"Composure" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... recovering his composure, "you are very kind to call so soon. I hope you are well, Frank? Are you staying with the colonel? You must come ...
— Making His Way - Frank Courtney's Struggle Upward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... speech the brave but timid girl looked him in the eyes with the embarrassed front of a child set to do a duty, mingled with the calm composure of a woman who knows and cherishes the ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... the communication of the note was listened to by the minister with fair composure; at the passage that our feelings were shared by those of all civilized nations, he observed that this was a mistake. With all the emphasis I could command, I pointed out how regrettable it would be if we could not come to an understanding with ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... seated at work with their needles, he commenced laying aside his outer garments, and exhibited to the scrutiny of the observant family party a tall and graceful person, apparently fifty years of age. His countenance evinced a settled composure and dignity; his eye was quiet, thoughtful, and rather melancholy; the mouth expressive of decision and much character. His whole appearance was so decidedly that of a gentleman that the ladies arose and, together with the master of the house, received anew and returned the complimentary ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... to refuse his late visitor admittance when he lighted on the expedient of concealing the trader in the bedroom at the rear. It was only natural, he reasoned, that Gale should dislike to face a man like Stark before he had regained his composure. ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... endure while waiting for the verdict which would either consign Raeburn to prison or leave him to peace and freedom. So horrible was the suspense that to draw each breath was to Erica a painful effort. Even Raeburn's composure was a little shaken as those eternal ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... provost-sergeant had to finish the work by shooting each culprit with a pistol. Nothing could have been more ill-favoured and dirty than the wretched victims; but they met their fate in silence and with the most dogged composure. ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... speaker did not vanish into the handkerchief, but caught her lip between her little teeth, and looking away, struggled for composure in a way that ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... must excuse my temper an' the show I made of myself," replied the girl, with composure. "That, to say the least, was not nice. An' I don't want anyone thinkin' better of me than I deserve. My mother died in Texas, an' I've lived out heah in this wild country—a girl alone among rough men. Meetin' y'u to-day makes ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... been at the Lodge eight times since then," explained Kate, with much composure; "but he will on no account be left alone with the head of the household. The General insulted him on politics, and I had to interfere; so he looks on me as a kind of protector, and I walk him out to the Beeches ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... another who sits cross-legged on a paper-weight, while a companion looks down on them from the top of the sand-box. It was an ingenious little device, and gave me the idea which I often expressed to my wife, that much of the peculiar feeling of security, composure, and enjoyment which seems to be the atmosphere of some rooms and houses came from the unsuspected presence of these little people, the household fairies, so that the belief in their existence became a solemn article of faith ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... assault of Mr. H. G. Wells, which, after scenes of splendid exasperations, ended in Wells' resignation. There was another slight ruffling of the calm when Bernard Shaw said some quite sensible things about Sir Henry Irving. But on the whole we confront the composure of one who has come into ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... said, with a forced composure that she felt did not deceive him. It was necessary to invent some explanation, and she continued hurriedly, "I did not sleep soundly last night. Some wandering night bird flew in through my open window and startled me with its frantic efforts to escape from the ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... recover her composure after this incident until they came near the Downs. Meantime the grooms had blown their horns at many villages hidden in the verdure of charming hollows, and the coaches had overtaken the people who had left London earlier in the day to make the journey afoot. ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... Mrs. Cadurcis revived by virtue of her single glass, and the providential co-operation of a subsequent one or two. Even the cakes and the Mountain, however, would not tempt her son to open his mouth; and this, in spite of her returning composure, drove her to desperation. A conviction that the Mountain and the cakes were delicious, an amiable desire that the palate of her spoiled child should be gratified, some reasonable maternal anxiety that after so long and fatiguing a drive he in fact needed some refreshment, and the agonising consciousness ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... with maddening composure. "But it's only fair to warn you that my aunt's already said all there is to say on the subject. The horses may drop dead," she reviewed swiftly on her slim brown fingers, "Johnny may fall heir to an apoplectic fit and fall ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... me—for anything, mind—you've only got to send me word. Wherever I am I'll come." He straightened up. He saw the girl make an effort to swallow, and glanced away to give her a chance to recover her composure. As he did so he saw a number of women and some men scattered about at the doorways of various houses. He promptly ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... she sat quietly on her perch, looked with stony composure over the heads of the multitude, indifferent alike to admiration and the uncharitable esteem of her own sex, and waited ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... cry). Be still, Renounce Wilton! Oh, what was that? (Clutches her.) A shadow? (With more composure.) If you do talk of witches we shall lose half the berries we have gathered, and Goodwife ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... speaking, she turned her head, in languid disgust away from the peering face of her companion, and carelessly paddled the tips of three dainty fingers in the quiet water, at the same time humming a gay little selection to herself. Her perfect ease and composure disconcerted him, not a little, it certainly was the most efficacious way of bringing him back to ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... and Night-cloud resumed their composure; and the Parrot took his departure, escorted by the Minister, and presented with complimentary gifts of gold and jewels. On reaching the palace of Jewel-plume, the King demanded his tidings, and inquired of the country he ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... school was barely three minutes' drive from the station, there was very little leisure either for conversation or the recovery of their composure, before the gallant steed was clattering over the ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... would be fatal. Yancey and the judge, who had been partly paralyzed at the rapidity of the transaction, conferred in a corner, while the agent proceeded to make a copy of the proposition with as much composure as if he bought a coal-mine every day. The colonel sat by himself, his chair tilted back, his ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... composure. "You use the word 'wife' very glibly," he said, with a yawn. "Do you use it when the lady is within hearing, as ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... my eyes, pointed to the signature—but without saying a word. This done, he replaced the document on the stump; and drawing his knife, stuck the blade through the paper, and left the weapon quivering in the wood! All these manoeuvres were gone through with as cool composure, as if they were only the prelude to some ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... the handsomest species of this family. In grace and elegance of manner he has no equal. Such a gentle, high-bred air, and such inimitable ease and composure in his flight and movement! He is a poet in very word and deed. His carriage is music to the eye. His performance of the commonest act, as catching a beetle, or picking a worm from the mud, pleases like a stroke of wit or eloquence. Was ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... there spurted into his face all at once a cry of pain, and two curses and twenty bad invectives, so that in his fright he raised his stick and also struck the trodden one. Immediately afterwards, however, he regained his composure, and his heart laughed at the folly he ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... deserve this panegyric. He lay in his chair without touching puss, it is true; but he kept his eye firmly and constantly fixed upon her, only restrained from an attack by my known objection to such proceedings, and by the immovable composure of the good lady herself. Half a movement of encouragement on my part, half a movement of flight on the cat's, and Rubens would have been after her. All this was so plainly expressed in his attitude, that I burst ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Benedict, struggling to retain his composure, "I can never repay your overwhelming kindness, ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... parish, under the auspices of their vicar, sang, or recited, or imitated the drawing of a champagne cork. Among the promised items was "Miss Honeychurch. Piano. Beethoven," and Mr. Beebe was wondering whether it would be Adelaida, or the march of The Ruins of Athens, when his composure was disturbed by the opening bars of Opus III. He was in suspense all through the introduction, for not until the pace quickens does one know what the performer intends. With the roar of the opening theme he knew that things were going extraordinarily; in the chords that herald the conclusion ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... wore the letter next her heart, but it did not warm her. She went through the next few hours in a sort of frozen composure and ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... was pointed down towards the herd of peccaries, several of which lay dead on the ground. Some of the others kept running about, but the greater portion were standing looking up at him. There he sat, with his usual composure, regularly besieged by them. The attention of the savage creatures was so occupied with him that they did ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... Ten-necked one in battle.' Thus remaining in disguise in various places, high-souled persons have before this conquered their enemies in battle. Thus cheered by these words of Dhaumya, the virtuous Yudhishthira, relying on his own wisdom and also that acquired from the scriptures regained his composure. Then that foremost of strong persons, the mighty-armed Bhimasena endued with great strength encouraging the king greatly, spake these words, 'Looking up to thy face (for permission), the wielder of the Gandiva, acting according ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... considered that the clergy, as persons set apart for the sacred office of serving at the altar, and impressing the minds of men with the aweful concerns of a future state, should be somewhat more serious than the generality of mankind, and have a suitable composure of manners. A due sense of the dignity of their profession, independent of higher motives, will ever prevent them from losing their distinction in an indiscriminate sociality; and did such as affect this, know how much it lessens them in the eyes of those whom they think to please by it, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... restlessness asserted itself again—the man was nervous, eager, sincere. His whole being was given up to this search; his whole heart and soul were enveloped in it. At first he worked steadily, like a mariner treading his way through known waters; but gradually his composure left him, and he became ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... hard under Time's discipline: not a curve had lost its grace, or its sweet mobility; and yet the hand of Time had been there; for on brow and lip, and cheek and eyelid, there was that nameless, grave composure, which said touchingly, that hope had long ago clasped hands with submission. And, perhaps, that if hope's anchor had not been well placed, ay, even where it could not be moved, the storms of life might have beaten even hope from her ground, and made a clean sweep of desolation ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... of development the attractiveness disappears. The want is the more to be regretted in that, at a later time of life, when the women have been moulded by motherhood and the men by all the stress and responsibility of their position, such composure and strength often appear in them as to justify a suspicion that these uncared-for people are by nature amongst the very ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... for his ease. In any case, since he had declared his coming, they must make the best of it. Finally, with all delicacy, Chandos offered his own purse if it would help in the matter. But already the Lady Ermyntrude had recovered her composure. ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... stepped into his own room and brought forth a glass of wine, which he calmly ordered her to sip, and then, seeing her heart was fluttering like a terrified bird's, he spoke gently and soothingly, and little by little she had regained some composure when the boy came down from the fourth floor to ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... spaciousness of Bakrota Mall, he had no choice but to ride abreast of his companion. He did so without remark, and since Quita lacked courage to spur her pony to a canter, they continued to ride thus for a time; each, under an admirable mask of composure, painfully aware ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... all, and he found himself suddenly called upon to answer a question which might have stumped a grown man. The question, however, was decided for him, and by a means so utterly unexpected that it came near jolting the Border Boys out of their composure; for Jack, as they had ridden up from the river, had admonished his companions to keep cool minds and wits and stiff upper lips whatever happened. They were going into a country in which, from what they had been ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... the drug get loose, do you suppose?" asked the Very Young Man, coming back to the center of the room. He had recovered his composure somewhat, though he was still very pale. He lighted a cigarette and sat ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... to reason at first, yet his anger is not quite appeased. Now and then the remembrance of the offence flashes upon him; he endeavours to hide his emotion by leaving me alone. I feel for him, and his grief touches me. It will require some time before he regains his composure, for if sorrow is suppressed too much, it easily becomes worse. O! here comes my foolish boy, the cause of all ...
— The Love-Tiff • Moliere
... mad Southerner," he thought, spinning round and surveying with composure the warlike posture of Lieutenant Feraud with the unsheathed sword ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... somewhat revealing light upon his ability as a pastor. At his only confirmation service there, the confirmants, we are told, wept so that he had to pause several times in his address to them in order to let them regain their composure. Since he was always quite objective in his preaching and heartily disbelieved in the usual revival methods, the incident illustrates his rare ability to profoundly stir even the less mature of his hearers by his objective presentation ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... his defeat well. He was pale, and his lips twitched with the effort to attain composure. He looked at Helen with a hungry longing ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... like,—-I will follow you." Without replying a word, and without looking at me, without hurrying, she walked steadily on till she entered the house No. 13 J...s Street, which I entered that day for the first time, but many hundreds of times since. Her composure, and the way she stopped from time to time to look at the shops as she went along astonished me: she seemed in no hurry, nor indeed conscious that I was close at her heels, though ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... he went to Brighton, and soon after his arrival his legs mortified. It was then that Taylor went down to him and told him that he was in great and immediate danger. He received the information with perfect composure. The gangrene, however, was stopped, and he came to town to the Duke of Rutland's house. The dropsy continued to make rapid progress, and some time in September he was tapped; twenty-two pints of water were drawn. from him. This operation was kept secret, for ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... curious about the singular machinery of the locomotive, and as much excited by the decorations and appointments of the cars, as the most ignorant white man. But the moment they discovered that their movements were observed, they resumed their dignified composure; and, if you had judged of the Indian country by their subsequent deportment, you might have believed that the vast prairies of the Missouri were everywhere intersected by railroads—that the Indian had, in fact, ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... not be extended to the leader of the rebels, and that his death was indispensable to the permanent tranquillity of the country. When led to execution in the great square of Cuzco,—the same spot where his father had suffered but a few years before,—-Almagro exhibited the most perfect composure, though, as the herald proclaimed aloud the doom of the traitor, he indignantly denied that he was one. He made no appeal for mercy to his judges, but simply requested that his bones might be laid by the side of ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... though a severe sufferer on his account, along with her family of five or six children, continued most devoted in her attachment to him. On her death, which took place in the Cowgate, Edinburgh, early in 1817, he became almost distracted, and never recovered his former composure. He now roamed wildly through the country, seldom remaining more than one night in the same place. He finally returned to Dumfriesshire, his native county; and accidentally falling into the Nith, caught an inflammatory ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... avowedly irreligious and immoral; of exposing thy understanding and thy heart to such stratagems as his philosophy made laudable and necessary? But I know not what I would say. I must lay down the pen till I can reason myself into some composure. ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... semi-colonial composure were succeeded by the thrilling experiences that a new industrial prosperity thrusts upon a really democratic electorate. Little wonder that the labor union movement took the political by-path, seeking salvation in the promise ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... reached Froidmanteau, about four leagues from Paris. It was there that the Emperor received from General Belliard, who arrived at the head of a column of artillery, the first intelligence of the battle of Paris. He heard the news with an air of composure, which was probably affected to avoid discouraging those about him. He walked for about a quarter of an hour on the high road, and it was after that promenade that he sent Caulaincourt to Paris. Napoleon ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... her husband's ostentatious neglect there is no direct evidence to show. That she ultimately took refuge in indifference we can perceive, but it is to be feared that she was not always able to maintain the attitude of contemptuous composure. So, at least, we may suspect from the evidence of that Frenchman who met "le bon et agreable Tristram," and his wife, at Montpellier, and who, characteristically sympathizing with the inconstant ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... white, who looked like a man who did not spare himself or live for himself. He had a pleasant word for everybody, however unpleasant and unpromising they might seem, and bore all the remarks and jests of unfriendly loafers with great good-humour and composure. ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... of my dwelling, even the door which I had just opened myself unconsciously, and which had closed of itself, when the last thing had taken its departure. I took flight also, running towards the city, and I only regained my self-composure on reaching the boulevards, where I met belated people. I rang the bell of a hotel where I was known. I had knocked the dust off my clothes with my hands, and I told the porter how that I had lost my bunch of keys, which included ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... Anderson now became an impenetrable mystery to Dorn. But that only accentuated the distance she had intimated lay between them. Her kindness stung him to recover his composure. He wished she had not been kind. What a singular chance that had brought her here to his home—the daughter of a man who came to demand a long-unpaid debt! What a dispelling of the vague thing that had been only a dream! Dorn gazed away across the yellowing hills to the dim ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... brought to me composure. While I was dressing, I heard the music of my Savoyards under the window. I did not trust myself to look out; but, after breakfasting, I went into the street to search ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... attempting to open the door. He now turned round to me, and asked my permission to use force. And I should here state, in justice to the servant, that, far from evincing any superstitious terrors, his nerve, composure, and even gaiety amidst circumstances so extraordinary compelled my admiration, and made me congratulate myself on having secured a companion in every way fitted to the occasion. I willingly gave him the permission he required. But though he was a remarkably ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... Those of us who believe in crowds are deeply interested in finding, recognizing, creating, and in seeing set free out of the ranks of men the labour leaders who shall express the nobility and dignity of modern labour, who shall express the bigness of spirit, the brawny-heartedness, the composure, the common-sense, the patriotism, the faithfulness ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... won back her composure, and I turned on my light to look at her. She was in nurses' outdoor uniform, and I thought her eyes seemed tired. The priceless gift that had suddenly come to me had driven out all recollection of my own errand. I thought ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... provides for me, while He so graciously leads me by the hand, and conducts me on the way, I will, since it is His pleasure, rather rejoice than repine at being blind. And, my dear Philaras, whatever may be the event, I wish you adieu with no less courage and composure than if I had the eyes of ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... His composure irritated Kate: "You are very much mistaken," she declared with spirit in her words, for she saw—indeed knew—how persistent he was. "I was only trying to leave ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... advanced, not noticing Emily's expression of surprise. "I am not very strong at the best of times," she continued, "may I sit down on your bed?" Remarkable on other occasions for her cold composure, her voice trembled as she made that request—a strange request surely, when there were chairs ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... Lord Harry at the milestone. Her better sense acknowledged Hugh Mountjoy's superiority over the other man—but her heart, her perverse heart, remained true to its first choice in spite of her. She made an impatient excuse and went out alone to recover her composure in the farm-house garden. ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... had in charge, and read them aloud in open court. All was silence, and all apparent approval (intentique ora tenebant) as these earliest key-notes of freedom resounded through the hall of the old court house in Salisbury. There sat around, in sympathizing composure, those sterling patriots, Moses Winslow, Waightstill Avery, John Brevard, William Sharpe, Griffith Rutherford, Matthew Locke, Samuel Young, Adlai Osborne, James Brandon, and many others, either members of the court, or of the county "Committee of ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... nature; be this as it may, he certainly showed his supremacy in strength over the denizen of the air, for, walking deliberately and uprightly toward the poor bird, he at once killed it, with unnatural composure. The sensations of my infant heart at this cruel sight were agony to me. I prayed the servant to beat the monkey, but he, who for some reason, preferred the monkey to the parrot, refused. I uttered long and piercing cries, my mother rushed into the ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II., No. 5, November 1897 - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... retreat for his old age among the faithful republicans of Switzerland. When his advocates came to tell him that there was no hope, he refused to believe them. "You are mistaken," he said; "they would never dare." He quickly recovered his composure, and declined to ask permission to see his family. "I can wait," he said; "in a few days they will not refuse me." A priest who applied for leave to attend him was sent to prison. As a foreigner was less likely to be molested, the king asked for the abbe Edgeworth, ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... charging him to render his arms. Kersland told him he had none but the Bible, which he had then in his hand; and that was enough to condemn him in these times.—At parting with his lady, she shewed much calmness and composure, exhorting him to do nothing that might wound his conscience out of regard to her or her children, and repeated that text of scripture, No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... it was not a topic likely to act as a sedative; and that, therefore, unless he made a longer stay than the urgent state of his affairs permitted, he was not likely to find Mistress Deborah in such a state of composure as might enable him to obtain from her any rational ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... and the reiterated repetition of her sorrow for her never having been able to get a sight of me before, I thought ill-judged: but no matter; many people in her station make these sort of unmeaning speeches. If I had suffered my imagination to act, I should have fancied that under a sort of prepared composure there was constraint and alarm in her look as she spoke to me. I thought she trembled; but I resolved not to be prejudiced—and this I repeated ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... by the paper that he was thrown from his cabriolet last night, and severely injured, and that his life is in some danger,' answered Ralph with great composure; 'but I see nothing extraordinary in that—accidents are not miraculous events, when men live ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... person who sees with clearer eyes may be of inestimable value. When the heart is failing and despair is setting in, then to hear the voice or grasp the hand of a friend, in a shipwreck, in a defeat, in some other failure or misfortune, may restore the necessary courage and composure to the paralysed and disordered mind, and convert the feeble person into ...
— Lysis • Plato
... that is through the orderly processes of representative government. Those who would propose any other method of reform are enemies of this country. America will not be daunted by threats nor lose her composure or calmness in these distressing times. We can afford, in the midst of this day of passion and unrest, to be self-contained and sure. The instrument of all reform in America is the ballot. The road to economic and social reform in America is the straight road of justice ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Woodrow Wilson • Woodrow Wilson
... abashed, now, in his presence. She sought vainly for the poise and composure which were her natural birthright in most of the situations of life. Yet her perturbation was not that of distress. The sight of him, the sound of his voice, even if he were not saying good morning to her, would cheer her heart for one whole, long, hot ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... one of the party begins to strip the pine-apple head, and the person whose guess is furthest out has to pay for the sherry. My equanimity was disturbed by shouts of THE AMERICAN COMMODORE, and I found that Austin had entered and lost about a bottle of sherry! He turned with great composure and addressed me. 'I am afraid I must look to you, Uncle Louis.' The Sunday School racket is only an experiment which I took up at the request of the late American Land Commissioner; I am trying it for a month, and if I do as ill as I believe, and the boys find it only half ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... vacantly, then with a crafty yet wondering look; and then I saw the devil of murder begin to peep forth from those hideous eyes, and the lips to part as in a sneer, and the wolfish teeth to bare themselves. But I was not what I had been. Fear gave me a new and a desperate composure—a courage foreign to my nature. I had heard of the best method of managing the insane; I could but try; I DID try. Calmly, wondering at my own feigned calm, I fronted the glare of those terrible eyes. Steady and ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... to release his hold and Boyd sat up, brushing bits of grass from his shirt sleeves even as he returned Mr. McKeever's stare with composure. ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... maid's composure vanished at once—likewise her decorum. She clapped her hand over her mouth and fled, uttering sounds. The governess, however, set herself to comfort her heartbroken charge, and presently succeeded in restoring Miss Rennsdale to a semblance of that poise with which a lady receives ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... stood, white and shaken, striving to regain her composure. She must regain it, she must be cool and calm in order to go through the ordeal she knew was before her. His coming could mean but one thing: his father had still refused consent and he had come to tell her so and to beg her to wait for him in spite of it. If ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... took the light from Mr. Moncton's hand, and his station beside my bed. My too lively imagination pictured the witch-like face, with its dark, snaky eyes, bending over me, and I found it impossible to maintain, with any appearance of reality, the composure I had assumed. In order to conceal the excited state of my mind, and to convince her of the certainty of my pretended slumber, I threw out my arms, and began to toss and turn, and mutter in my sleep, putting on all the contortions ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... to the judge's house while we were there. He advanced and addressed me, courteously enough, in a long speech full of flowery language, the tenor of which was that I must become his wife. I answered, with as much composure as I could command, that such a thing was impossible, and that I must beg to decline the honour he intended me. I avoided, as I thought, saying a word to annoy him; but I suppose I exhibited the indignation I felt. Suddenly seizing ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... people who can take losses beyond their means with perfect cheerfulness and composure. Some few are so imbued with the gambler's instinct that a heavy turn of luck, in either direction, is the salt of life. But the average person is equally embarrassed in winning or losing a stake "that matters" and the only answer is to play for ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... did marry," said Miss Jewell, with remarkable composure, "if ever I was foolish enough to do such a thing, I think I would marry a man a ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... advantage. Write to me, and comfort me, dear child. I shall be glad likewise, if Kitty will write to me. I shall send a bill of twenty pounds in a few days, which I thought to have brought to my mother, but God suffered it not. I have not power nor composure to say much more. God bless ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... a profound sense of relief that she handed it to the messenger, and realized that, during that day and evening at least, she should be free, and so able to gather back her old composure and self-assurance. Mr. Belcher's note she placed with her copy of the book, as her authority for passing it into other hands than ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... poet in the first book of his Franciades" (says Mons. Favine; but what poet I know not, nor can enquire) "encounters" (in the sense of en-quarters, or depicts as a herald) certain fables on the name of the French by the adoption and composure of two Gaulish words joyned together, Phere-Encos which signifieth 'Beare-Launce,' (—Shake-Lance, we might perhaps venture to translate,) a lighter weapon than the Spear beginning here to ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... take as a just penance. But, Margaret—Frederick!' At the mention of that one word, she suddenly cried out loud, as in some sharp agony. It seemed as if the thought of him upset all her composure, destroyed the calm, overcame the exhaustion. Wild passionate cry succeeded to cry—'Frederick! Frederick! Come to me. I am dying. Little first-born child, come ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... found ourselves alone, she recovered her composure; and I must say, without considering myself thereby flattered, that she smiled upon me with one ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... to knowledge, 'Therefore he who knows this, having become calm, subdued, satisfied, patient, and collected, should see the Self in Self (Bri. Up. IV, 4, 23). As calmness of mind and the rest are seen, in so far as implying composure and concentration of mind, to promote the origination of knowledge, they also must necessarily be aimed at and practised. Nor can it be said that between works on the one side and calmness and so on on the other, there is an absolute antagonism; ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... my hands of the blood that may be spilled. I protest against the system, as the most flagrant violation of every principle of justice and humanity. I NEVER WILL DESERT THE CAUSE. In my task it is impossible to tire: it fills my mind with complacency and peace. At night I lie down with composure, and rise to it in the morning with alacrity. I NEVER WILL ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... Maisie could perfectly embrace, but it still left a loophole for triumph. She turned it well over. "You mean if mamma doesn't come back ever at all?" The composure with which her face was presented to that prospect would have shown a spectator the long road she had travelled. "Well, but that won't put ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... interval of its election, as well as a longing for "settlement," drove the Council to complete their work by pressing the office of "Protector" upon Cromwell. "They told me," he pleaded afterwards, "that except I would undertake the government they thought things would hardly come to a composure or settlement, but blood and confusion would break in as before." If we follow however his own statement, it was when they urged that the acceptance of such a Protectorate actually limited his power as Lord-General, and "bound his hands to act ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... a great misfortune, was conveniently conspicuous to attest the truth of my assertions. Nothing, I found, was so easy as to deceive the Turks by outward appearance. Their taciturnity, the dignity and composure of their manner and deportment, their slow walk, their set phrases, were all so easy to acquire, that in the course of a very short time I managed to imitate them so well, that I could at pleasure make myself one of the dullest and most solemn of their species. So perfect ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... his tobacco. His matches were in a tight tin box, so in a few moments the old sailor was smoking contentedly. Trot knew it helped him to think when he was in any difficulty. Also, the pipe did much to restore the old sailor's composure, after his long ducking and his terrible fright—a fright that was more on Trot's account than ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... current of the ebb, I began, afterwards, to be more sedate in my mind, being satisfied that I might go abroad with safety all the time of the tide of flood, if they were not on shore before: and having made this observation, I went abroad about my harvest-work with the more composure. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... had gained the main highway, and Sandy had disappeared, that they recovered their composure and could speak ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... your early life I would speak, my child," said Mr. Halberg, with an effort at composure. "I have never trusted myself to ask of you your history previous to your adoption by Mrs. Dunmore; but the time has come when I wish to know it, and, however painful the details may be, you must no longer hide ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... her Biographic Sketches, are stern; and some—like that on Macaulay, for instance—may even pass for harsh. But they are never the product of mere anger or heatedness, and it is a great blunder to suppose that reasoned severity is incompatible with perfect composure, or that calm is another name for ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 6: Harriet Martineau • John Morley
... hand, observed him anxiously watching the 42nd, which was warmly engaged, and told him they were advancing; and upon that intelligence his countenance brightened. Colonel Graham, who now came up to assist him, seeing the composure of his features, began to hope that he was not wounded, till he perceived the dreadful laceration. From the size of the wound, it was in vain to make any attempt at stopping the blood; and Sir John consented to be removed in a blanket ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... PANZA's Doctor was, to our very appetites: for in the difference of Tragedy and Comedy, and of Fars [farce] itself, there can be no determination, but by the taste; nor in the manner of their composure. And, whoever would endeavour to like or dislike, by the Rules of others; he will be as unsuccessful, as if he should try to be persuaded into a power of believing, not what he must, but what others direct ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... a fell adder swelling in a brake, Beneath the covert of this verdant arch, In private conference; beside him stood Two men unknown, the partners of his bosom; I mark'd them well, and trac'd in either face The gloomy resolution, horrid greatness, And stern composure, of despairing heroes; And, to confirm my thoughts, at sight of me, As blasted by my presence, they withdrew, With all the speed of terrour and ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... and, extending his strong brawny arms with a look of determined resolution, he offered himself to the contest. The soldier was nothing abashed by the muscular frame, broad chest, square shoulders, and hardy look of his antagonist, but, whistling with great composure, unbuckled his belt, and laid aside his military coat. The company stood round them, anxious ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Her composure was greater than his. He had expected her to fly at him with abuse. Something in her manner egged him ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... said that he wes thinkin' o' Annie's tribble, but ony wy a' ca' it rael bairnly. It's no like Drumtochty; ye're setting an example, Milton, wi' yir composure. But a' mind ye took the doctor's meesure as sune as ye cam ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... effect; they went with great composure, that very instant, to change their dress; and the next day I had the satisfaction of finding my daughters, at their own request employed in cutting up their trains into Sunday waistcoats for Dick and Bill, the two little ones, and what was still more satisfactory, ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... concluding the bargain, I have promised George Hillard to consult him, and let him do the business. Is not this consummate discretion? and am I not perfectly safe? . . . . I look at the matter with perfect composure, and see all round my own position, and ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... which Henry and Jane had just quitted, Anne sank into it. After a little time, having in some degree recovered her composure, she was about to return to the great hall, ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... by which he designed to depose the Regents and to take the reins of government into his own hands. Taken by surprise, the Queen received Milan, but when she saw him standing before her, an aged, broken man, her composure gave way. She could not speak; she trembled ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... it is, that in the Composure of a Sallet, every Plant should come in to bear its part, without being over-power'd by some Herb of a stronger Taste, so as to endanger the native Sapor and vertue of the rest; but fall into their places, like the Notes in Music, in which there should be nothing harsh or grating: ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn
... tell you my object in getting the present,' said Knight, with a composure intended to remove from her mind any possible impression of his being what he was—her lover. 'You see it was the very least I ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... but he was always subject to fits of blind frenzy, during which his wit and his genuine sagacity left him. No one followed him to his grave; but he was visited in hospital by a tall, fair lady, who gazed on him with stern composure. He sneered even while dying. "I'm a pretty object, am I not? I was going to shake the world. ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... the queen, it was really extraordinary to see with what composure, what resourcefulness she received the dreadful news. She drew herself up, and there was something in her attitude that both intimidated and inspired endless confidence. Little Maya was awed. Never, she felt, had she witnessed anything so superior. It was like a great, ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... very strange!" And Mrs. Pennypoker looked questioningly at Wang Kum, who returned her gaze with impenetrable composure. "I thought I should surely hear from brother Nathaniel to-day. What can have ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... said, with all the composure, and much of the impudence, which then, as now, characterized the young Etonian, "don't be staring like a pack of stuck pigs. You had better get the fresh horses in, and drive back to the bottom, about four miles from here. There has been regular ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... blush for a weakness which you hold in common with almost all the world, and from which the greatest men are not always exempt. Let your courage then revive, and fear not to examine with perfect composure the phantoms which alarm you. In a matter which so greatly interests your repose, consult that enlightened reason which places you as much above the vulgar, as it elevates the human species above the ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... angels cried, 'Is this dear Nature's manly pride? Call hither thy mortal enemy, Make him glad thy fall to see! Yon waterflag, yon sighing osier, A drop can shake, a breath can fan; Maidens laugh and weep; Composure Is the ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... place beside the river, Therese experienced secret thrills of joy. Her aunt had so frequently repeated to her: "Don't make a noise; be quiet," that she kept all the impetuosity of her nature carefully concealed within her. She possessed supreme composure, and an apparent tranquillity that masked terrible transports. She still fancied herself in the room of her cousin, beside a dying child, and had the softened movements, the periods of silence, the placidity, the faltering speech of an ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... with a volubility scarcely imaginable, he commenced a long narrative of his greatness, power, and dignity, in which he excelled all his neighbours, and to this I was constrained to listen with assumed composure and attention for a considerable time. To convince me of his veracity, he produced a pocket book, containing a great number of recommendatory notes, or 'characters,' as a domestic would call them, written in the English, French, Spanish, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... banish from my mind those painful reflections, and bashful apprehensions, that made me dread to see him for the first time this day, when I was called to attend him at breakfast; and made me all ease, composure, and tranquillity. ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... had just taken place rendered every effort at composure necessary on the part of Lucy, before the return of Lady Gourlay. This lady, strange as it may seem, she had yet never seen or met, and she now began to reflect upon the nature of the visit she had made her, as well as of the reception she might get. If it were possible that her father had ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... virtue; whereas agitation and panics and ignoble flights, and boyish delights, and lamentations in the case of sad and strange dreams, are like the waves that break on the coast, the soul not having yet got its proper composure, but being still in course of being moulded by opinions and laws, from which it escapes in dreams as far as possible, so that it is once again set free and open to the passions. Do you investigate all ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... facility in submitting to other People's Censure is sometimes as faulty as a great roughness in rejecting it: for there is no Composure so every way accomplisht, but what would be pared and clipped to nothing if a man would follow the advice of every finical scrupulous Critick, who often would have the best Things left out because forsooth, they are not agreeable to his ...
— The Present State of Wit (1711) - In A Letter To A Friend In The Country • John Gay
... again. While the two elder girls were more loquacious than their wont, Laura was quieter. She had never wholly recovered her humour since the day of the history-examination; and she still could not look back, with composure, on the jeopardy in which she had placed herself one little turn of the wheel in the wrong direction, and the end of her schooldays would have been shame and disgrace.—And just as her discovery of God's ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... cool starry night to recover his breath and to regain his composure. It was as if he had struggled through a whirlpool or had wrenched himself away from the downpour of a cataract. Virgilia's interest, her enthusiasm, her co-operation had reared itself above him and toppled over on him just like a high, ponderous wall; the bricks bruised him, the dust of scattered ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... centuries uncounted the yellow man advanced across the plains and peaks of Asia, finding at last in these outlying islands his farthermost outpost, and so tarried here in the Farthest East, "the Land of the Rising Sun." He hardly thought of the existence of a West, but if his Buddha-like composure had been ruffled by such a thought, he might ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... cried Francois cheerfully, and picking up his hat, started rapidly away. Josephte came in at the gates as he was passing out; she bowed to him, and moved by us into the house, wrapped in the composure of ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... presence of man, gave a partial cheerfulness to this part of the prospect; and the sound of voices, which, during the cold weather, could be heard at a much greater distance than usual, served, now and then, to break the silence which reigned around,—a silence far different from that peaceable composure which characterizes the landscape of a cultivated country: it was the death-like stillness of the most dreary desolation, the total absence of ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... the other room. Lady Sand-gate was in fact almost already upon them—their disjunction had scarce been effected and she had reached the nearer threshold. They had at once put the widest space possible between them—a little of the flurry of which transaction agitated doubtless their clutch at composure. They gave back a shade awkwardly and consciously, on one side and the other, the speculative though gracious attention she for a few moments made them and their recent intimate relation the subject ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... so evident that she had been a curious spectator of his abrupt entrance on deck that he was at first disconcerted and confused. But after a second glance at her he appeared to resume his composure, and advanced a little ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... work and put things in order so that they could cook supper and all lay their weary bodies down to rest. They were young, and soon their trials were forgotten in a sweet, refreshing sleep. Nell had regained her composure enough to help them the next morning, though she was yet very quiet when Austin went off to ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... done in the face of that curt refusal. The friend, triumphing in his own brick-kiln and his own more pliable master, jeered, dug him in the ribs at the Sunday gatherings, and talked of dependence, obedience, and restricted powers. Such friends are difficult to endure with composure; and Dellwig, and still less his wife, for many months past had hardly been able to bear the word "brick" mentioned in their presence. When Anna appeared on the scene, so young, so foreign, and so obviously foolish, Dellwig, ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... heal. Their very footsteps move more evenly than other men's, as though guided by the rhythm of a music others do not hear; their very hands have a softness only known to hands that bind up wounds and wipe men's tears away; and in all their movements and their aspect is a stillness and a sweet composure, as of hearts at rest. Whence are these, and why are they arrayed in white robes? And we know the answer, though no angel-voice may speak to us; these are they on whose bowed heads the starlight of Gethsemane has fallen, in whose hands are the wounds of service, in whose ...
— The Empire of Love • W. J. Dawson
... face full of love Thora stooped and kissed her mother and anon began to set the table for the expected guests. With sandalled feet and smiling face, she walked about the room with the composure of a goddess. There was no hesitation concerning what she had to do; all had been arranged and settled in her mind previously, though now and then, the discussion of a point appeared to be pleasant and satisfying. Thus she ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... Darius. He was but technically his enemy, being only engaged in a generous and honorable contest with him for the empire of Asia. Saying these things, Leonnatus raised the disconsolate ladies from the ground, and they gradually regained some degree of composure. ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... hiding, it is certain that the buccaneers had traversed pretty nearly the whole town before they discovered that he was lying at a certain auberge kept by a Portuguese Jew. Thither they went, and thither Captain Morgan entered with the utmost coolness and composure of demeanor, his followers crowding noisily in ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... recovered his composure by the following morning and was addressing Mr. Skinner as "Skinner, my dear boy," when another telegram from Matt Peasley created a very distinct variation in his mental compass. ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... as, with puzzled brow, her eye followed her pen up and down the ruled page. By-and-by she shut the book, locked the desk, and came and drew a chair to mine, where I sat in moody sorrow over the fire. I stole my hand into hers; she clasped it, but did not speak a word. At last she said, with forced composure in her voice, "If that bank goes wrong, I shall lose one hundred and forty-nine pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence a year; I shall only have thirteen pounds a year left." I squeezed her hand hard and tight. I did not know what to say. Presently (it was too dark to see her face) I felt her ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the spark to tinder, the lead at last. "Everything, Harry, everything." A halt for composure. "I suppose if I were to pick out one single thing, though, that was worse than another, it's my writing. I think, I know, that's what brought on the whole cursed mess. Until my last book failed I had hope and the sun shone. When that ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... schoolgirl, and sat down. And he drew up a chair before her and seated himself; and then under the billowy rose crinoline she set her pretty feet close together, folded her hands, and looked at him with a smiling composure which she no ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers |
