"Extempore" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... singers and players have a smug little fashion of forgetting that there is a composer back of you. You don't sing extempore, Thayer, make up the song as you go along. You're nothing more than a species of elocutionist, you know, trying to show the people who weren't on the spot what the composer really did ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... virum: are you an author, sir? give me leave a little, come on, sir, I'll make verses with you now in honour of the gods and the goddesses for what you dare extempore; and now I begin. "Mount thee my Phlegon muse, and testify, How Saturn sitting in an ebon cloud, Disrobed his podex, white as ivory, And through the welkin thunder'd all ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... but, if they will, there is no need to ask a favor; the world receives one from him. Will not a piece everlastingly be tried by its merit? Shall we esteem it the higher, because it was written at the age of thirteen? because it was the effort of a week? delivered extempore? hatched while the author stood upon one leg? or cobbled, while he cobbled a shoe? or will it be a recommendation, that it issues forth in gilt binding? The judicious world will not be deceived by the tinselled purse, but will examine whether the contents ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... psychological truth, and then still more for the light it throws on Dante's inward history as poet and thinker. Hitherto he had celebrated beauty and goodness in the creature; henceforth he was to celebrate them in the Creator whose praise they were.[175] We give an extempore translation of this sonnet, in which the meaning is preserved so far as is possible where the grace is left out. We remember with some compunction as we do it, that Dante has said, "know every one that nothing harmonized by a musical ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... Lecture[2] of the course from the series now published, is in order to mark more definitely this limitation of my subject; but in other respects the Lectures have been amplified in arranging them for the press, and the portions of them trusted at the time to extempore delivery (not through indolence, but because explanations of detail are always most intelligible when most familiar) have been in substance to the best of my power set down, and in what ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... for himself. He knew his own dignity too well to suffer a Fellow of his College to sit down in his presence. He kept his seat himself, and let the Queen's Ambassador stand. Such was the temper, not of a Vice-Chancellor, but of a simple Master of a College. I remember, by the way, an extempore epigram of Matt's on the reception he had there met with. We did not reckon in those days that he had a very happy turn for an epigram; but the occasion was tempting; and he struck it off as he was walking from ...
— St. John's College, Cambridge • Robert Forsyth Scott
... to act what the Italians call a Comedy of Character; that is, not an exact drama, in which the actors deliver what is set down for them by the author; but one, in which the plot having been previously fixed upon, and a few striking scenes adjusted, the actors are expected to supply the dialogue extempore, or, as Petruchio says, from their mother wit. This is an amusement which affords much entertainment in Italy, particularly in the state of Venice, where the characters of their drama have been long since all previously ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... simple, and of two kinds only: the one, a sort of flute, producing four notes, and blown with the nostrils; the other, a drum, made of the hollow trunk of a tree; but the accompanying songs, usually extempore poems, were pretty, and showed the delicacy of their ear. The girls excelled in the dance; the married women were forbidden to take part in it, and the men never did. The dancers executed a species of ballet, and, according to the judgment of travellers, they ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... the mother did not find it too cold. It was haughty, even repellent, but by no means in the mother's eyes repulsive. Her voice came from her in well-balanced sentences, sounding as if they had been secretly constructed for extempore use, like the points of a parliamentary orator. "Marriage has done everything for her!" said Lady Malice to herself with a dignified chuckle, and dismissed the last shadowy remnant of maternal regret for her part in the transaction of ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... the Doctor went on, "the Devil can never prevent me preaching from that text. I could speak extempore upon it for hours, it was the very first command both to Adam and also to Noah when he came out of the ark. Dear Mrs. Etheridge, let me touch that divine cunt of yours. I can't make out what your husband has been about since the charming Ethel was born that you have had no more children, you ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous
... at intervals through the summer, she started on a regular tour early in the fall, writing Lydia Mott: "I can not feel easy in my conscience to be dumb in an hour like this. I am speaking now extempore and more to my satisfaction than ever before. I am amazed at myself, but I could not do it if any of our other speakers were listening to me. I am entirely off old anti-slavery grounds and on the new ones thrown up by the war. ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... that two-masted ships would sail up the Irrawaddy, when all trouble and sorrow would cease! Animated by his subject, his voice gradually became bolder and more spirited, as well as his performance, and without any hesitation he sung with much facility two or three stanzas composed extempore. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... again. Why, I'll tell you an instance of it.—You must know I was once a journeyman sonnet-writer to Signor Squallini. Now, his method, when seized with the furor harmonicus, was constantly to make me sit by his side, while he was thrumming on his harpsichord, in order to make extempore verses to whatever air he should beat out to his liking. I remember, one morning, as he was in this situation, thrum, thrum, thrum, (moving his fingers as if beating on the harpsichord,) striking out ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... brilliant for her situation, the minister, her father, having bestowed great pains on her education. She was aught drawing, singing, and to play on the theorbo; had learning, and wrote very agreeable verses. The following is an extempore piece which she composed in the absence of her husband and brother, in a conversation with some person relative to them, while walking with her ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... my tent, rattling his calabash for a present, singing my praises cheaply enough, for I gave him a very small present indeed. They have no set songs; all their singing is extempore. ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... aspect, clad in rusty black, and bearing in his hand a small plain Bible from which he selects some passage for his text, while the hymn is concluding. The congregation fall upon their knees, and are hushed into profound stillness as he delivers an extempore prayer, in which he calls upon the Sacred Founder of the Christian faith to bless his ministry, in terms of disgusting and impious familiarity not to be described. He begins his oration in a drawling tone, and his hearers listen with silent attention. He grows warmer as he ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... the musician. Isabella threw a light mantle around her, and rousing one of her maidens, she opened the window. The rich melody came upon her senses through the balmy odour of myrtle boughs and leaves of honeysuckle. The chords were touched with a skilful hand, and the prelude, a wild and extempore commentary on the ballad, was succeeded ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... was not remarkable for the brilliance of his sermons, which he wrote and "committed"—that is, learned by heart, to deliver in pseudo-extempore fashion, as was the weary custom of most Scotch ministers of his time. But this Sunday, all that he had committed slipped clean out of his memory. He preached as he had never been known to preach before, and never preached again—with originality, power, eloquence; speaking from his deepest ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... is heating, the experimenter prostrates himself in front of the fire and prays to the Great Spirit of the Unknown to confer on him the property of metamorphosing, nocturnally, into a werwolf. His prayers take no one particular form, but are quite extempore; though he usually adds to them ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... his extempore window curtain, and returned with it. Yuba Bill, who had quietly and disapprovingly surveyed the proceeding, here disengaged himself from the ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... trimmed and tamed, that they never admitted a sentence that could warm the heart, or one that could offend the ear. He had so great a horror of a vulgarism that, like Canning, he would have made a periphrasis of a couple of lines to avoid using the word "cat." It was only in extempore speaking that a ray of his real genius could indiscreetly betray itself. One may judge what labor such a super-refinement of taste would inflict upon a man writing in a language not his own to some distinguished statesman or some literary institution,—knowing that language just well ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... always plainly and clearly stated, as business always should be. For gay and amusing letters, for 'enjouement and badinage,' there are none that equal Comte Bussy's and Madame Sevigne's. They are so natural, that they seem to be the extempore conversations of two people of wit, rather, than letters which are commonly studied, though they ought not to be so. I would advise you to let that book be one in your itinerant library; it will both amuse and ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... was as extemporaneous as the prayer, if any thing can come extempore from a mind so drilled and fortified in opinion. It contained much the same matter, delivered a little less in the form of an apostrophe. The stricken congregation, while they were encouraged with the belief that they were vessels set apart ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... this text the clergyman preached long and well: he did not read his sermon, but spoke it extempore; his doing so rather surprised and offended me at first; I was not used to such a style of preaching in a church devoted to the religion of my country. I compared it within my mind with the style of preaching used by the high-church rector in the old church of pretty D . . ., and ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... of a large GESTEIN. We sat down with him for a time, for all felt the heat exceedingly in the climb up this very steep BOLWOGGOLY, and then we set out again together, and arrived at last near the Dead Man's Lake, at the foot of the Sidelhorn. This lonely spot, once used for an extempore burying-place, after a sanguinary BATTUE between the French and Austrians, is the perfection of desolation; there is nothing in sight to mark the hand of man, except the line of weather-beaten whitened posts, set up to indicate the direction of the pass in the OWDAWAKK of winter. Near this ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... wearing late, and our landlord had just come in to announce that supper was ready, and would be served up when ordered, we agreed to rest satisfied for the night with the extempore autobiographies, as I may call them, of our two worthy companions—the little hunch-backed personage in the bright yellow waistcoat, and the melancholy gentleman; but we, at the same time, resolved that ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... been impossible for me to have imitated without being severely burnt. I once saw him go to a bright wood fire, and, taking a large piece of red-hot charcoal, put it in the hollow of one hand, and, covering it with the other, blow into the extempore furnace till the coal was white hot, and the flames licked round his fingers. No sign of burning could be seen then ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... the lecture itself from reflecting his own feebleness and exhaustion except the advantage of having been precomposed in some happier mood. But that never happened: most unfortunately, he relied on his extempore ability to carry him through. Now, had he been in spirits, or had he gathered animation and kindled by his own emotion, no written lecture could have been more effectual than one of his unpremeditated ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... shocked, scandalized air, had he not recognized in one of the party a clergyman, he would have delivered an extempore philippic on the extraordinary habits of his niece: respect for the ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... are much in this practice of extempore invention, and their dexterity is such as even to excite admiration, if not envy; but how rarely can this praise be given to their finished pictures! The late Director of their Academy, Boucher, ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... "in the last century, was almost exclusively doctrinal—the fall: the nature, the extent, and the application of the remedy. In the hands of able men, no doubt, there might be much variety of exposition, but with weaker or indolent men preaching extempore, or without notes, it too often ended in a weekly repetition of what had been already said. An old elder of mine, whose recollection might reach back from sixty to seventy years, said to me one day, 'Now-a-days, people make a work if a minister preach the ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... so very far wrong. Inside the carriage a pair of bright eyes looked from a ripely handsome face, and though behind those bright eyes was a mind of unfathomed mysteries, beneath them there beat a heart capable of quick extempore warmth—a heart which could, indeed, be passionately and imprudently warm on certain occasions. At present, after recognizing the girl, she had acted on a mere impulse, possibly feeling gratified at the denuded appearance which signified ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... After an extempore entertainment we again climbed to our seats in the drag and were driven back to Melbourne, stopping en route at the stock farm of J. H. Miller, who had gone into the business of breeding American trotters, ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... became a mere basis for the utterance of scientific artifices and the display of vocal gymnastics. The singers, for their part, were allowed innumerable licenses. While the bass sustained the melody, the other voices indulged in extempore descant (composizione alla mente) and in extravagances of technical execution (rifiorimenti), regardless of the style of the main composition, violating time, and setting even ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... our breakfast after a blessing, or rather an extempore prayer, which Joshua made upon the occasion, and which the spirit moved him to prolong rather more than I felt altogether agreeable. Then, Alan, there was such a dispatching of the good things of the morning as you have not witnessed ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... from the multitude of business, I should write of nothing but that tragedy extempore,-for I am sure it was got up in a minute,-the argument whereof was your running away. It positively is the staple of conversation. And I think it is rather hard upon me, too. I am here; but that seems to go for nothing. All their ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... of the Committee on Literature was made by its chairman, Miss Caroline Ruutz-Rees, showing the usual careful selection of valuable matter for publication. Two important compilations she had made herself—Ten Extempore Answers to Questions by Dr. Shaw and extracts from a number of her speeches, gleaned from scattered reports; also an eloquent address made at Birmingham, Ala., the preceding April. So little from Dr. Shaw existed in printed ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... punishment and live at peace. Nor was he unwilling to promise Mrs. Woodford to say daily, and especially when tempted, one or two brief collects and ejaculations which she selected to teach him, as being as unlike as possible to the long extempore exercises which had made him hate the very name of prayer. The Doctor gave him a Greek Testament, as being least connected ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and the beginning of our meal, did not detach him from his train of thought beyond a moment. He condescended, indeed, to ask me some questions as to my success at college, but I thought it was with half his mind; and even in his extempore grace, which was, as usual, long and wandering, I could find the trace of his preoccupation, praying, as he did, that God would "remember in mercy fower puir, feckless, fiddling, sinful creatures here by their lee-lane beside the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of Demosthenes, who, by his genius for extempore oratory, raised himself to a predominant position in Athens as a champion of the Macedonian influence, but afterwards ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... long-metre tune, he was able to start it. This done, the congregation joined in, and the singing went off pretty well. After praying and reading a chapter in the Bible, Odell sat down to collect his thoughts for the sermon, which was, of course, to be extempore, as Methodist sermons usually are. It is customary for the choir, if there is one, to sing an anthem during this pause; or, where no singers are set apart, for some members to strike up an appropriate hymn, in which the congregation ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... strength. He had soon gone over his poets. Fortunately, they were well chosen and would bear repeating. The fountain in his own mind, too, was still full, and he found great relief in declaiming extempore verses in a loud voice, and writing out those that pleased him best. But could he hold out? for it was evidently intended to wear him down by anxiety and solitude, and when they had broken his spirits bring him ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... not return till the 20th. To-morrow I am to dine with Madame and Madlle. de Branca, the latter being a kind of half pupil of mine, for Sigl seldom comes, and Becke, who usually accompanies her on the flute, is not here. On the three days that I was at Count Salern's I played a great many things extempore—two Cassations [Divertimentos] for the Countess, and the finale and Rondo, and the latter by heart. You cannot imagine the delight this causes Count Salern. He understands music, for he was constantly saying ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... and imparts the plans, he carries his own theories and beliefs into execution, he is the intrusted agent, the advanced executive. He can act for himself. He can influence others to significant and purposeful action. The advantages that come to men who can think upon their feet, who can express extempore a carefully considered proposition, who can adapt their conversation or arguments to every changing condition, ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... all up to the Head, with an extempore prayer. It took about forty pages," said Beetle. "I helped ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... the mysteries of a discovery of mine, that it is not necessary to finish your sentence in a crowd, but by a sort of mumble, omitting sibilants and dentals. This, indeed, if your words fail you, answers even in public extempore speech—but better where other talking is going on. Thus: "We missed you at the Natural History Society, Ingham." Ingham replies: "I am very gligloglum, that is, that you were m-m-m-m-m." By gradually dropping the voice, the interlocutor ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... while it was acting. The piece concluded with the reception which she was supposed to meet with from her friends at her return; and it was a reception that was by no means favourable. As these people, when they see occasion, can add little extempore pieces to their entertainments, it is reasonable to imagine, that the representation now described was intended as a satire against the girl, and to discourage others from following her steps. Such is the sense which they entertain of the propriety ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... double row of desks, with a clear space down the middle between the rows. Each scholar was hurrying to his place at one of the desks, where, as he arrived, he stood. The master already stood in solemn posture at the nearer end of the room on a platform behind his desk, prepared to commence the extempore prayer, which was printed in a kind of blotted stereotype upon every one of their brains. Annie had hardly succeeded in reaching a vacant place among the girls when he began. The boys were as still as death while the master prayed; ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... do," replied Bob, "as I intend to be secretary. After all, what's the use of thinking about it? Here goes for an extempore chief;" and the villain wrote down the name of ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... Funguses of England": "I have myself witnessed whole hundredweights of rich, wholesome diet rotting under trees, woods teeming with food, and not one hand to gather it. . . . I have, indeed, grieved when I reflected on the straitened conditions of the lower orders to see pounds innumerable of extempore beefsteaks growing on our Oaks in the shape of Fistula hepatica; Ag. fusipes, to pickle in clusters under them; Puffballs, which some of our friends have not inaptly compared to sweet-bread for the rich delicacy of their unassisted flavour; Hydna, as good as oysters, ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... by the by, I must repeat to you some extempore verses I made yesterday at the house of a certain duchess, an acquaintance of mine. I am deuced clever at ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... itself. What is instructive, what is historic, is the probability that young persons offering themselves at that time as guides and communicators—the requirements of our small sister were for long modest enough—quite conceivably lacked preparedness, and were so thrown back on the extempore, which in turn lacked abundance. One of these figures, that of Mademoiselle Danse, the most Parisian, and prodigiously so, was afterwards to stand out for us quite luridly—a cloud of revelations succeeding ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... took me to Dr. Bell's (the old homoeopathic doctor) to hear Lord Radstock speak about "training children." It was a curious affair. First a very long hymn; then two very long extempore prayers (not by Lord R—), which were strangely self-sufficient and wanting in reverence. Lord R—'s remarks were commonplace enough, though some of his theories were new, but, I think, not true—e.g., that encouraging ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... he writes, "is a certain knack or aptitude at doing certain things, which depend more on a particular adroitness and off-hand readiness than on force or perseverance, such as making puns, making epigrams, making extempore verses, mimicking the company, mimicking a style, etc.... Accomplishments are certain external graces, which are to be learnt from others, and which are easily displayed to the admiration of the beholder, viz. dancing, riding, fencing, music, and ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... labours permit[37]." At this period of his life Cicero spent much time in study at his estates near Tusculum, Antium, Formiae, and elsewhere. I dwell with greater emphasis on these facts, because of the idea now spread abroad that Cicero was a mere dabbler in literature, and that his works were extempore paraphrases of Greek books half understood. In truth, his appetite for every kind of literature was insatiable, and his attainments in each department considerable. He was certainly the most learned Roman of ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... Praise of some Men, that they could Talk whole Hours together upon any Thing; but it must be owned to the Honour of the other Sex, that there are many among them who can Talk whole Hours together upon Nothing. I have known a Woman branch out into a long Extempore Dissertation upon the Edging of a Petticoat, and chide her Servant for breaking a China Cup, in all the Figures ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... them. I have myself crossed above thirty leagues together, in which space the forests were so totally consumed by fire, that one could hardly at night find a spot wooded enough to afford wherewithal to make an extempore cabbin, which, in this country, is commonly made in the following manner: Towards night the travellers commonly pitch upon a spot as near a rivulet or river as they can; and as no one forgets to carry his hatchet with ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard
... fellow-servants assembled around him. The prince could hardly believe his senses, and commanded him to proceed. With a surprising degree of facility he began to vary a touching adagio air with some fine extempore variations, which he executed with all the taste of a virtuoso. The prince, who, as you know, is a judge of music, says that he might play with confidence in the finest choir ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... speaking now extempore," she continued, "and more to my satisfaction than ever before. I am amazed at myself, but I could not do it if any of our other speakers were listening to me. I am entirely off old antislavery grounds and on the new ones ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... begin, but did not dare to stir first for fear of the law, counterfeited a distraction, and by his own family it was spread about the city that he was mad. He then secretly composed some elegiac verses, and getting them by heart, that it might seem extempore, ran out into the market-place with a cap upon his head, and, the people gathering about him, got upon the herald's stand, and sang ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... human voice when it speaks from its instant life tones of tenderness, truth, or courage. The oratorio has already lost its relation to the morning, to the sun, and the earth, but that persuading voice is in tune with these. All works of art should not be detached, but extempore performances. A great man is a new statue in every attitude and action. A beautiful woman is a picture which drives all beholders nobly mad. Life may be lyric or epic, as well as ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... are some creatures of such an extempore being that the whole term of their life is confined within the space of a day; for they are brought forth in the morning, are in the prime of their existence at noon, grow old at night, and ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... on most of the subjects which usually occupy the attention of the Legislature; and he is happy in turning his information to good account. He is ready on all occasions, which he deems fitting ones, with a speech in favor of the policy advocated by the party with whom he acts. His extempore resources are ample. Few men in the House can improvise better. It does not appear to cost him an effort to speak.... He is a man of very considerable talent, but has nothing approaching to genius. His abilities are much more the result of an excellent education and of mature study ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... on in advance of him. They spoke not a word, for they were thinking about the fine extempore speeches they would have to bring out, and these had to be ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... warrior Achilles, he was somewhat subject to extempore bursts of passion, which were rather unpleasant to his favorites and attendants, whose perceptions he was apt to quicken, after the manner of his illustrious imitator, Peter the Great, by anointing their ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... honey, to an interminable tedious sweetness; to fill up sound with feeling, and strain ideas to keep pace with it; to gaze on empty frames, and be forced to make the pictures for yourself; to read a book, all stops, and be obliged to supply the verbal matter; to invent extempore tragedies to answer to the vague gestures of an inexplicable rambling mime—these are faint shadows of what I have undergone from a series of the ablest-executed pieces of this ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... illustrious Beau's, his numerals, which is rare nowadays, were very clearly and very beautifully formed. The Prince of Beaux was fastidious in his penmanship as in everything else. Sir Ralph's half- yearly speeches to the shareholders, though delivered extempore, were models of perspicuity. He used the scantiest notes, mere headings of subjects, and a few scraps of paper containing figures which he usually remembered without their aid. Of his memory he was proud. One day, at a meeting ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... had with noble candor confessed to the finer offense of manslaughter. That swift and sure justice which overtook the horse-stealer in these altitudes was stayed a moment and hesitated, for the victim was clearly the mysterious unknown. Curiosity got the better of an extempore judge and jury. ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... me into all the charms of Pisan society. He had organized a little choir of ladies of rank, remarkable for their intelligence and beauty, and had taught them to sing extempore to the guitar. He had had them instructed by the famous Gorilla, who was crowned poetess-laureate at the capitol by night, six years later. She was crowned where our great Italian poets were crowned; and though her merit was no doubt great, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... under laws which dictate almost every detail of his public and private conduct, and punish every sign of bad discipline with the most appalling rigour; and these laws are enforced by police who supply the chance gaps in them extempore, and exercise that authority in the best manner of prison guards, animal ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... which arose of talking with warm-hearted familiarity of great eighteenth-century men, and parodying their conversation. It was easy enough to speak of Johnson as 'Grand Old Samuel,' and to hob-nob with Swift or Sterne, seeing that, like the lion's part in Pyramus and Thisbe, 'you can do it extempore, for it is nothing ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... boat, and as half of the country fellows about had now appeared, either out of zeal or curiosity, it was soon sunk in the ground, and sufficiently secured. A yard across the upright mast, and a rope stretched along it, and reeved through a block at each end, formed an extempore crane, which afforded the means of lowering an arm-chair, well secured and fastened, down to the flat shelf on which the sufferers had roosted. Their joy at hearing the preparations going on for their deliverance was ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... verbal memory; and he was not given to hypothesis and experiment. It did occur to him that he could perhaps get some help by praying for it; but as the prayers he said every evening were forms learned by heart, he rather shrank from the novelty and irregularity of introducing an extempore passage on a topic of petition for which he was not aware of any precedent. But one day, when he had broken down, for the fifth time, in the supines of the third conjugation, and Mr. Stelling, convinced that ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... cannot Justly assume to itself a power to rule by extempore arbitrary decrees; but it is bound to see that Justice is dispensed, and that the rights of the subjects be decided, by promulgated, standing and known laws, and authorized independent Judges;" that ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... a festival in honour of Kinchinjhow being annually held at a large chait hard by, which is painted red, ornamented with banners, and surmounted by an enormous yak's skull, that faces the mountain. The Lama invited me into his tent, where I found a wife and family. An extempore altar was at one end, covered with wafers and other pretty ornaments, made of butter, stamped or moulded with the fingers.* [The extensive use of these ornaments throughout Tibet, on the occasion of religious festivals, is alluded to by MM. Huc and Gabet.] The tents ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... meal ground, the wife proceeds to make it into bread; an extempore oven is often constructed by scooping out a large hole in an anthill, and using a slab of stone for a door. Another plan, which might be adopted by the Australians to produce something better than their "dampers", is to make a good fire on a level piece of ground, and, when the ground ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... moment. The generality of speakers are utterly unfit for the task, and accordingly do it ill. A few men, by long training, acquire the power of casting their thoughts into speaking train, so as to make a good appearance in extempore reply; yet even these would do still better if they had a little time. The adjournment of a debate, and the reopening of a question at successive stages, furnish the real opportunities for effective reply. ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... on the road between Nether Stowey and Alfoxden, extempore. I distinctly recollect the very moment when I was struck, as described,—'He looks up, the clouds are split,' ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... gratified: and new opportunities were now combined with new motives for persisting in his efforts. Concerning the plan or the success of his academical prelections, we have scarcely any notice: in his class, it is said, he used most frequently to speak extempore; and his delivery was not distinguished by fluency or grace, a circumstance to be imputed to the agitation of a public appearance; for, as Woltmann assures us, 'the beauty, the elegance, ease, and true instructiveness with ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... Nose is requisite also, to smell out worke for th' other Sences. I see this is the time that the vniust man doth thriue. What an exchange had this been, without boot? What a boot is here, with this exchange? Sure the Gods doe this yeere conniue at vs, and we may doe any thing extempore. The Prince himselfe is about a peece of Iniquitie (stealing away from his Father, with his Clog at his heeles:) if I thought it were a peece of honestie to acquaint the King withall, I would not ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... political classics of England. As a debater in the House Mr. Davis may well be cited as an exemplar. He had no boastful reliance upon intuition or inspiration or the spur of the moment, though no man excelled him in extempore speech. He made elaborate preparation by the study of all public questions, and spoke from a full mind with complete command of premise and conclusion. In all that pertained to the graces of oratory he was ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... in this part of Africa are also attended by a band carrying drums, and singing extempore songs, a translation of one of which is subjoined from "Denham's Travels," whence the engraving ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various
... very simple form, are practised by the American Lutherans; also confirmation, by which baptismal vows are ratified, and the subjects become communicants. Their liturgies are simple and impressive, and the clergy are permitted to use extempore prayer. See Statistics ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... Bostonians with Jenny Lind are weak and cold compared with the ovations which Jasmin has received. At a recitation given shortly before my visit to Auch, the ladies present actually tore the flowers and feathers out of their bonnets, wove them into extempore garlands, and flung them in showers upon the panting minstrel; while the editors of the local papers next morning assured him, in floods of flattering epigrams, that humble as he was now, future ages would acknowledge the 'divinity' ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... relates in his volume, "Extempore Speech," an instance of the unconsciously farcical use of the pause by a really great American statesman and orator. "He had visited Niagara Falls and was to make an oration at Buffalo the same day, but, unfortunately, he sat too long over the wine after dinner. When he arose to ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... Lines. He was returning from Washington over the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, on a freight-train, when he heard of the President's danger. Langenzunge loved Old Rough and Ready,—and he felt badly about his own office, too. But his extempore train chose to stop at a forsaken shanty-village on the Potomac, for four mortal hours, at midnight. What does he do, but walk down the line into the darkness, climb a telegraph-post, cut a wire, and applied the two ends to his tongue, to taste, at the fatal moment, ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... another early waking on that fine morning, though not quite so early as the one just described. Master Junkie Brook, lying in a packing-box, which served as an extempore crib, in the cottage of Kenneth McTavish, opened his large round eyes and rubbed them. Getting up, he observed that Mrs Scholtz was sound asleep, and quietly dressed himself. He was a precocious child, and had learned to dress without assistance. The lesson was more easily learned than beings living ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... did she compose an extempore song, adapted to immediate circumstances, beginning—'I love no vain and fickle youth,' and beautifully depicting the love of a young woman for a man advanced in years. She sung it with a most touching air, and threw into her countenance and ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... famous punster, was desired to make a pun extempore. "Upon what subject?" said Daniel. "The king," answered the other. "O, sir," said he, "the king is ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... Export eksteren sendi. Expose montri. Exposition ekspozicio. Expostulate rezonegi. Expound klarigi. Express esprimi. Express-train rapida vagonaro. Expression esprimo. Expressly speciale. Expulsion elpelo. Expunge elstreki. Exquisite rava. Extant ekzistanta. Extempore senprepara. Extend etendi. Extension etendo. Extensive vasta. Exterior eksterajxo. Exterminate ekstermi. External ekstera. Extinct estingita. Extinguish estingi. Extirpate elradikigi. Extol lauxdegi. Extort eltiregi. Extra ekstra. Extract ekstrakti, eltiri. Extract ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... belonging to the volunteers of his district. His example was followed by another, who, having but one leg, contributed the same service to the common cause. Nor was supplication forgotten: a form of prayer was composed for those who used formulas, and extempore petitions were offered by other denominations. The colony, at large, cheerfully responded to the call of government: the military character of the plan excited the young, without much alarming the mature. The inhabitants of ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... end he wins, and the French cock has to crow thrice, "Let Germany flourish." In another game between two students who are contending in the play of striking a ball through an iron ring, it is arranged that he that is beat shall make and repeat extempore some verses in praise of him that beat him. This certainly would make many a youth keen to win ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... have I.' There was nothing particularly wise or witty in the words; but their truth was so evident, and the manner in which they were spoken so clear and calm, that they were followed by a roar of laughter that for a little time upset the mighty humorist, though, in the extempore song in which he rallied, he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... cricketer, one of the curates no doubt, read the lessons. Chichester intoned with an agreeable light tenor voice. During the third hymn, "Fight the Good Fight," Mr. Harding mounted into the pulpit. He let down the brass reading-desk. He had no notes in his hands. Evidently he was going to preach extempore. After the "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" had been pronounced, Malling settled himself to listen. He felt tensely interested. Both Mr. Harding and Chichester were ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... obliged to be the figurante of the circle. Yesterday I preached twice, and, indeed, performed the whole service, morning and afternoon. There were about 1,400 persons present, and my sermons, (great part extempore,) were preciously peppered with politics. I have here at least double the number of subscribers I had expected. ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... and, ready as Burke's wit was, it appeared artificial when set by that of Townshend, which was so abundant that in him it seemed a loss of time to think. He had but to speak, and all he said was new, natural, and yet uncommon. If Burke replied extempore, his very answers that sprang from what had been said by others were so pointed and artfully arranged that they wore the appearance of study and preparation; like beautiful translations, they seemed ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... front seat for me, so I could see and hear without difficulty. On the raised platform stood my friend the Abbe looking very grave and rather nervous. A cardinal, two bishops, and some half-dozen priests were seated close to him, and very shortly the lecture, which was, I think, extempore, began. ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... Southey on March 20, 1799, Lamb says:—"I the other day threw off an extempore epitaph on Ensign Peacock of the 3rd Regt. of the Royal East India Volunteers, who like other boys in this scarlet tainted age was ambitious of playing at soldiers, but dying in the first flash of his valour was at the particular instance of his relations buried with military honours! like any ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... experiments, some legerdemain tricks, with which (at least according to the papers) he sets the whole world in wonder. For in almost every newspaper that appears, there are some verses on the great Katterfelto, which some one or other of his hearers are said to have made extempore. Every sensible person considers Katterfelto as a puppy, an ignoramus, a braggadocio, and an impostor; notwithstanding which he has a number of followers. He has demonstrated to the people, that the influenza is occasioned by a small kind of insect, which poisons the air; and ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... the Greeks and Romans, in comic representation of scenes in ordinary life, often in extempore dialogue. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... breakfast, we went to meeting. My foster-father looked excessively wild. Mr Cate was raving in the midst of an extempore prayer, when a heavy fall was heard in the chapel. The minister descended from his desk, and came and prayed over the prostrate victim of intoxication, and, perhaps, of epilepsy, and he pronounced ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... even in such as only temporarily come into prominence, as Ophrah, Ramah, and Nob near Gibeah. And, apart from the greater cities with their more or less regular religious service, it is perfectly permissible to erect an altar extempore, and offer sacrifice wherever an occasion presents itself. When, after the battle of Michmash, the people, tired and hungry, fell upon the cattle they had taken, and began to devour the flesh with the blood (that is, without pouring out the blood on the altar), ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... Osmyn delivered an extempore poem before the Caliph, his rival, after having warmly applauded him, cast down his eyes by accident, and saw shining on the floor one of the pastilles that Osmyn, who was led away by the vivacity of his declamation, had let fall by mistake. The traitor snatched it up, and put it mechanically ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 495, June 25, 1831 • Various
... disappointment may have made that noxious climate more deadly. Hints of poisoning were thrown out, but this is a surmise easily and often lightly made. "Thus," says Fuller, in his "Holy State," "an extempore performance, scarce heard to be begun before we hear it is ended, comes off with better applause, or miscarries with less disgrace, than a long-studied and openly premeditated action. Besides, we see how great spirits, having mounted ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... austere gravity. And so he set out to go to the camp to declare him Caesar and successor to the empire. But at his very first going forth, many signs appeared in the heavens, and when he began to make a speech to the soldiers, partly extempore, and partly reading it, the frequent claps of thunder and flashes of lightning and the violent storm of rain that burst on both the camp and the city were plain discoveries that the divine powers ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... years ago. Joyce was in the midst of a party of convivial friends. After several cases of champagne had been tossed down, a member of the party said to Colonel Joyce, "Come, old fellow, give us an extempore poem." As Colonel Joyce had not utilized his muse for at least twenty minutes, he cordially assented to the proposition, and while the waiter was bringing a fresh supply of wine Colonel Joyce dashed off the dialect poem so highly praised by the New York Sun. We are amazed that he ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... sorrows, or gratified by our sympathy. Yet I stood riveted to the spot, until I was aroused by the deep—toned voice of Padre Carera, who, lifting up his hands towards heaven, addressed the Almighty in extempore prayer, beseeching his mercy to our erring sister who had just departed. The unusualness of this startled me.—"As the tree falls, so must it lie," had been the creed of my forefathers, and was mine; but ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... head at these common-place funereal lines, and said to Garrick, 'I think, Davy, I can make a better.' Then, stirring about his tea for a little while, in a state of meditation, he almost extempore ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... learn German, in order to converse with the 26 Germans on board. On Sunday I preached extempore and then administered the Lord's ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... the female part of her family which had stood gazing on me all the while in fixed astonishment, to resume the task of spinning cotton, in which they continued to employ themselves a great part of the night. They lightened their labors by songs, one of which was composed extempore, for I was myself the subject of it. It was sung by one of the young women, the rest joining in a sort of chime. The air was sweet and plaintive, and the words, literally translated, were these: 'The winds roared and the rains fell; the poor white man, faint and weary, came and sat under ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... my book with a little poem that Cosmo wrote—not that night, but soon after. The poet may, in the height of joy, give out an extempore flash or two, but he writes no poem then. The joy must have begun to be garnered, before the soul can sing about it. How we shall sing when we absolutely believe that OUR LIFE IS HID WITH ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... fancied it might be asleep, and therefore drew near softly, lest it should take flight; but it was dead, and stirred not when I touched it. Sometimes a dead fish was cast up. A ledge of rocks, with a beacon upon it, looking like a monument erected to those who have perished by shipwreck. The smoked, extempore fireplace where a party cooked their fish. About midway on the beach, a fresh-water brooklet flows towards the sea. Where it leaves the land, it is quite a rippling little current; but in flowing across the sand, it grows shallower and more shallow, and at last is quite lost, and dies ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... a sort of letter of form on the occasion, for there is nothing worth telling you. The event that has made most noise since my last, is the extempore wedding of the youngest of the two Gunnings, who have made so vehement a noise. Lord Coventry,(295) a grave young lord, of the remains of the patriot breed, has long dangled after the eldest, virtuously with regard to her virtue, not very honourably with regard to his ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... that night in the chapel Margaret Grant and the other girls of the Specialities were startled when Mr. Fairfax made special mention of Betty Vivian, praying God to comfort her in sore distress and to heal her sickness. The prayer was extempore, and roused the girls to ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... every one should make an extempore couplet to the same rhyme and measure. Every one accordingly repeated his verse. As we had been very merry, I repeated ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... played the fool with Mr. Gibson, and taught him how to do a mechanical wax figure, of which he himself was the showman; and the laughter, both baritone and soprano, might have been heard in Russell Square. Then they sang an extempore Italian duet together which was screamingly droll—and ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... throughout the British Empire for Otto's Bohemian Autumn Nightly Concerts at Covent Garden Theatre, had happened to hear her and that seldom played sonata for the first time. It was a wondrous chance. Otto's large, picturesque, extempore way of inviting her to appear at his promenade concerts reminded ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... commences with a proper division of the subject into two distinct branches, that is, extempore prayer as opposed to set forms, and, The Directory, as prescribing a form opposed to the existing Liturgy; but that in the sequel he blends and confuses and intermingles one with the other, and presses most and ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... The flutes were made of hollow bamboo, about a foot long. The drums were blocks of wood of cylindrical form, solid at one end, but scooped out and covered at the other with shark's skin. They were beaten by the hands instead of sticks. The natives sang to these instruments, and often made extempore verses. ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... latter, if interesting, eloquently (ibid.). After the service, one of Jeremy Taylor's sermons (vi. 188). After sermon, if the weather was fine, walk with his family, dogs included and guests, to cold picnic (iii. 109), followed by short extempore biblical novelettes; for he had his Bible, the Old Testament especially, by heart, it having been his mother's last gift to him (vi. 174). These lessons to his children in Bible history were always given, whether there was picnic or not. For the rest ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... Grahame descended the hill, bearing in his hand the extempore flag of truce, and making his managed horse keep time by bounds and curvets to the tune which he whistled. The trumpeter followed. Five or six horsemen, having something the appearance of officers, detached themselves from each flank of the Presbyterian army, and, meeting ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... last years of my being at school, I was of the highest form in the school, and chiefest of that form; I could then speak Latin as well as English; could make extempore verses upon any theme; all kinds of verses, hexameter, pentameter, phaleuciacks, iambicks, sapphicks, &c. so that if any scholars from remote schools came to dispute, I was ringleader to dispute with them; I could cap verses, &c. If any minister ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... Basilica, the Amphitheatre, which is in a perfect state of preservation, and more elliptical in form than any of those I have yet seen, and the School of Eloquence, where R** mounted the rostrum, and gave us an oration extempore, equally pithy, classical and comical. About sunset we got into the carriages, and returned ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... half-confessing his own lapses—attributed freely and unrebukedly the same vices to the male half of his overflowing congregation. These out-pourings—"Pechadur truenus wyf i! Arglwydd madden i mi!"—extempore prayers, psalms chanted with a swaying of the body, hymns sung uproariously, scripture read with an accompaniment of groans, hysteric laughter, and interjections of assent, and a rambling discourse—lasting fully an hour, were in the Welsh language; and David on his ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... hanged than see a leg at the name of Jesus or one stand at the Creed. He conceives his prayer in the kitchen rather than in the church, and is of so good discourse that he dares challenge the Almighty to talk with him extempore. He thinks every organist is in the state of damnation, and had rather hear one of Robert Wisdom's psalms than the best hymn a cherubim can sing. He will not break wind without an apology or asking forgiveness, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... shoving him away, desired him to be easy, not to run his friendship too close, and to content bimself with seeing and entertaining him. Bedreddin obeyed, and began to sing a song, the words of which he had composed extempore in praise of Agib: he did not eat himself, but busied himself in serving his guests. When they had done eating, he brought them water to wash with[Footnote: The Mahometans having a custom of washing their hands five times a day when they ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... within their own rules; but when once there, I was not allowed to speak, although the President said repeatedly that the floor was mine. The opposition arose from a dozen or more around the platform, who were incessantly raising "points of order"—the extempore bantlings of great minds in great emergencies. For the space of three hours I endeavored to be heard, but they would not hear me (although as a delegate, and I spoke simply as a delegate), I could have spoken but ten minutes by a law of the house. Twice the President ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... courtiers had brought him, besought the speaker to rest quiet, and the mover and supporters of the question to let it drop; asserting, that no censure had been intended, and that though the speaker might have made some mistake, it could only be attributed to the hurry of an extempore address, and not to his judgment. The withdrawal of the motion was refused, and then, still hoping to evade a division, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... of every writer to acquire command of language, in order that he may be able to write with ease and readiness, and, upon any occasion, to form extempore discourses. Unless he can do this, he will never shine as a speaker, nor will he ever make a figure in private conversation. But to do this, it is necessary to study simplicity of style. There never was a ready speaker, whose language ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... eel-fishers fastened their lines securely, baiting each alternate hook with mutton and worms. I declared this was too cockney a method of fishing, and selected a tall slender flax-stick, the stalk of last year's spike of red honey-filled blossoms, and to this extempore rod I fastened my line and bait. When one considers that the old whalers were accustomed to use ropes made in the rudest fashion, from the fibre of this very plant, in their deep-sea fishing for very big prey, it is not ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... any more of your Pargolesi and your Corelli?' — At the same time, he thrust his tongue in one cheek, and leered with one eye at the doctor and me, who sat on his left hand. He concluded the pantomime with a loud laugh, which he could command at all times extempore. — Notwithstanding his disorder, he did not do penance at supper, nor did he ever refuse his glass when the toast went round, but rather encouraged a quick circulation, both by ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... mamma decided that extempore prayer must be discouraged, and seeking out in one of the manuals a form of prayer of strictly limited range, repressed all ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... Bon. again, which is always a change, because it gives a good deal of reading and research, whereas Woodstock and such like, being extempore from my mother-wit, is a sort of spinning of the brains, of which a man tires. The ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... favour of extempore preaching, and was unwilling to listen to the delivery of a written sermon." (Indeed, if we had more people like him in this day, we would hear far more of the gospel and far less of politics and jokes which so demoralize the pulpit ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... instruments, some of which were very ingenious and musical. Those in particular, who had come a long distance from the interior, executed with spirit and taste some very beautiful airs; much finer, indeed, than any native music I had yet heard. They accompanied their instruments with extempore recitatives in praise of those chiefs whom they knew. I was, of course, included, as they expected that I would be inclined to reward them handsomely. Each minstrel of any repute had a person attached to him by way of fool or jester, several of whom acted their parts ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... service of the state, endowed him with unusual authority. The lamented Douglas, who surpassed every other American statesman in casual discussion, and whose name will rank with that of Fox, in the art of extempore debate, could not fail to be the leader of a large party, and the popular idol of a large mass, by the manly energy of his character, his devotion to popular principles, and a rich and sonorous eloquence, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... had an obscure family pew just behind the churchwardens', were detected, one Sunday, in the free seats by the communion-table, actually lying in wait for the curate as he passed to the vestry! He began to preach extempore sermons, and even grave papas caught the infection. He got out of bed at half-past twelve o'clock one winter's night, to half-baptise a washerwoman's child in a slop-basin, and the gratitude of the parishioners ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens |
