All 16 Uses of
compose
in
The House of Mirth
- She had died during one of their brief visits to New York, and there Lily at once became the centre of a family council composed of the wealthy relatives whom she had been taught to despise for living like pigs.†
Chpt 1.3
- The sight of his composure had a disturbing effect on Lily; but to be disturbed was in her case to make a more brilliant effort at self-possession.†
Chpt 1.5 *
- Selden received this thrust without discomposure.†
Chpt 1.6
- If Lily's poetic enjoyment of the moment was undisturbed by the base thought that her gown and opera cloak had been indirectly paid for by Gus Trenor, the latter had not sufficient poetry in his composition to lose sight of these prosaic facts.†
Chpt 1.10 *
- But she had regained her presence of mind, and stood composedly in the middle of the room, while her slight smile seemed to put an ever increasing distance between herself and Trenor.†
Chpt 1.13
- That the mass was composed of individual lives, innumerable separate centres of sensation, with her own eager reachings for pleasure, her own fierce revulsions from pain—that some of these bundles of feeling were clothed in shapes not so unlike her own, with eyes meant to look on gladness, and young lips shaped for love—this discovery gave Lily one of those sudden shocks of pity that sometimes decentralize a life.†
Chpt 1.14
- Miss Bart, glowing with the haste of a precipitate descent upon the train, headed a group composed of the Dorsets, young Silverton and Lord Hubert Dacey, who had barely time to spring into the carriage, and envelop Selden in ejaculations of surprise and welcome, before the whistle of departure sounded.†
Chpt 2.1
- There was something unnerving in the contemplation of Mrs. Dorset's composure, and she had to force the light tone in which she answered: "I tried to see you this morning, but you were not yet up."†
Chpt 2.2
- The mere fact that they thus showed themselves together, with the utmost openness the place afforded, seemed to declare beyond a doubt that their differences were composed.†
Chpt 2.3
- She had paled a little under the shock of the insult, but the discomposure of the surrounding faces was not reflected in her own.†
Chpt 2.3
- "Lily!" he exclaimed, with a note of despairing appeal; but—"Oh, not now," she gently admonished him; and then, in all the sweetness of her recovered composure: "Since I must find shelter somewhere, and since you're so kindly here to help me——"†
Chpt 2.3
- It was the first time that she had faced her family since her return from Europe, two weeks earlier; but if she perceived any uncertainty in their welcome, it served only to add a tinge of irony to the usual composure of her bearing.†
Chpt 2.4
- Lily met the announcement with her usual composure, though her experience of Bertha's idiosyncrasies would not have led her to include the neighbourly instinct among them; and Mrs. Gormer, relieved to see that she gave no sign of surprise, went on with a deprecating laugh: "Of course what really brought her was curiosity—she made me take her all over the house.†
Chpt 2.6
- She continued to confront him with the same air of ironic composure.†
Chpt 2.7
- She flushed to her temples, but the extremity of her need checked the retort on her lip and she continued to face him composedly.†
Chpt 2.7
- Selden exclaimed, startled out of his composure by the abruptness of the statement.†
Chpt 2.9
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