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Composition   Listen
noun
Composition  n.  
1.
The act or art of composing, or forming a whole or integral, by placing together and uniting different things, parts, or ingredients. In specific uses:
(a)
The invention or combination of the parts of any literary work or discourse, or of a work of art; as, the composition of a poem or a piece of music. "The constant habit of elaborate composition."
(b)
(Fine Arts) The art or practice of so combining the different parts of a work of art as to produce a harmonious whole; also, a work of art considered as such. See 4, below.
(c)
The act of writing for practice in a language, as English, Latin, German, etc.
(d)
(Print.) The setting up of type and arranging it for printing.
2.
The state of being put together or composed; conjunction; combination; adjustment. "View them in composition with other things." "The elementary composition of bodies."
3.
A mass or body formed by combining two or more substances; as, a chemical composition. "A composition that looks... like marble."
4.
A literary, musical, or artistic production, especially one showing study and care in arrangement; often used of an elementary essay or translation done as an educational exercise.
5.
Consistency; accord; congruity. (Obs.) "There is no composition in these news That gives them credit."
6.
Mutual agreement to terms or conditions for the settlement of a difference or controversy; also, the terms or conditions of settlement; agreement. "Thus we are agreed: I crave our composition may be written."
7.
(Law) The adjustment of a debt, or avoidance of an obligation, by some form of compensation agreed on between the parties; also, the sum or amount of compensation agreed upon in the adjustment. "Compositions for not taking the order of knighthood." "Cleared by composition with their creditors."
8.
Synthesis as opposed to analysis. "The investigation of difficult things by the method of analysis ought ever to precede the method of composition."
Composition cloth, a kind of cloth covered with a preparation making it waterproof.
Composition deed, an agreement for composition between a debtor and several creditors.
Composition plane (Crystallog.), the plane by which the two individuals of a twin crystal are united in their reserved positions.
Composition of forces (Mech.), the finding of a single force (called the resultant) which shall be equal in effect to two or more given forces (called the components) when acting in given directions.
Composition metal, an alloy resembling brass, which is sometimes used instead of copper for sheathing vessels; also called Muntz metal and yellow metal.
Composition of proportion (Math.), an arrangement of four proportionals so that the sum of the first and second is to the second as the sum of the third and fourth to the fourth.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Composition" Quotes from Famous Books



... the most comprehensive of Pickering's rhapsodies. She was certainly a wonderful woman. I have never liked to linger, in memory, on that half- hour. The result of it was to prove that there were many more things in the composition of a woman who, as Niedermeyer said, had lodged her imagination in the place of her heart than were dreamt of in my philosophy. Yet, as I sat there stroking my hat and balancing the account between nature and art in my affable hostess, I felt like a very competent philosopher. She had said ...
— Eugene Pickering • Henry James

... in his classes, very much so in studies which were to his taste, principally French composition. In this he rose above the usual level of schoolboy exercises when the subject interested him. Certain other branches that were uninteresting or distasteful to him, as for instance Latin Grammar, ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq

... his finger up, "the health of the child is intimately dependent on the health of the mother. When the mother is in a morbid state it affects the composition of the blood, and does great harm to the health of the offspring, both immediately and in after life. Don't ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... conception; but of Hamlet, the deep and permanent interest is the conception of himself. This seems to belong, not to the character being more perfectly drawn, but to there being a more intense conception of individual human life than perhaps any other human composition. Here is a being with springs of thought, and feeling, and action, deeper than we can search. These springs rise from an unknown depth, and in that depth there seems to be a oneness of being which we cannot distinctly behold, ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... coterie of hitherto unsuspected minor planets is discovered, stellar distances are measured, some members of the starry galaxy are timed in their flight, the direction of movement of the solar system itself is investigated, the spectroscope reveals the chemical composition even of suns that are unthinkably distant, and a tangible theory is grasped of the universal cycle which includes the birth ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... Beaufort, grand-daughter of John of Gaunt, son of Edward III. The story of their wooing (of course in the allegorical manner of the age, and with poetical conventions in place of actual details) is told in James's poem, "The King's Quair," a beautiful composition in the school of Chaucer, of which literary scepticism has vainly tried to rob the royal author. James was the ablest and not the most scrupulous of the Stuarts. His captivity had given him an English education, ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang

... the invention of a composition which supplies the place of black lead for pencils, and the discovery of a new and very ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... Chamber of Citizens - last held 24 September 2000 (next to be held NA 2004) election results: Chamber of Republics - percent of vote by party - NA%; seats by party - SNP 19, DOS 10, SPS/JUL 7, SRS 2, SPO 1, SNS 1; note - seats are filled on a proportional basis to reflect the composition of the legislatures of the republics of Montenegro and Serbia; since 1998 Serbia has effectively barred Montenegro from its constitutional right to delegate deputies to the Chamber of Republics; Chamber of Citizens - percent of ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government

... passengers. The night following was black and stormy, and we had reason to anticipate an Archipelago gale: fortunately, however, it cleared up, much to the satisfaction of the captain and myself; for never did a boat traverse these seas with less of the seaman in the composition of its crew, from the said ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo

... Bell-and-Everett, party in the canvass of 1860. Mr. Crawford, as a State-rights Democrat, had supported Mr. Breckinridge; and Mr. Forsyth had been a zealous advocate of the claims of Mr. Douglas. The composition of the commission was therefore such as should have conciliated the sympathy and cooeperation of every element of conservatism with which they might have occasion to deal. Their commissions authorized and empowered them, "in the name of the Confederate States, to meet and confer ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... for the more full understanding of the subject, go to the other extreme, and consider a case in which the management is as far as possible removed from that above referred to. We can not have a better example than the method often adopted in schools and seminaries for teaching composition; in other words, the art of expressing one's thoughts in written language—an art which one would suppose to be so analogous to that of learning to talk—that is, to express one's thoughts in oral language—that the method which was found ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... flatter since the old days, haven't you? Don't you remember you used to tell me I was too thin to be pretty? But I suppose a bit of blarney is a necessary ingredient in the composition of an M.P." ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... addressing the chemist, "try to analyze this composition; if you can extract any element whatever from it, I christen it diaboline beforehand, for we have just smashed a hydraulic press in trying ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... child's birth. Either the child must be fed in the best way from a mother in health and abundance, or if it is to be bottle fed, there must be the most elaborate provision for sterilizing and warming the milk, and adjusting its composition to the changing powers of the child's assimilation. These conditions imply a house of a certain standard of comfort and equipment, and it is manifest the mother cannot be earning her own living before and about the time of the child's birth, nor, ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... attention on the supper. That night, late as it was, when Faith was in bed and sleeping, he sat before a sheet of music- paper, neatly copying his composition upon it. The manuscript was intended as an offering to Ethelberta at ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... bright, fresh little room! and what a brighter, fresher little girl!-as different from thy city friends, Tom Burroughs, as the cream she pours is from the chalky composition of the hotels. Thou dost half persuade me to turn Hoosier, and help thee convert the wilderness to a blooming garden, O darlingest ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin

... strangely mingled in his composition. Who does not pity the noble chamberlain that confesses his blood to have run cold when he heard Napoleon—seated at dinner at Dresden among a circle of crowned heads—begin a story with, When I was a lieutenant in the regiment ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... was in the face of all denials. "Him gold. Me savey gold all right. Me live longa California long time," he said, bringing forward a most convincing argument; and, dismissing the subject with one of his Podsnapian waves, he decided that a silver-coloured composition flower-bowl in the form of a swan was solid silver; "Him sing out all a same silver," he said, making it ring with a flick of his finger and thumb, when I differed from him, and knowing Cheon by now, we left it at that for ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... contested by Colombia, while Italy claimed their literal fulfillment. The award having been made by the President of the United States, as an act of friendly consideration and with the sole view to an impartial composition of the matter in dispute, I could not but feel deep concern at such a miscarriage, and while unable to accept the Colombian theory that I, in my official capacity, possessed continuing functions as arbitrator, with power to interpret or revise the terms of the award, my ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... God is another mystery. * * When we come to inquire whether all extension, or all plurality, diversity, composition of substance and accident, and the like, be consistent with it, then it is we discover how confused and inadequate our ideas are. * * To this head belongs that perplexing question (beset with difficulties on all sides), whether the divine ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... skill in treaty advantages which victory itself could not have procured. If we have not the use of that dreadful weapon, which our son-in-law terms the cross-bow, Heaven, in its favour, has concealed from these western barbarians the composition and use of the Greek fire—well so called, since by Grecian hands alone it is prepared, and by such only can its lightnings be darted upon the astonished foe." The Emperor paused, and looked around him; and ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... call his friend, a hearing from those who were the subjects of his observations. These circumstances furnish to his own mind an apology for undertaking what no one seemed willing to attempt, notwithstanding his want of practice in literary composition, and notwithstanding the impediments of professional avocations, constantly recurring, and interrupting that strict and continued examination of the work, which became necessary, as well to detect any errors of the author, as any misunderstanding or misrepresentation of ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... have unconsciously given us a bit of art criticism, haven't they? One of the most pictorial notes in this composition of Maybeck's is the use of these figures. But it's also eccentric and it puzzles the average looker-on who is always searching after meanings, according to the literary habit of the day, the result of universal reading. Perhaps the effect would ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry

... on the style of composition in which the picture is painted; the second, on the subject which it treats. The first examines the mechanical arrangement of the figures; the second asks, what is the real relation between them? The first deals with external ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll

... Department.—Reading, writing, number, kindergarten and other varied occupations, physical exercises (dancing and games), needlework and knitting, singing, drawing, painting, modelling, recitation, oral composition, dramatising ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley

... which completely gratified the public curiosity. This account, which was written by authority, was drawn up from the journal of the lieutenant, and the papers of Sir Joseph Banks; and, besides the merit of the composition, derived an extraordinary advantage from the number and excellence of its charts and engravings, which were furnished at the expense of government. The large price given by the booksellers for this work, and the avidity with which it was read, displayed, in the strongest light, the anxiety of the ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... began to feel some compunction that he had ever suggested a fault in the composition of the telegram. But then, it was his business not to ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason

... a la Goldenrod.—Closely resembling creamed eggs in composition and food value, but differing from them somewhat in appearance, are eggs a la goldenrod, which are illustrated in Fig. 16. This is, perhaps, even a more attractive dish if it is nicely made than creamed eggs, and many persons who do not like hard-cooked ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 2 - Volume 2: Milk, Butter and Cheese; Eggs; Vegetables • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... finely prepared stone-coloured ground was deemed sufficient. These colours were occasionally modified by mixture with chalk; but were always, or nearly always, applied singly, in an unmixed state. With regard to their composition, chemical analysis has shown several of the blues to be oxide of copper with a small proportion of iron; none containing cobalt. There is little doubt, however, that the most brilliant specimens—those which retain all their original force and ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field

... sides, and aboard her: So that ere the morning, from three of the clocke the day before, there had fifteene seuerall Armadas assayled her; and all so ill approued their entertainment, as they were by the breake of day, far more willing to harken to a composition, then hastily to make any more assaults or entries. But as the day encreased, so our men decreased: and as the light grew more and more, by so much more grewe our discomforts. For none appeared in sight but enemies, sauing one small ship called the Pilgrim, commaunded ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt

... who was sitting at the table apparently in the throes of literary composition, raised his head. "No," he replied, "I wouldn't; I'm writing a letter. 'Sides I've heard that record at least seven ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... This is—what it pretends to be a joint production, in the conception of the story, the exposition of the characters, and in its literal composition. There is scarcely a chapter that does not bear the marks of the two writers of the book. S. L. C. ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... of her judgment and style are fast bringing oblivion over her pages, was a devoted friend of that beautiful Honora Sneyd of whom Major Andre was the rejected lover. It was a profound sympathy with both the parties which prompted the composition of her once famous "Monody on Major Andre." One is sorry to learn, that, on the marriage of Honora with Mr. Edgeworth, and her removal to Ireland, her friendship for Anna, as often happens in such cases, died of a slow consumption. But, on the other side, ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... qualified for this work by a sure and sound critical appreciation rooted in thorough technical knowledge. Here again, following his keen scent for the distinguishing racial qualities, he gave his attention mainly to the popular forms of composition; at the same time his penetrating historic insight enabled him to account for the distinctive artistic character of the great composers by a due weighing of their individual attributes against the controlling influences of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... the public, nor its proceedings recorded. Its meetings, which take place at irregular intervals, according to pressure of business, are entirely secret, and the sovereign is never present. As the Cabinet agrees in its composition with the majority of the House of Commons, it follows that if the Commons are Conservative, the Cabinet will be so likewise; and if Liberal, the reverse. Theoretically, the sovereign chooses the Cabinet; but practically the selection is now always made by the Prime Minister. If at any time the ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... and the Juchen dynasty. The annals of the Sung dynasty became the largest of all the historical works, but they were fiercely attacked from the first by Chinese critics on account of their style and their hasty composition, and, together with the annals of the Mongol dynasty, they are regarded as the worst of the annals preserved. Tokto himself is less to blame for this than the circumstance that he was compelled to work in great haste, and had ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard

... destiny of the whole human race is as nothing to the course of vessels of orchids" ("More Letters", Vol. II. page 275.) Although the interpretation of the orchid flower given by Darwin has not proved satisfactory in one particular point—the composition of the labellum—the general results have received universal assent, namely "that all Orchids owe what they have in common to descent from some monocotyledonous plant, which, like so many other plants of the same division, possessed fifteen organs arranged alternately three ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... are unnoticed, which in such a composition would be worthy of being introduced, and much useful information has not been sought for, which a professed history of America ought to comprise. Yet the history of general Washington, during his military command and civil administration, is so much that of his country, that ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall

... in reduced degrees of concentration, it became a substitute for any explosive of known chemical composition; (3) brought in contact with the compound inside one of the golden eggs, it produced an explosive starting at the kiloton level of one egg to two cups of milk and went up the scale but leveled off at a peak as the recipe was increased; (4) could be controlled by mixing jets to produce any desired ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael

... the parliament chamber, adjoining the hall, the benchers repair after dinner. The 'loving-cups' used on certain grand occasions are huge silver goblets, which are passed down the table filled with a delicious composition, immemorially termed 'sack,' consisting of sweetened and exquisitely flavored white wine. The butler attends the progress of the cup to replenish it, and each student is by rule restricted to a sip; yet it is recorded that once, though the number present fell short of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various

... abstaining from the plunder of their farms.[291] Their swords were their sceptres; their codes of right, the Brehon traditions,—a convenient system, which was called law, but which in practice was a happy contrivance for the composition ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... desire and the union of the sexes leads to the birth of the child; with the appearance of the latter the family is complete, and, with it, the type upon which the triple classification of the gods was founded. But even when we attempt to trace the composition of a single group and to assign his proper place to each of its members, the embarrassment is great. We find a single god sometimes filling, to all appearance, the role of husband and father, and sometimes that of the son; or a single goddess acting at different times as the wife and daughter ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... began the saying, He is a second Hercules. He also joined Adrastus in recovering the bodies of those that were slain before Thebes, but not as Euripides in his tragedy says, by force of arms, but by persuasion and mutual agreement and composition, for so the greater part of the historians write; Philochorus adds further that this was the first treaty that ever was made for the recovering the bodies of the dead, but in the history of Hercules it is shown that it was ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... such a sweet expression of countenance is the Hon. Miss Cecilia Ossulton. She is lively, witty, and has no fear in her composition; but she is very young yet, not more than seventeen—and nobody knows what she really is—she does not know herself. These are the parties who meet in the cabin of the yacht. The crew consists of ten fine seamen, the steward, and the ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... to have some belief in the existence of the soul, and a greater feeling of reverence in their composition than the tribes to the eastward. Among their customs they have a remarkable one. Those who take it into their heads to become friends, cement their friendship. Taking their seats opposite one to the other, with a vessel ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... mentioned the conduct and constitution of the colonial government, as modifying the character of the struggle, I have not attributed to political causes a state of things which would, I believe, tinder any political institutions have resulted from the very composition of society. A jealousy between two races, so long habituated to regard each other with hereditary enmity, and so differing in habits, in language, and in laws, would have been inevitable under any form of government. ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... Kinds, composition, care, and general rules for cooking cereals. Oatmeal, cracked wheat, corn-meal porridge, rice. Fruits to serve with cereals—stewed prunes, stewed apples, or ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario

... 1312 he became prince with the title Malik us-Salhn, and in 1320 received the hereditary rank of sultan with the title Malik ul-Mu'ayyad. For more than twenty years altogether he reigned in tranquillity and splendour, devoting himself to the duties of government and to the composition of the works to which he is chiefly indebted for his fame. He was a munificent patron of men of letters, who came in large numbers to his court. He died in 1331. His chief historical work in An Abridgment of the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... containing the solution was freely handed about among her unaspiring comrades; so that I judged her to be "weakly generous" as well as "plodding,"—qualities not of a high order, I esteemed, yet by no means insuperable barriers to friendship when found to enter more or less largely into the composition ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... Southern Rebellion its foundation stone laid deep and solid in the minds of the people by John C. Calhoun, the first great Supreme Commander of the germ from whence sprung the various elements of treason, which have entered into the composition of the powers seeking the destruction of the Federal Government. As for the doctrine of State Rights as expounded by Calhoun, it is carried beyond the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of '98, to that point which renders ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer

... more than half a century. They never were obeyed so submissively at home nor so dreaded and even respected abroad. For Louis XIV carried off that last reward of complete success, that he for a time silenced even envy, and turned it into admiration. We who can examine with cold scrutiny the make and composition of this colossus of a French monarchy; who can perceive how much the brass and clay in it exceeded the gold; who know how it afterward fell with a resounding ruin, the last echoes of which have scarcely died away, have difficulty in realizing the fascination ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... transport with it, or will it pick this up on arrival? Even the constitution of the armada which is to convey it to its point of disembarkation by no means represents a purely naval problem. Until the sailors know what the composition of the military force in respect to men, animals, vehicles, etc., is to be, they cannot calculate what tonnage will be required, or decide how that tonnage is to be allotted for transporting the troops oversea. For a project of this kind to be worked out solely by naval experts would be no less ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... wheras Geffrey the earle of Aniou demanded in right of his wife the empresse, the whole kingdome of England, to be at an end with him, king Stephan was contented to satisfie him with a yearelie pension of fiue thousand marks, which composition he willinglie receiued. ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (4 of 12) - Stephan Earle Of Bullongne • Raphael Holinshed

... Duchess of Cambridge. The names given to the child were, "Louise Caroline Alberta," the first and last for the child's grandmother on the father's side and for the royal father himself. A chorale was performed, which the Prince had adapted from an earlier composition ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler

... and then ran to Dietrick. He found him in his garden. His wife and daughters had not yet risen. Dietrick aroused them, called together some friends as fond as himself of music, and capable of executing De Lisle's composition. Dietrick's eldest daughter accompanied them, Rouget sang. At the first verse all countenances turned pale, at the second tears flowed, at the last enthusiasm burst forth. The hymn of the country was found. Alas! it was also destined to be the ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... put together in a new way. A writer in constructing a story puts together facts that he has previously noted, and any work of the imagination consists of materials recalled from past experience and now built into a new composition. ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... faculties are evolved under the stimulating influence of environment. The progress, so far as it is physical, can be traced from the lowest blue-green algae right up to man. And all throughout, in so far as their chemical composition is concerned, the constituent elements of the living structure are the same. It is said to be practically impossible to distinguish between the cells of a toadstool and those of a ...
— God and the World - A Survey of Thought • Arthur W. Robinson

... astray in the preoccupation of composition, did not notice her look, but, as if moved by enthusiasm, rose on his right leg and stood, his hands placed on the back of the light chair by the sofa, the chair's front being turned from him. He went on, with an affectation of repressed rapture: "''Twere ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens

... It is probable enough that there was hardly an excess, either of violence or licentiousness, into which his impetuous temperament did not occasionally precipitate him; but he seems to have had nothing base or malignant in his composition; and that he was as capable of acts of extraordinary generosity and disinterestedness as of excesses of brutal fury or profligacy. Of the courage and strength of will proper to his race, he had his full share, with more than his share ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... Vairasse (art. ALLAIS) in the Biographical Dictionary of the Society of Useful Knowledge thinks that he may have been only the translator: but the facts collected by Marchand show that he claimed the authorship; and there is no trace of its composition by any Englishman. Besides, its prior publication in England is just as inexplicable upon the assumption of his being the translator, as upon that ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 62, January 4, 1851 • Various

... illustrations for the Rubaiyat and the book was published while we were in Rome. It was never long out of his talk. He would tell us the history of every design and of every model or pot in it. He exulted in the stroke of genius by which he had invented a composition or a pose. I have heard him describe again and again how he drew the flight of a spirit from a model, outstretched and flopping up and down on a feather bed laid upon the studio floor, until she almost fainted from ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... to him. It was certainly the first time that the Janizary March had ever been called a soothing composition; but the crushed, penitent look of her lover, who stood like a sinner awaiting condemnation, restored her to good humor, and she held out her hand to ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner

... fifteen, Wheatstone translated French poetry, and wrote two songs, one of which was given to his uncle, who published it without knowing it as his nephew's composition. Some lines of his on the lyre became the motto of an engraving by Bartolozzi. Small for his age, but with a fine brow, and intelligent blue eyes, he often visited an old book-stall in the vicinity of Pall Mall, which ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... enters into the composition of an animal structure, yet their differences are not always distinctly marked, since the characteristics of some are not unlike those of others. We shall notice, however, only the more ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... the delights of tea. He drank coffee during the composition of "Paradise Lost," and tea during the ...
— The Little Tea Book • Arthur Gray

... smiled, and Paul, seeing his mother's softened face, stole his hand in hers and began: "Mother, I took a prize in composition—" ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... But what seems to me very remarkable here is this, that when Josephus, in imitation of the Greeks and Romans, for whose use he wrote his Antiquities, did himself frequently he into their they appear, by the politeness of their composition, and their flights of oratory, to be not the real speeches of the persons concerned, who usually were no orators, but of his own elegant composure, the speech before us is of another nature, full of undeniable ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... audiences that attended the performances of the plays of the Abbey Theatre Players were of a very different composition. At their average they included a certain proportion of the younger intellectuals among the Irish-Americans, but very many of these were kept away from the performances, as many, indeed, in Ireland and in England, too, are kept away from the performances, by the opposition in the patriotic societies. ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt

... the plains of the Argive Diomede and the river Canna, as well as the defeat itself. The other prophecy was then read, which was more obscure, not only because future events are more uncertain than past, but also from being more perplexed in its style of composition. "Romans, if you wish to expel the enemy and the ulcer which has come from afar, I advise, that games should be vowed, which may be performed in a cheerful manner annually to Apollo; when the people shall have given a portion of money from the public coffers, that private individuals then contribute, ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius

... undoubtedly; especially when Davies prints O Brithi, O Brithoi! in Hebrew characters, as being 'vestiges of sacred hymns in the Phoenician language.' But then comes Mr. Nash, and says that the poem is a middle-age composition, with nothing Helio-daemonic about it; that it is meant to ridicule the monks; and that O Brithi, O Brithoi! is a mere piece of unintelligible jargon in mockery of the chants used by the monks at prayers; and he gives this counter-translation ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold

... rather a philosophy which could free the mind from the power of abstractions and alternatives, and show how far rest and how far motion, how far the universal principle of Being and the multitudinous principle of atoms, entered into the composition of the world; which could distinguish between the true and false analogy, and allow the negative as well as the positive a place in human thought. To such a philosophy Plato, in the Theaetetus, offers many contributions. He has followed philosophy into the region of mythology, ...
— Theaetetus • Plato

... seriously worried us on this journey, and there must have been some sugar in our biscuits which gave a pleasant sweetness to our mid-day tea or nightly hot water when broken up and soaked in it. These biscuits were specially made for us by Huntley and Palmer: their composition was worked out by Wilson and that firm's chemist, and is a secret. But they are probably the most satisfying biscuit ever made, and I doubt whether they can be improved upon. There were two kinds, called Emergency and Antarctic, but there was I think little ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... vague shadows. Then the candles are, one by one, extinguished, until only a single taper is left burning on the altar—that is Jesus. And in this darkness, symbolic of grief and mourning, an invisible choir sings the Miserere, Allegri's world-renowned composition, whose mystic notes bring so vividly before us that last scene on Golgotha,—the agony of the dying Saviour, the taunts of the lictors, the wailing of the holy women, the shrieks of the dead whose graves are opened, and who cry aloud for mercy, and finally the rending of the Temple curtain, and ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai

... dark green coats with buff waistcoats and breeches. The total of eighteen hundred was completed by a hundred and twenty 'artificers,' that is, men who would now belong to the Engineers, Ordnance, and Army Service Corps. As the composition of this garrison has been so often misrepresented, it may be as well to state distinctly that the past or present regulars of all kinds, soldiers and sailors together, numbered eight hundred and the militia and other non-regulars a thousand. The ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood

... addressing the back of the driver, "if I could remain faithful to a dream of my youth, however illusive and unreal, can you believe that for the sake of lucre I could be false to the one real passion that alone supplanted it?" In the composition and delivery of this eloquent statement an hour was happily forgotten: the only drawback to its complete effect was that a misplacing of epithets in rapid repetition did not seem to make the slightest difference, and Cass found himself saying ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... at table had as much barley-bread as he could eat; swine's-flesh, or some other meat, to eat with it, with which the famous black-sauce[2] (whose composition, without any loss to culinary art, is evidently a mystery for us) was given round, and to close the meal, olives, figs, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850 • Various

... auxiliary with less favorable meaning. In English "to make believe" is in other words to impose on a person's credulity. It was as though this thought had made me suspicious and I began to surmise that Emmy's anxiety and anger were akin to that of the schoolgirl who is praised for a composition which she has copied from another. But surely it was in perfect good faith that the dear girl thought to believe what people had made her believe. As with everyone under suggestive influence, her deceived personality, without being clearly conscious of it, repelled any critical ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... into the next street. Oh, horrors! what a thundering on this piano, which, by the way, is sadly out of tune! It is a grand—that is, a long, heavy—etude, with the most involved passages, and a peculiar style of composition, probably with the title "On the Ocean," or "In Hades," or "Fancies of the Insane;" pounded off with the pedal raised through the most marvellous changes of harmonies. Finally, the strings snap, the pedal creaks and moans; conclusion,—c, c sharp, d, ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck

... at this point, and looked critically—even sternly—at the sketch. There was room both for criticism and indignation, for the display, in so small a compass, of bad drawing, vile composition, ridiculous chiaro-oscuro, and impossible perspective, could only have been justified by the supposition that his intellect had been warped through the heart, in consequence of an unheard of perplexity ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne

... we for the composition of these daughters? Reason opposed and becoming keener therefor. Faith mocked and drawing its mantel closer. Love thwarted and becoming acid. Hatred mounting too high and thinning into pity. Hunger for life unappeased and becoming a stream under-ground Where only blind things swim. God year ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters

... them—Eros leading with the Graces, and Apollo, with the Muses, following. A temple, in process of erection, and distant mountains, occupy the background. It will be noticed that the artist has omitted many very important elements of Greek history and culture from this composition. It contains no hint of Thermopylae or Marathon, nor any allusion to Plato or Pericles. No doubt the learned artist has designedly avoided making his work too exact and didactic, but it certainly would seem that these were too prominent in themselves not to be wholly overlooked. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... they keep talking and reading about crimes they will find that iniquity is catching, the same as some other things. Besides, this realistic description gets to be very tiresome. If you really want to be a writer, young man, why don't you try your hand on some original composition? Then you might write something which ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton

... development of a seed into a tree, or an ovum into an animal, constitute an advance from homogeneity of structure to heterogeneity of structure. In its primary stage, every germ consists of a substance that is uniform throughout, both in texture and chemical composition. The first step is the appearance of a difference between two parts of this substance; or, as the phenomenon is called in physiological language, a differentiation. Each of these differentiated divisions presently begins itself to exhibit some contrast of parts; and by and by these secondary ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer

... anguish, and some piercing the air with loud and frantic outcries. Nero was entertained by the scene as if it had been a great dramatic spectacle. He went to one of the theaters, and taking his place upon the stage he amused himself there with singing and playing a celebrated composition on the subject of the burning of Troy. At least it was said and generally believed in the city that he did so, and the minds of the people were excited against the inhuman monster to the highest pitch of indignation. In fact, Nero seems to have thought at ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott

... but paid no attention to a solecism or barbarism. The flatterer is like a man who should make no comment on the speech of a silly and ridiculous orator, but should find fault with his voice, and chide him for injuring his throat by drinking cold water; or like a person bidden to read some wretched composition, who should merely find fault with the thickness of the paper, and call the copyist a dirty and careless fellow. So too when Ptolemy seemed to desire to become learned, his flatterers used to spin out the time till midnight, disputing about some word or line or history, but not one of them all ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... the crowd, several men and women I was in the habit of meeting frequently, though I did not know them to speak to—Press representatives whose exclusive duty I knew it to be to attend social gatherings of this description. As I edged my way through the dense throng I could hear my favourite composition, Dvorak's "Humoresque," being played on the violin by Beatrice Langley, who I had been told was to appear, and for a few brief minutes the crowd was hushed. To my chagrin the music ended almost as I succeeded in forcing my way into the room, ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux

... these conditions? To answer this question intelligently it will be necessary for us to study the soil to find out something about its structure, its composition, its characteristics; also, how it was made and what forces or agencies were active in making it. Are these forces acting on the soil at the present time? Do they have any influence over the conditions which are favorable or ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich

... qualifications which are acquired by habits of writing, and which are so important to an author, my African life has not only not been favorable to the growth of such accomplishments, but quite the reverse; it has made composition irksome and laborious. I think I would rather cross the African continent again than undertake to write another book. It is far easier to travel than to write about it. I intended on going to Africa to continue my studies; but as I could not brook ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... red blood characterizes the forms of life fitted for activity and bursts of energy. In his exhaustive work on the blood Hayem has given a summary of the results of the investigations of chemists and physiologists on the differences in the composition of the blood in the two sexes. Contrary to the assertion of Robin, Hayem finds that the white blood-corpuscles are not more numerous in women than in men, and he also states that the number of haematoblasts is the same in the two sexes. ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... many among Dante's Lyrics and those of his contemporaries which elucidate their personal intercourse; were translated, as well as a great body of the sonnets of poets later than Dante. {*} This early and indirect apprenticeship to the sonnet, as a form of composition, led to his becoming, in the end, perhaps the most perfect of English sonnet-writers. In youth, it was one of his pleasures to engage in exercises of sonnet-skill with his brother William and his sister Christina, and, even then, ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine

... that is not so much human as elemental and ethereal—or might one not almost say, atmospheric? That is, though generated of flesh and blood, they are not altogether flesh and blood, but possess other untested and unproved essences mingled in their composition, of which as yet we can form no idea. We grope in utter ignorance of the greatest of mysteries—Life!—and with all our modern advancement, we are utterly unable to measure or to account for life's many and various manifestations. In the very early days of imaginative ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli

... this eminent publicist could conscientiously speak his mind, Mr. Arthur Pendennis gained the sum of four pounds four shillings weekly, and with no small pains and labour. Likewise be furnished Magazines and Reviews with articles of his composition, and is believed to have been (though on this score he never chooses to speak) London correspondent of the Chatteris Champion, which at that time contained some very brilliant and eloquent letters from the metropolis. By ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... both of which differ entirely from those at present existing on the shores of the Antilles. An immense bowlder was pointed out to us on the summit of La Gran Piedra, at an elevation of five thousand feet, of totally different composition from any other rocks on the island. The great mystery is how such a mass of solid stone could have got there. Most of these mountains are thickly wooded, some of them to their very tops, and appear to be in a perpetual state of verdure. ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... Londo. 69 Idle hope. 74 Apology for neglecting officious advice. 81 Incitement to enterprise and emulation. Some account of the admirable Crichton. 84 Folly of false pretences to importance. A journey in a stage coach. 85 Study, composition and converse equally necessary to intellectual accomplishment. 92 Criticism on the Pastorals of Virgil. 95 Apology for apparent plagiarism. Sources of literary variety. 99 Projectors injudiciously censured and applauded. 102 Infelicities ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... He painted that strong composition showing Florentine soldiers bathing in the Arno. The scene depicts the surprise of the warriors as a trumpet sounds, calling them to battle with the enemy that is near at hand. The subject was chosen ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard

... remaining chained to their benches, as was the custom with the slaves. It is, however, an extraordinary testimony to the influence which the corsair had attained in Constantinople that he had been able to effect this change in the composition of some of his crews; it must have been done with the active co-operation of the Sultan, as no authority less potent than that of the sovereign himself could have induced free men to undertake the terrible toil of rower in a galley. This was ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey

... I am departing somewhat from the subject of which this chapter is intended to treat; but I do not know that I could explain in any shorter way the manner in which those rules of the Constitution have worked by which the composition of the Senate is fixed. That State basis, as opposed to a basis of population in the Upper House of Congress, has been the one great political weapon, both of offense and defense, in the hands ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... at a table, and, after considerable effort, produced the following piece of elegant composition, which he ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic

... museum), a series of frescoes, beginning towards 1443; in the first cloister is the Crucifixion with St. Dominic kneeling; and the same treatment recurs on a wall near the dormitory; in the chapterhouse is a third Crucifixion, with the Virgin swooning, a composition of twenty life-sized figures—the red background, which has a strange and harsh effect, is the misdoing of some restorer; an "Annunciation," the figures of about three-fourths of life-size, in a dormitory; in the adjoining passage, the "Virgin enthroned," with four saints; on the wall of a cell, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various

... of Robert Laneham, save in his curious letter to a friend in London, giving an account of Queen Elizabeth's entertainments at Kenilworth, written in a style of the most intolerable affectation, both in point of composition and orthography. He describes himself as a BON VIVANT, who was wont to be jolly and dry in the morning, and by his good-will would be chiefly in the company of the ladies. He was, by the interest of Lord Leicester, Clerk of the Council ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... whole sex, and advises Phoebe to despise all the men as heartily as she does. But Phoebe's loving temper is not to be curdled; she has no such thing as hatred or contempt for mankind in her whole composition. She has all the simple fondness of heart of poor, weak, loving woman; and her only thoughts at present are, how to conciliate and reclaim ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving

... voyages, two were made through a vast extent of ocean towards the West, at the command of the illustrious Don Ferdinand king of Spain: The other two were to the south, in the service of Don Manuel king of Portugal. I have used my utmost diligence in the composition of this work, in hopes that your majesty would graciously receive me among the number of your dependants, considering that we were formerly companions during youth, while studying grammar under the tuition of my venerable uncle, Fra George ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... same powders that they are held in great honor, and that their composition is a deep secret which is revealed to others only in return for high compensation. Nootka maidens sometimes sprinkle love-powders into the food intended for their lovers, and await their coming. The Menomini[240] have a charm called takosawos, "the powder that causes people ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... party in Ohio. Every Democratic candidate for Congress was defeated. Twenty-one Members, all opposed to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, but differing in opinion upon other questions, were elected to Congress. The composition of the delegation was somewhat peculiar, as the party had no name, and no defined principles except upon the one question of the extension of slavery. On the day of the election everyone was in doubt. ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... softly on the table with his forefinger for a moment, and then, as though he had found the key-note of the desired composition, dictated as follows: ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... "the real hero of the Mahabharata," was adopted by the Javanese, and his name was given to one of their mountains. The metre of the poem is Indian in form, and not Javanese, and the date of its composition is fixed by Professor Kern in his "Kawistudien" as the first half of the eleventh century of our era. The fact that it contains but slight traces of Buddhistic thought is important as giving some hint of the date at ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold

... composition of chemicals that forms the "film" and which produces such a vivid and lasting likeness of ourselves is freshly made, it possesses that vital something we ...
— Tyranny of God • Joseph Lewis

... poems introduced into the Thousand and One Days in the Orient are entirely of Bodenstedt's own composition, were designed to add flavor to the picture of an Eastern divan of wisdom, and were usually written while the impression was fresh of intercourse with the wise man of Gjaendsha. Shortly after the appearance of the book, which was well received by the public, the publisher proposed to Bodenstedt ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... that the Old Testament is not a homogeneous composition; that Genesis alone is of immense antiquity; that it is prior to the time when the Libra of the Zodiac was invented by the Greeks, for it has been noticed that the chapters containing the genealogies have been touched up so as to adapt them to the new zodiac, and this ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal

... Thomas had a good deal of time on his hands; and, to occupy this time he returned to his old love, composition. He began to rewrite his romance; and one day Kitty discovered him pegging away at it. He ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath

... harpsichord and two violins. All we have to depend on now as to the quality of his music are the strictures of a certain Dr. Hayes, an Oxford Professor, who points out many errors against the rules of composition in the works of Avison, whence he infers that his skill in music is not very profound, and the somewhat more appreciative remarks of Hawkins who says "The music of Avison is light and elegant, but it wants originality, a necessary consequence of his too ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke

... of this little Treatise, not any persuasion of its merits as a literary composition, encourages me to offer it to your Lordship's patronage. The cause of freedom has always been found sufficient, in every age and country, to attract the notice of the generous and humane; and it is therefore, in a more peculiar manner, worthy of the attention and favour ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson

... well to have one coarse and one fine, but in any case we must have a fine-grained stone to put a keen edge on the tools. A "Turkey" stone is a fine-grained and slow-cutting one, and may take the place of the finer "Washita." The "India" oilstone is a composition of emery with some kind of stone dust, and is a useful stone for quickly rubbing down superfluous steel before putting an edge to the tool. It is better to get these stones without cases, as they can then be used on both sides, ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack

... this respect to be compared, in a certain measure, with the English, in which the ancient British, the Latin, the Saxon, the Danish, and the French, amalgamated in the same proportion as the ideas of these different nations were adopted. Hence nothing that ever contributed to the singular composition of this rich language, appears to be borrowed; but all belongs to it as its lawful property. But the great pre-eminence of the Russian appears in the use which it made of these adopted treasures. Its ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson

... time that Goethe was twenty, the Faust legend had fascinated his imagination; for three years before he went to Weimar he had been working on scattered scenes and bits of dialogue; and though he suspended actual composition on it during three distinct periods, it was always to resume, and he closed his labors upon it only with his life. Thus the period of time between his first experiments and the final touches is more than sixty years. During this period the plans for the structure ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... even where poetry was concerned. Philosophic and moralizing lyrics are a characteristic feature of Lebensohn's pen. The general human sorrow, common to all individuals, stirs him more deeply than national grief. His only composition of a nationalistic character, "The Wailing of the Daughter of Judah," seems strangely out of harmony with the accompanying odes which celebrate the coronation of Nicholas I. and similar patriotic occasions, although the "Wailing" is shrewdly ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... commodity, also reached Rome, through Arabia, by means of the port of Alexandria. Pliny mentions, that both the leaves and the spices were of great value, and that the odour was the most esteemed in the composition of all unguents. The price at Rome was 100 denarii a pound. The markets at which the Arabian and other merchants bought it were Patala on the Indus, Ozeni, and a mart on ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... Speaker, or president; but when the coup d'etat in favor of Henri V. was meditated, he was got rid of beforehand, after he had presided for two turbulent years over an Assembly distracted and excited. Everyone respected M. Grevy. There was very little of the typical Frenchman in his composition. He was of middle height, rather stout, with a large bald, well-shaped head. He was no lover of society, but was a diligent worker, and his favorite amusements were billiards and the humble game of dominoes. His wife was the good woman suited to such a husband; but his daughter, ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... album presented to the King of Bavaria by the artists of Muenich, is an admirable composition by Huebner. It is an expression of the feelings of a large portion of Upper Germany. It represents a female prostrate upon the ground, with the arms crossed, the face entirely hidden, in an attitude of the deepest despair. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... the wide goer or wanderer, is in part, at least, probably the oldest in our language. The author and the date of its composition are unknown; but the personal account of the minstrel's life belongs to the time before the Saxons first came to England.[14] It expresses the wandering life of the gleeman, who goes forth into the world to abide here or there, according as he is rewarded ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... thou smell the roasted fish that waits thy eating? Come, we will cherish thee, that thou mayest take comfort among us." It must be confessed, that if the O Wahi language be peculiarly adapted for poetry, this composition does not do it justice. Karemaku laughed at this reception, and allowed himself to be conducted in grand procession to Nomahanna, who had not condescended to meet him. The excitement lasted the whole day. Nothing was spoken of but Karemaku's heroism, and the rebel son of Tamaris, whom ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue

... interposed by me; on the contrary, I could make a good speculation by it. Harry would be worth two common niggers then. Nigger property, christianised, is the most valuable of property. You may distinguish a christianised nigger in a moment; and piety takes the stubborn out of their composition better than all the cowhides you can employ; and, too, it's a saving of time, considering that it subdues so much quicker," says Marston, stretching back in his chair, as he orders Dandy to bring Harry into his presence. He will tell them what he knows ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... version of his Simon Downige was again under way—it had been torn down, Linda knew, more than once—and he was in a fever of composition. Nor was this, she decided with Arnaud, his only oppression: the Asiatic fever clung to him with disquieting persistence. Pleydon himself admitted he had a degree or ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer

... varied role in our life, and, in some one of its many forms, enters into the composition of most of the substances which are of service and value to man. The food we eat, the clothes we wear, the wood and coal we burn, the marble we employ in building, the indispensable soap, and the ornamental diamond, all contain carbon in ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark

... Having glanced through this composition, she handed it with a smile to Miss Payne, and opened the other letter, which was from Rachel. This was very short ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... food:—everything now must be tangible. The little organist, who had spent so many a Merry Christmas with the Browns—he has no pleasure to anticipate on the morrow, except the performance of his new hymn, "The Star of Bethlehem," a composition of which the little tailor in the attic thought small things, for it did not compose ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner

... delighted with its melody, that they eagerly urged its performance at the approaching concert. A copy of the music being handed to Dexie by Lancy, she began to hum it softly to herself, but becoming enraptured with the bewitching strains of the composition, she unconsciously changed the low hum to a soft whistle, which grew louder as she proceeded. Sense of time and place disappeared, and she was unaware of the delight of the little group around her, until the ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... the main branch of any bushy tree, with long, straight, and smooth twigs, such as the willow or birch, clear the twigs from every notch and prickle, lime the branches to within four fingers of the bottom, leaving the main bough from which the others rise untouched by the composition, and then place the bush where the birds resort. For small birds two to three hundred single twigs, about the thickness of a rush and three inches in length, may be stuck in sheaves of ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... aid of Euclid for a few moments, and always with good success. A little wholesome schooling of the mind upon lines and angles and proportions, when it is not in the right mood for study, will commonly make it quite willing to exchange them for the labor of composition, as the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... that's the moral of this composition, If people would but see its real drift;— But that they will not do without suspicion, Because all gentle readers have the gift Of closing 'gainst the light their orbs of vision: While gentle writers also love to lift Their voices 'gainst each other, which is ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... ambition. Nothing could be more false than to attribute the evil to America, unless that becomes American which has once touched American soil. But there does grow up in New York, or thereabouts, a mixture of Irish poverty with American wealth, which calls itself "Democrat," and forms as bad a composition as any that I know from which either to replenish ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope

... had placed himself at the head of the Stratford community. Afterwards he continued for some years to descend from this altitude; and the question is, at what point this gradual degradation may be supposed to have settled. Now we shall avow it as our opinion, that the composition of society in Stratford was such that, even had the Shakspeare family maintained their superiority, the main body of their daily associates must still have been found amongst persons below the rank of gentry. The poet must inevitably have mixed chiefly with mechanics and ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... shaggy-looking personage, with a bumpy brow and eyes set extraordinarily far apart. He was a born musician, and, as a consequence, found it infinitely irritating to the nerves to be obliged to teach young ladies who had not one note of music in their composition, but whose parents considered an acquaintance with the pianoforte to be a necessity of education. When one of these unfortunates went up for her lesson, shouts and groans of despair could be heard outside the door of the music-room, accompanied by the sound of heavy footsteps pacing helplessly ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... matters may turn to a very striking poem by Dante's contemporary, Frauenlob, in Von der Hagen's great collection. Also to a very strange composition, from the heyday of minne-song, by Heinrich von Meissen. This is not the furious love ode, but the ceremonious epithalamium of devotional poetry. It is the bearing in triumph, among flare of torches and incense smoke, over flower-strewn streets and beneath triumphal arches, ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... "Titus Andronicus," we are so constituted as to resist all the external evidence by which such a shapeless mass of horrors and absurdities is fastened on Shakespeare. Mr. Verplanck thinks it one of Shakespeare's first attempts at dramatic composition; but first attempts must reflect the mental condition of the author at the time they were made; and we know the mental condition of Shakespeare in his early manhood by his poem of "Venus and Adonis," which he expressly styles "the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various

... perfect democracy in the realm of the beautiful, and whatsoever pleases is equal to any other thing there, no matter how low its origin or humble its composition; and the magnificence of that moonlight scene gave me no deeper joy than I won from the fine spectacle of an old man whom I saw burning coffee one night in the little court behind my lodgings, and whom I recollect now as one of the most interesting people I saw in ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... soldiers, more intellectual statesmen, and profounder sages have doubtless existed in the history of the English race, perhaps in our own country, but not one who to great excellence in the threefold composition of man, the physical, intellectual, and moral, has added such exalted integrity, such unaffected piety, such unsullied purity of soul, and such wondrous control of his own spirit. He illustrated and adorned the civilization of Christianity, and furnished an ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various

... came wisdom, Marguerite, and inflexible resolve. To those she loves, Margarita Montfort is wax, silk, down, anything the most soft and yielding that can be figured. To her enemies, steel and adamant are her composition. I had two friends in that house of Spaniards; one was Pasquale, good, faithful Pasquale, an under gardener and helper; the other, Manuela, my maid. I have described her to you—enough! I realised that action must be of swiftness, the lightning ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards

... by God Himself, and were written by His own hand. They are of divine, and not of human composition. But the Bible, with its God-given truths expressed in the language of men, presents a union of the divine and the human. Such a union existed in the nature of Christ, who was the Son of God and the Son of man. Thus it is true ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... beauty of these touching lyrics proceeds, in a great degree, from the "sad sincerity" which so evidently inspired their composition. In memory of a youthful friend, who was distinguished for his rare early promise, his ripe and manifold accomplishments, and a strange, magnetic affinity with the genius of the author, these exquisite poems are the gushing expression of a heart touched and softened, but not enervated by deep ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... they possess. The General Strike groups these in a composite picture, and by bringing together, gives to each its maximum intensity; appealing to the most acute memories of particular conflicts, it colours with an intense life all the details of the composition presented to the mind. We obtain thus an intuition of Socialism which language cannot clearly express and we obtain it in a symbol instantly perceived, such as is maintained in the Bergsonian philosophy." ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn

... obtaining more power, or for both objects in degrees varying according as one or the other is considered more important. Bauer shows that these two policies of accumulating power and of spending it arise necessarily out of the social composition of the party at its present stage and the general social environment ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... man as he appeared in the war period, there entered into his composition a new element—patriotism—which brought about a modification of the type, or, perhaps, made it appear that certain men belonged to the type who in reality were commonplace mortals, animated, under normal conditions, ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... Bell Telephone Receiver Is Made.—An ordinary telephone receiver consists of three chief parts and these are: (1) a hard-rubber, or composition, shell and cap, (2) a permanent steel bar magnet on one end of which is wound a coil of fine insulated copper wire, and (3) a soft iron disk, or diaphragm, all of which are shown in the cross-section ...
— The Radio Amateur's Hand Book • A. Frederick Collins

... in the settlement, though all intercourse between the sexes was rigidly avoided. During six days of the week they met in prayer, morning and evening, and in the interval devoted themselves in solitude to the practice of virtue and the study of the holy allegories, and the composition of hymns and psalms. On the Sabbath they sat in common assembly, but with the women separated from the men, and listened to the allegorical homily of an elder; they paid special honor to the Feast of Pentecost, reverencing the mystical attributes of the number ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich

... a publishing problem as well as a writing ordeal, and Susan, interviewing New York publishers, found the subject had little appeal. Finally, however, she signed a contract with Fowler & Wells under which the authors agreed to pay the cost of composition, stereotyping, and engravings; and as usual she raised ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... second verse of Genesis ("and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the water") is supposed by them to denote this primitive matter, as the "darkness" in the same verse and the "chaos" ("Tohu") in the first verse signify the absence of form and composition in the matter (the Aristotelian [Greek: stersis]). God then willed the revolution of the outermost sphere, known as the diurnal sphere, which caused all the other spheres to revolve with it, thereby ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik

... deplore their frankness, as one critic has done, we ought to rejoice in their utter want of affectation, in their boyish honesty. At every turn there is something to amuse or to startle one into thinking. We are carried back in a vivid way to the period of their composition. Not a little of the pulsing life of that time throbs anew, and we catch glimpses of notable figures. Often, the feeling is that we have been called in haste to a window to look at some celebrity passing by, and have arrived just in time to see him turn the corner. What a ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent

... "The document is in the handwriting of B. F. Smith, Esq., U. S. District Attorney, residing here, though signed only by John Slack, Jr., and William Kelly; the former an acting deputy U. S. marshal, the latter the jailer at the county jail. Its composition is so peculiar that it is difficult to tell what part of the statement is Slack's or Kelly's and what is Colonel Smith's, and therefore I do not know whom to hold responsible for the ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... us to accept a horse with several indistinct blurred legs as representing what we see when the horse gallops. The mind revolts at such a presentation, though it is true, and the whole scheme and composition of the artist is perverted or fails to gain attention and to exercise its charm—by the unwelcome presence in his picture of the revolting truth. It is the consideration of facts of this kind which enables us to understand the origin and importance of what are called "conventions" ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... to be a party to such deception. She borrowed some figures of speech suggested by the work she was doing in the bank and declared that her loyalty was not insolvent and that she would not make any composition with her conscience. ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day



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