7 uses
- This composition was considered to be the very finest effort of the evening.Chapter 21 (82% in)
- The prime feature of the evening was in order, now—original "compositions" by the young ladies.Chapter 21 (34% in)
- ...was one; "Memories of Other Days"; "Religion in History"; "Dream Land"; "The Advantages of Culture"; "Forms of Political Government Compared and Contrasted"; "Melancholy"; "Filial Love"; "Heart Longings," etc., etc. A prevalent feature in these compositions was a nursed and petted melancholy; another was a wasteful and opulent gush of "fine language"; another was a tendency to lug in by the ears particularly prized words and phrases until they were worn entirely out; and a peculiarity...Chapter 21 (40% in)
- There is no school in all our land where the young ladies do not feel obliged to close their compositions with a sermon; and you will find that the sermon of the most frivolous and the least religious girl in the school is always the longest and the most relentlessly pious.Chapter 21 (47% in)
- The first composition that was read was one entitled "Is this, then, Life?"Chapter 21 (49% in)
- It may be remarked, in passing, that the number of compositions in which the word "beauteous" was over-fondled, and human experience referred to as "life's page," was up to the usual average.Chapter 21 (85% in)
- NOTE:—The pretended "compositions" quoted in this chapter are taken without alteration from a volume entitled "Prose and Poetry, by a Western Lady"—but they are exactly and precisely after the schoolgirl pattern, and hence are much happier than any mere imitations could be.Chapter 21 (98% in)
There are no more uses of "compose" in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
Typical Usage
(best examples)