All 12 Uses of

compose
in
The Fountainhead

He built like a composer improvising under the spur of a mystic guidance.†
Chpt 1.10

composer = someone who writes or creates

Ralston Holcombe on the stand, with flowing tie and gold-headed cane, had the appearance of a Grand Duke or a beer-garden composer.†
Chpt 2.12 *

When I listen to a symphony I love, I don't get from it what the composer got.†
Chpt 4.4

"Yes," he said as she stared obediently at a landscape featuring an auto dump and tried to compose her face into the look of admiration expected of her; "magnificent work.†
Chpt 1.5 *

She sat still, composed, but somehow she looked like something run over by a tank.†
Chpt 2.13

She stood in the middle of the floor, as she had stood on her first night in this room, solemnly composed to the performance of a rite.†
Chpt 2.14 *

She stood straight, her head level; the planes of her face had a military cleanliness of precision and a feminine fragility; her hands hung still, composed by her sides, parallel with the long straight lines of her black dress.†
Chpt 4.4

From my overcoat—to the oldest linotype in the composing room—to the copies of the Banner on newsstands—to this penthouse—to my wife.†
Chpt 4.4

The Banner editorials were written by Gail Wynand as he stood at a table in the composing room, written as always on a huge piece of print stock, with a blue pencil, in letters an inch high.†
Chpt 4.13

His face was composed; it expressed no gloating; the face of an artist who knew that overdoing was defeat and achieved the supreme of offensiveness by remaining normal.†
Chpt 4.15

He would pick up a lead slug off the composing room floor, and finger it absently on the palm of his hand, like a piece of jade, and lay it carefully on a table, as if he did not want it to be wasted.†
Chpt 4.15

Definitions:

(1) (compose as in: compose a poem)
to write or create something with care
(2) (compose as in: composed of many parts)
to create something by arranging parts
(3) (compose as in: compose myself)
to calm someone or settle something
(4) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)
meaning too rare to warrant focus:

Specialized senses of compose include typesetting (preparing text for printing). There are many specialized senses of composition where context tells what something is made up from. Finally, in classic literature, compose may have been used to indicate settling a dispute.