All 26 Uses of
compose
in
War and Peace
- This action was so unlike her usual composure and the fear depicted on Prince Vasili's face so out of keeping with his dignity that Pierre stopped and glanced inquiringly over his spectacles at his guide.†
Chpt 1
- This song had been composed in the Turkish campaign and now being sung in Austria, the only change being that the words "Father Kamenski" were replaced by "Father Kutuzov."†
Chpt 2
- And Denisov rode up to a group that had stopped near Rostov, composed of the colonel, Nesvitski, Zherkov, and the officer from the suite.†
Chpt 2
- The sight of the discomposure of that old man of the world touched Pierre: he looked at Helene and she too seemed disconcerted, and her look seemed to say: "Well, it is your own fault."†
Chpt 3
- Anatole was not quick-witted, nor ready or eloquent in conversation, but he had the faculty, so invaluable in society, of composure and imperturbable self-possession.†
Chpt 3 *
- Anatole kissed the old man, and looked at him with curiosity and perfect composure, waiting for a display of the eccentricities his father had told him to expect.†
Chpt 3
- Through the terrible and deafening roar of those voices, amid the square masses of troops standing motionless as if turned to stone, hundreds of riders composing the suites moved carelessly but symmetrically and above all freely, and in front of them two men—the Emperors.†
Chpt 3
- Not one of the innumerable speeches addressed to the Emperor that he had composed in his imagination could he now recall.†
Chpt 3
- On the salver lay some verses composed and printed in the hero's honor.†
Chpt 4
- "Hurrah!" cried the three hundred voices again, but instead of the band a choir began singing a cantata composed by Paul Ivanovich Kutuzov: Russians!†
Chpt 4
- How often when considering her character I have told myself that I was to blame for not understanding her, for not understanding that constant composure and complacency and lack of all interests or desires, and the whole secret lies in the terrible truth that she is a depraved woman.†
Chpt 4
- Denisov, with sparkling eyes and ruffled hair, sat at the clavichord striking chords with his short fingers, his legs thrown back and his eyes rolling as he sang, with his small, husky, but true voice, some verses called "Enchantress," which he had composed, and to which he was trying to fit music: Enchantress, say, to my forsaken lyre What magic power is this recalls me still?†
Chpt 4
- Well, as I was saying," he continued, recovering his composure, "now there's this recruiting.†
Chpt 5
- Boris did not appear to notice the constraint the newcomer produced and, with the same pleasant composure and the same veiled look in his eyes with which he had met Rostov, tried to enliven the conversation.†
Chpt 5
- "To him who has borne himself most bravely in this last war," added Napoleon, accentuating each syllable, as with a composure and assurance exasperating to Rostov, he ran his eyes over the Russian ranks drawn up before him, who all presented arms with their eyes fixed on their Emperor.†
Chpt 5
- Prince Andrew was struck by the extraordinarily disdainful composure with which Speranski answered the old man.†
Chpt 6
- "A wonderful talent!" he said to Prince Andrew, and Magnitski immediately assumed a pose and began reciting some humorous verses in French which he had composed about various well-known Petersburg people.†
Chpt 6
- His father received his son's communication with external composure, but inward wrath.†
Chpt 6
- Pierre looked at Rostopchin with naive astonishment, not understanding why he should be disturbed by the bad composition of the Note.†
Chpt 8 *
- With trembling hands Natasha held that passionate love letter which Dolokhov had composed for Anatole, and as she read it she found in it an echo of all that she herself imagined she was feeling.†
Chpt 8
- You are flurried—compose yourself!†
Chpt 9
- The dispositions drawn up by Weyrother for the battle of Austerlitz were a model of perfection for that kind of composition, but still they were criticized—criticized for their very perfection, for their excessive minuteness.†
Chpt 10
- The Imperial army, strictly speaking, was one third composed of Dutch, Belgians, men from the borders of the Rhine, Piedmontese, Swiss, Genevese, Tuscans, Romans, inhabitants of the Thirty-second Military Division, of Bremen, of Hamburg, and so on: it included scarcely a hundred and forty thousand who spoke French.†
Chpt 10
- And Bilibin repeated the actual words of the diplomatic dispatch, which he had himself composed.†
Chpt 12
- That unknown quantity is the spirit of the army, that is to say, the greater or lesser readiness to fight and face danger felt by all the men composing an army, quite independently of whether they are, or are not, fighting under the command of a genius, in two—or three-line formation, with cudgels or with rifles that repeat thirty times a minute.†
Chpt 14
- Every army is composed of lower grades of the service—the rank and file—of whom there are always the greatest number; of the next higher military rank—corporals and noncommissioned officers of whom there are fewer, and of still-higher officers of whom there are still fewer, and so on to the highest military command which is concentrated in one person.†
Chpt 15
Definitions:
-
(compose as in: compose myself) to calm someone or settle something
-
(compose as in: compose a poem) to write or create something with care -- especially music or a literary work, but could be other things as diverse as a plan or a letter