"Discompose" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... virtues. But it is, once more, only a book for those who have the gift of reading. I will be very frank—I believe it is so with all good books, except, perhaps, fiction. The average man lives, and must live, so wholly in convention, that gunpowder charges of the truth are more apt to discompose than to invigorate his creed. Either he cries out upon blasphemy and indecency, and crouches the closer round that little idol of part-truths and part-conveniences which is the contemporary deity, or he is convinced by what is new, forgets what is old, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... did not discompose Prince Falkenberg. On the contrary, he seemed, if anything, to ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... disaster proves most fully to me that you would make the best wife, mother, and mistress in the world. You and Anne are a pair for marvellous philosophical powers of endurance; no spoilt dinners, scorched linen, dirtied carpets, torn sofa-covers, squealing brats, cross husbands, would ever discompose either of you. You ought never to marry a good-tempered man, it would be mingling honey with sugar, like sticking white roses upon a black-thorn cudgel. With this very picturesque metaphor I close my letter. Good-bye, and ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... one of the old officers, coming forward. "Give him time. This may be a case of strange accidental resemblance, which would be enough, under the circumstances, to discompose any man. You will excuse me, citizen," he continued, turning to Trudaine; "but you are a stranger. You have given us no proof ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... feels it would close again over the panel, like water, as if nothing had happened. That portrait of Spedding, for instance, which Laurence has given me: not swords, nor cannon, nor all the bulls of Bashan butting at it could, I feel sure, discompose that venerable forehead. No wonder that no hair can grow at such an altitude; no wonder his view of Bacon's virtue is so rarefied that the common consciences of men cannot endure it. Thackeray and I occasionally amuse ourselves with the idea of Spedding's forehead. We find it somehow or other ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... would wait till she had skilfully avoided any chance of encountering the company, delivered her mother's errand, and was safe with Conny, cantering homewards. Even then she would not dwell on the notion, lest her father should allude to the stranger, and she should betray any feeling to discompose him. "I must take care of papa. Papa is my charge," repeated Joanna, proud as any Roman maid ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... one of the company to shake hands with him was Victor Mahr—and Victor Mahr was a friend of Mrs. Marteen. The sudden recollection of this fact made him cast such a glance of scrutiny at the gentleman as to quite discompose him. ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford |
