much confusion of words, which seemed to make her dints more deep than usual. Then the quiet of her home after a busy day of traffic and bargaining and buying and selling was infinitely composing to my mind. There were trees all about the house, and some orderly flowers—more of the herb species, I think, than the decorative. There were faint sounds coming from distant places, and when a great many stars were come and the wind waved the branches of the trees, the stars looked, as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... place since the year before last, and had, what is more, lived all along in very straitened circumstances. He had made the temple his temporary quarters, and earned a living by daily occupying himself in composing documents and writing letters for customers. Thus it was that Shih-yin had been ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... refused, but a truce for two years was granted to them. The dictator returned into the city in triumph. I have seen it asserted, that tranquillity was restored in Etruria by the dictator, without any memorable battle, only by composing the dissensions of the Arretians, and effecting a reconciliation between the Cilnian family and the commons. Marcus Valerius was elected consul, before the expiration of his dictatorship, many have believed, without his ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... landed, and 10 o'clock had been fixed upon as the hour for a full-dress visit to the sultan. As the time approached, Mr. Brooke, with our captain and the officers composing the party, came into the barge, and were pulled up to the sultan's audience chamber. This was a large three-sided building, facing the water, with a platform in front, on which were mounted five or six leilas, or native guns. The roof was slightly carved, ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... was perhaps founded by Eupompos, a contemporary of Parrhasios. His pupil Pamphilos brought the school to maturity. He apparently reacted from the deception motive of Zeuxis and Parrhasios, and taught academic methods of drawing, composing, and painting. He was also credited with bringing into use the encaustic method of painting, though it was probably known before his time. His pupil, Pausias, possessed some freedom of creation in ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... by Freycinet in composing his crew chiefly of sailors who were also skilled in some trade; so that out of the 120 men who manned the corvette Uranie, no less than fifty could serve on occasion as carpenters, ropemakers, sailmakers, blacksmiths, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... cannot afford to burn the MSS. in consequence, for the Bible, the "Grandes Heures," and other books once possessed by the wicked Duke, are among the most precious relics of any age. Add to them the beautiful volumes of poetry and romance composing the contemporary literature of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and we have treasures that ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... instance of the inefficiency of local descriptions in a very remarkable one by a writer of fine genius, composing with an extreme fondness of his subject, and curiously anxious to send down to posterity the most elaborate display of his own villa—this was the Laurentinum of Pliny. We cannot read his letter to Gallus, which the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... had already been twice visited and named, and Cook, though he did not visit them, gives all their native names in his list of the islands composing the Friendly or Tonga Group. The honour of their discovery belongs to the Spanish pilot Maurelle, who sailed from Manila in 1781, without proper charts or instruments and almost without provisions for his long voyage to America. Reduced to desperate ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... surface of the globe, and the plants which clothe its different regions, have each their own forms and characteristics; and, of course, a landscape, being an aggregate of these several parts, ought to reflect the varieties of the materials composing it. An artist must have carefully studied from nature to have acquired a nice perception of these varied effects, and even should he be able to grasp the result, he may not succeed in transferring it to his sketch. Far less can words convey an adequate idea of the varied effects ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... slowly to the little back parlour, and, seated in his accustomed chair, looked for it in the fire; but it was not there, though the fire was bright. He took out his tobacco-box and pipe, and composing himself to smoke, looked for it in the red glow from the bowl, and in the wreaths of vapour that curled upward from his lips; but there was not so much as an atom of the rust of Hope's anchor in either. He tried a glass of grog; but melancholy truth was at ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... hospitable sailors insisted on regaling us with a hot meal. Sat in cabin all the way as usual writing up my record. Freddie tells me that these studious habits of mine have started the shave that I spend my time composing poetry, especially ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... of Milton composing such a drama in the midst of the theatrical revival of the Restoration. Did ever poet set himself in such opposition to the literary current of his day? Dryden's unbounded admiration for him is well known: but he understood the genius of Paradise Lost ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... cortege suddenly drew up, and we soon found that the entire street opposite the Bank was filled with a dense mob of people, who appeared to be swayed hither and thither, like some mighty beast, as the individuals composing it were engaged in close conflict. It was nothing more nor less than one of those almost weekly rows, which then took place between the students of the University and the town's-people, and which rarely ended without serious consequences. The numbers of people pressing ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... paper and pencil in his pocket, noting down his feelings in verse inspired by the moment. It was the time when his poetical genius began to awaken to full life and consciousness. He began writing verses with great ease and rapidity, often composing half-a-dozen songs in a day; and though much of the poetry thus brought forth was but of an ephemeral kind, and of no great intrinsic value, the exercise, combined with extensive reading of nearly all the ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... part, he would be the first to condemn him, as one utterly bereft of his wits, and give orders for his being secured as a madman, unless he would immediately give a proof of his sanity by laying aside his sword, composing his spirits, and thanking his injured friends for their ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... emperor's decease; reported, or perhaps invented, his dying choice of the best beloved and most deserving of his nephews, and conjured Justin to prevent the disorders of the multitude, if they should perceive, with the return of light, that they were left without a master. After composing his countenance to surprise, sorrow, and decent modesty, Justin, by the advice of his wife Sophia, submitted to the authority of the senate. He was conducted with speed and silence to the palace; the guards saluted their new sovereign; and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... moderated, I yesterday and today visited the islands composing the group. A deep and clear channel of a mile in width separates these islands, the larger of which is surrounded completely, and the smaller partially, by an extensive reef. The former, or western one, is merely a long strip of heaped-up ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... painful, by continually and suddenly altering their tenor and direction, prevent that full tension, that species of uniform labor, which is allied to strong pain, and causes the sublime. The sum total of things of various kinds, though it should equal the number of the uniform parts composing some one entire object, is not equal in its effect upon the organs of our bodies. Besides the one already assigned, there is another very strong reason for the difference. The mind in reality hardly ever can attend diligently ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... did noble service, as did the 97th, but their own immediate commanders will no doubt allude to them more particularly. Thus ended the third assault upon our position. I should have remarked that the 100th Illinois, the other regiment composing my brigade, which was in reserve during the first engagement described above, had, under instruction of Col. Hazen, moved to the front on the left of the railroad, and taken up a position at right ...
— Personal recollections and experiences concerning the Battle of Stone River • Milo S. Hascall
... intelligence to let it be, it was out of the party that grew slowly a new resolve of Lydia's—to have some day as pretty hands and as well shod feet as Olga and Hilda and Cissy, to learn how to make her dresses so that even the composing of an organdy might not ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... each battalion will spread out in skirmishing-order, the remaining companies forming line and pouring in a continued fire by file; the second line of columns follows the first, and the battalions composing it pass at charging-step through the intervals of the first line. This maneuver was executed when no enemy was present; but it seems to me an irresistible combination of the advantages of firing ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... the Senate gave rise to a change of rank in the hierarchy of the different authorities composing the Government. Hitherto the Council of State had ranked higher in public opinion; but the Senate, on the occasion of its late deputation to the Tuileries, had for the first time, received the honour of precedency. This had greatly displeased some ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... always declared to be highly prosperous, if a liberal present has been made. During the performance of the ceremony, the forests appear in a blaze, the most discordant shouts rending the air, intermixed with the sounds of their instruments, composing altogether a tumult, which is heard at the distance of many leagues. The dancing is described as of the most ludicrous kind, marked by those indecencies, which generally distinguish the amusements of the ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... had been engaged in receiving and rejoicing over the two rescued youths, and soothing and composing their agitated spirits, now came forward to ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... in their positions; and finally, the rank and file lazy, untidy, and frankly contemptuous of the school of the soldier. Some one had once said of the Ninth that there was consolation to be found in the mortifying knowledge that the men composing it were there with the unique view of escaping jury duty. The consolation lay in the probability that such infernally bad soldiers would have made jurors quite as ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... out the best of his unpublished poems in a fair hand, and inserting them in his printed volume, presented it to those who seemed slow to buy: he rewarded the notice of this one with a song—the attentions of that one with a sally of encomiastic verse: he left psalms of his own composing in the manse when he feasted with a divine: he enclosed "Holy Willie's Prayer," with an injunction to be grave, to one who loved mirth: he sent the "Holy Fair" to one whom he invited to drink a gill out of a mutchkin stoup, at Mauchline market; and on accidentally ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... with her strong hands, she ran down the hall and burst into the brilliantly lighted exhibition room such a picture of affrighted, outraged girlhood that the salesman stared upon her in wonder. His look of surprise warned Bertha of her danger. Composing herself by tremendous effort of the will, she closed the door and walked slowly out into the street, her brain in a tumult of anger ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... upon the needle, both horizontally and vertically, I did not find, any more than captain Cook, that a piece of the stone applied to the theodolite drew the needle at all out of its direction; nevertheless I am induced to think, that the attraction was rather dispersed throughout the mass of stone composing Pier Head, than that any mine of iron ore exists in it. The stone is a porphyry of a ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... such a scheme for a National University would prove to be a failure, on account of the want of similarity in the Colleges composing the University. ...
— University Education in Ireland • Samuel Haughton
... certain parts of the circle. That such gaps were originally filled by standing stones is beyond question, indeed, the base of a "schistose" stone (see Class 3 in the Lithology above) was actually discovered by Mr. Cunnington in the course of his investigations into the nature of the rocks composing Stonehenge. It is highly probable that careful and scientific excavation may add greatly to our ...
— Stonehenge - Today and Yesterday • Frank Stevens
... teaching of creative art would elect chiefly from Group A. Lay students who are candidates for the A.B. degree and who expect to make writing or criticism in art, or teaching of art to lay students, or art museum work their vocation, would elect chiefly from Group B; as would, also, those composing the greater number, who study art as one ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... this doctrine (of human progress), the most difficult is that connected with the outward shows—in air, in colouring, in form, in grouping of the great elements composing the furniture of the heavens and the earth. It is most difficult, even when confining one's attention to the modern case, and neglecting the comparison with the ancient, at all to assign the analysis of those steps by which to us Christians (but never before) ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... centuries, and some recent Western writers have termed the Solar Plexus the "Abdominal Brain." The Solar Plexus is situated in the Epigastric region, just back of the "pit of the stomach" on either side of the spinal column. It is composed of white and gray brain matter, similar to that composing the other brains of man. It has control of the main internal organs of man, and plays a much more important part than is generally recognized. We will not go into the Yogi theory regarding the Solar Plexus, further than ...
— The Hindu-Yogi Science Of Breath • Yogi Ramacharaka
... of this company here, suffering from swelled-head, the harebrained impetuosity of youth, or judging that to them alone had been bequeathed the secret of all requisite reforms, advanced theories of their own composing. Of course they found adherents, especially when gain was scented, for to profit at another's expense is not unpopular, in some directions, from the top to the bottom of the world. But, as a rule, these theories were not long-lived. ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... ambition, should woman participate with him in these dispositions? And would not the inevitable consequence of her resigning herself to masculine offices and labors be, that she became as insane in the toil for riches as man; that she proved his rival instead of his ally; that far from composing and regulating the fire of his ambition, she did but kindle it to a devastating flame? To argue the contrary were to close our eyes on the native ardor of woman, and to forget the fearful agency of sympathy, ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... began work on another tale. It was his purpose to complete four or five stories before he sent any away. But to-day he did not get beyond half a dozen desultory start-offs. From McClintock's came an infernal tinkle-tinkle, tump-tump! There was no composing with such a sound hammering upon the ear. But eventually Spurlock laughed. Not so bad. Battle, murder, and sudden death—and an old chap like McClintock tuning his piano in the midst of it. He made a note of the idea ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... so engaged, Mrs. Sliverstone appears on tip-toe, and speaking in a solemn whisper, as if there were at least three or four particular friends up-stairs, all upon the point of death, implores you to be very silent, for Mr. Sliverstone is composing, and she need not say how very important it is that he should not be disturbed. Unwilling to interrupt anything so serious, you hasten to withdraw, with many apologies; but this Mrs. Sliverstone will by no means allow, observing, that she knows you would like to see him, as ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... cheerful Irishmen, in the neighborhood of St. Giles, it was proposed by the host to make a gift of a couple of fowls to him that, off-hand, should write six lines in poetry of his own composing. Several of the merry crew attempted unsuccessfully to gain the prize. At length the wittiest among them thus ended ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... start, ay, start and be surprised, and rise to meet him in a pretty disorder. Yes; oh, nothing is more alluring than a levee from a couch in some confusion. It shows the foot to advantage, and furnishes with blushes and re-composing airs beyond comparison. Hark! There's ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... and indeed are not cells. These fibres have, however, been made by cells, and a careful study of such tissue at proper places will show the cells within it. The cells shown in Fig. 18 (c) have secreted the fibrous material. Fig. 19 shows a cell composing a bit of nerve. At Fig. 20 is a bit of muscle; the only trace of cellular structure that it shows is in the nuclei (n), but if the muscle be studied in a young condition its cellular structure is more evident. ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn
... compartment, tenanted only by a single passenger and myself. He was an agreeable young man, although, in the natural acquaintanceship that we struck up, I regretted to learn that he was a writer of popular fiction, returning from Fort Worth, where he had been for the sole purpose of composing a poem ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... turn the muse of history upside down—a most disrespectful proceeding—and yet to ignore them—to forget all about them—to hang them up with your hat and coat in the hall, to remain there whilst you sit in the library composing your immortal work, which is so happily to combine all that is best in Gibbon and Macaulay—a sneerless Gibbon and an impartial Macaulay—is a task which, if it be not impossible is, at all events, ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... States of Central America, a minister was sent thither in July last. As yet he has had time to visit only one of these States (Nicaragua), where he was received in the most friendly manner. It is hoped that his presence and good offices will have a benign effect in composing the dissensions which prevail among them, and in establishing still more intimate and friendly relations between them respectively and between each of them ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... women,' and likewise the old—bless them for it!—have always taken a foremost part in the singing and preservation of our old ballads, and even in the composing of them. Bannockburn set their quick brains working and their tongues wagging tunefully, in praise of their own heroes and in scorn of the English 'loons.' Aytoun quotes from the contemporary St. Alban's Chronicle a stanza of a song, which ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... even in so elementary a part of the study as the classification of the tribes by language. As to the detailed study of the different linguistic families, the mastery and analysis of the languages composing them, and their comparison with one another and with the languages of other families, only a beginning has ...
— Indian Linguistic Families Of America, North Of Mexico • John Wesley Powell
... should such effects so quickly have followed upon the publication of the synodal decrees, in the several churches, had not the churches looked upon that synod as vested with juridical power and authority for composing and imposing ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... were recounting to those of Achaea, the various multitudes composing their royal master's forces, and ran over a long catalogue of hard names, "I supped once," said Titus, "with a friend, and could not forbear expostulating with him at the number of dishes he had provided, and said I wondered where he had ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... can be so styled) awoke from a restless sleep, with the first stanza of the following piece in his mind. He has no memory of composing it, either awake or asleep. He had long known the perhaps Pythagorean fable of the bean-juice, but certainly never thought of applying it to an amorous correspondence! The remaining verses are the contribution ...
— New Collected Rhymes • Andrew Lang
... far as Poe had any predecessor in the composing of a narrative, the interest of which should reside in the application of human intelligence to the solution of a mystery, this was not Balzac,—altho the American romancer was sufficiently familiar with the 'Human ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... believed that the people would fight for the flag that they pretended to venerate so highly. The Republican party had just emerged from a heated campaign, flushed with victory, and I could not think that the hosts composing the party would quietly yield all they had gained in the Presidential canvass. A show of war from the South, I felt, would lead to actual war in the North; and with the two sections bitterly arrayed ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... he will be back soon. And now," she added, with some impatience, "you have talked quite long enough. You must take your composing draught, and ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... feature, is first repeated by the low echo of it to the left; put your finger over this lower tower, and see how the picture is spoiled. Then the spires of Coblentz are all arranged in couples (how they are arranged in reality does not matter; when we are composing a great picture, we must play the towers about till they come right, as fearlessly as if they were chessmen instead of cathedrals). The dual arrangement of these towers would have been too easily seen, were it not for a little one which pretends to make a triad of ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... composing the plant of Tom Swift and his father at Shopton were enclosed by a high, board fence, and at one of the entrances was a sort of gate-house, where some one was always on guard. Only those who could give a good account of themselves, workmen in the plant, or those known to ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton
... the prize turkey, too big for anything but a poultry show; these leviathans and megatheria of the market were seen no more. In their stead came the subdued grace of the diner a la Russe, a well-chosen menu, before composing which Captain Winstanley studied Gouffe's artistic cookery-book as carefully as a pious Israelite studies the Talmud. The new style was as much more economical than the old as it was more elegant. The table, with the Squire's old silver, and fine dark blue and gold Worcester ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... 1893 (many of the sonnets composing this volume had appeared in the Revue des Deux Mondes and elsewhwere and ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... It is not clear what these were; probably the tenth and thirtieth divisions, composing the fourth corps. Compare Daily News War Correspondence, vol. i. pp. ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... Marquis could make himself infernally unpleasant. Having ridden over from head-quarters and settled the plans for the new assault, he returned to his main army and there demanded fifty volunteers from each of the fifteen regiments composing the First, Fourth, and Light Divisions—men (as he put it) who could show other troops how to mount a breach. It may be guessed with what stomach the Fifth Division digested this; and among them not a man was angrier than their old general, ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... practice has been abandoned by our bees to a great extent. I have made examinations when comb was first made, when it contained eggs, and when it contained larvae, and have never been able to find anything other than pure wax composing it. After a young bee has matured in a cell, the coating or cocoon that it leaves is of a dark color, somewhat resembling it, and may have given rise to the supposition. How the article is obtained, appears to be the mystery. This is a subject about which apiarians have failed ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby |
