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More "Extempore" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... money. Hostess, clap to the doors. Watch to-night, pray to-morrow. Gallants, lads, boys, hearts of gold; all the titles of good-fellowship come to you! What! shall we be merry? Shall we have a play extempore? ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... stilted; reverential, but not conventional; neither old nor commonplace; a brilliant preacher, but not sensational; know every one, but have no favorites; settle all disputes, engage in none; be familiar with the children, but always dignified; be a careful writer, a good extempore speaker, and an assiduous and diligent pastor. Such a person, to whom salary is less an object than a "field of usefulness," may hear of an advantageous opening by addressing Wheathedge, care of "The Christian ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... pastor and carry him off, mounted behind a savage chief. Jacob chanced fortunately to be concealed in a rugged piece of ground where horses could not act. As the Indians were riding away he shot the horse that bore the pastor, and at the same time uttered a series of yells and extempore war-whoops so appalling that the savages gave him credit for being at least a dozen foes, and fled over a ridge before turning to see what had happened. The fall of the horse had stunned the pastor, but the Indian leaped up and drew his knife. Fortunately Jacob's ...
— The Thorogood Family • R.M. Ballantyne
... the 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 a ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... only "Billy" Pemberton, the son of our distinguished and honoured fellow-townsman, "ex-Governor Pemberton." Thus was he introduced at public gatherings where he sometimes spoke, haltingly and prosily, for his talents were too serious and deep for extempore brilliancy; thus was he presented to strangers and to the lawyers who made the circuit of the courts; and so the Daily Banner referred to him in print. To be "the son of" was his doom. What ever he should accomplish would have to be sacrificed upon the altar of this magnificent ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... grand dress-ball once a week at one or other of the hotels, and two undress-balls—hops they were called: but most of the exclusives went to these also in full dress, and both balls and hops usually lasted till three or four in the morning. Then on the off-nights "our set" got up their own little extempore balls in the large public parlor, to the music of some volunteer pianist, and when the weather was bad they danced in the same place all day; when it was good these informal matinees did not generally last more than two or three hours. Then ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... Commander of the Faithful. When he stood in the presence, he looked at the Wazirs and Emirs and Chamberlains, and Viceroys and Grandees and Captains, and then at the Caliph. Hereupon he sweetened his speech and his eloquence and, bowing his head to the ground, broke out in these extempore couplets, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... be said to be the practice of the Church, which were never established by any law either common, statute, or canon; as singing of psalms, binding up; prayers at the end of the Bible, and praying extempore before and after sermon: and though these are things indifferent, yet things for aught they at present know may be started, which may be said to be the practice of the Church which would not be fit to allow. For ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... in 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 ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... 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 we would resume ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... bards these feet were gradually neglected, and the Caoinan fell into a sort of slipshod metre amongst women. Each province had different Caoinans, or at least different imitations of the original. There was the Munster cry, the Ulster cry, etc. It became an extempore performance, and every set of keepers varied the melody according to their ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... a voice, which he could not mistake; "but, prithee, my tuneful knight, were those concluding lines extempore, or had you really the vanity to anticipate the effect of your ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... there arrived among us from Ireland a young Presbyterian preacher, named Hemphill, who delivered with a good voice, and apparently extempore, most excellent discourses, which drew together considerable numbers of different persuasions, who join'd in admiring them. Among the rest, I became one of his constant hearers, his sermons pleasing ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... Behaviour, so as to conduce to the good of the Whole, and the well Being of each Individual. But alas! Tom, in Ireland, we neither think, or act for ourselves or the Publick, nor seem to have any System of Rules, for managing our Estates or our Country; but we live in an extempore Method, and as Time serves, and Accidents happen, we Conduct ourselves. When we are famish'd we think of Bread, when frozen to Death, of Coals and Fire, and when we grow uneasy with the Thoughts of all our Mismanagements, ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... able to read Tully, or such like classical Latin author EXTEMPORE, and make and speak true Latin in verse and prose suo (ut aiunt) Marte, and decline perfectly the paradigms of nouns and verbs in the Greek tongue, then may he be admitted into the College, nor shall any claim admission before ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... imagined that I associate the idea of worthlessness with the work contained in it. No one would insult his readers by offering them what he counted valueless scraps, and telling them they were such. These papers, those two even which were caught in the net of the ready-writer from extempore utterance, whatever their merits in themselves; are the results of by no means trifling labour. So much a man ought to be able to say for his work. And hence I might defend, if not quite justify my title—for they are but fragmentary presentments of larger meditation. My friends ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... 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 ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... thousands of the youth wished for somebody to 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
... which the heat of the 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, ministers ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... work with the former Palaces of Pleasure, because comparisons are odious, and because they contain histories, translated out of grave authors and learned writers; and this containeth discourses devised by a green youthful capacity, and repeated in a manner extempore."[310] It was, again, the personal preference of the individual or the extent of his linguistic knowledge that determined whether the translator should employ the original Italian or Spanish versions of some collections or should content ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... Hill Monument," he said, but spoiled it by laughing himself. It was extempore and had caught him unawares. The harried Bean fled to the ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... very thing. By its easy, natural turn, it enhances the reputation of genius. Its air of simplicity, the judge not being on his guard against it, begets belief, and tho the discourse in all other parts be elaborate and written with great accuracy, it will for the most part seem an extempore oration, the exordium evidently appearing to have ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... 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 trainers and ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... account of the rise and progress of Methodism, 'we,' he concludes, 'do not, will not, form any separate sect, but from principle remain, what we have always been, true members of the Church of England.'[732] In 1778, 'To speak freely, I myself find more life in the Church prayers than in any formal extempore prayers of Dissenters.' In 1780, 'Having had opportunity of seeing several Churches abroad, and having deeply considered the several sorts of Dissenters at home, I am fully convinced our own Church, ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... surmounted by a white marble dome, and kept very clean and neat.[8] By its side is that of the poet Khusru, his contemporary and friend, who moved about where he pleased through the palace of the Emperor Tughlak Shah the First, five hundred years ago, and sang extempore to his lyre while the greatest and the fairest watched his lips to catch the expressions as they came warm from his soul. His popular songs are still the most popular; and he is one of the favoured few who live through ages in the every-day thoughts and feelings of many ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... effusion, descant; harangue, diatribe, tirade, screed, rhapsody, philippic, invective, rant; soliloquy, monologue; dialogue; colloquy; trialogue; interlocution; improvisation; toast; equivocation, prevarication, quibbling; ambages, pseudology, amphibology, amphiboly, dilogy. Associated Words: extempore, extemporaneous, extemporize, extemporization, impromptu, improvise, improvisation, brogue, aphasia, amnesia, oratory, elocution, rhetoric, oratorical, rhetorical, rhetorician, elocutionary, peroration, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... by him; but Agib, 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 go to prayers, they reckon that they have no occasion to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... of their thumbs, and rack their intellects instead of their limbs,—the chair on which the unfortunate student is placed being far more uneasy than the tightest fitting "Scavenger's daughter" in the Tower of London. After an anxious hour, Mr. Jones returns, with a light bounding step to a joyous extempore air of his own composing: he has passed. In another twenty minutes Mr. Saxby walks fiercely in, calls for his hat, condemns the examiners ad inferos, swears he shall cut the profession, and marches away. He has ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 • Various
... argumentative speech on the spur of the 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. In ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... Weeping On a Valetudinarian On a Miser To Cassim Obio Allah A Friend's Birthday To a Cat An Epigram upon Ebn Naphta-Wah Fire To a Lady Blushing On the Vicissitudes of Life To a Dove On a Thunder Storm To My Favorite Mistress Crucifixion of Ebn Bakiah Caprices of Fortune On Life Extempore Verses On the Death of a Son To Leila On Moderation in our Pleasures The Vale of Bozaa To Adversity On the Incompatibility of Pride and True Glory The Death of Nedham Almolk Lines to a Lover Verses to My ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... 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 to want the soul of the original author. Townshend's speeches, like the 'Satires' ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... 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. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... office of Superintendent of the Rocky Mountain 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, ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... 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 ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... way; as, Thus, so, how, somehow, nohow, anyhow, however, howsoever, like, else, otherwise, across, together, apart, asunder, namely, particularly, necessarily, hesitatingly, trippingly, extempore, headlong, lengthwise. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... directed a deed of separation to be prepared, which should provide for the complete payment of Fiorsen's existing debts on condition that he left Gyp and the baby in peace. After telling Gyp this, he took an opportunity of going to the extempore nursery and standing by the baby's cradle. Until then, the little creature had only been of interest as part of Gyp; now it had for him an existence of its own—this tiny, dark-eyed creature, lying there, watching him so gravely, clutching his finger. Suddenly the baby smiled—not a beautiful smile, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... with Congress, yet Johnson had the promise of very respectable support until he threw it away. His extempore expressions suggested an overweening view of his own position. To the committee reporting to him the Philadelphia convention, he said, "We have seen hanging upon the verge of the government, as it were, a body called, or which assumes to be, the Congress of the United States—but ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... Debates furnish perhaps the best example of this class of public speaking that is available. Although they were extempore, as far as the actual language is concerned, they have been preserved in full. In spite of the informal style appropriate to the "stump," these discussions of the Dred Scott decision, Popular Sovereignty, and the other questions ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... church-going parishioners. His immediate predecessor, a curate in charge, had been one of those in whom a more passionate missionary zeal had been stirred by the Methodist movement—"endeared to the more serious inhabitants by warm zeal and a powerful talent for preaching extempore." The parishioners had made urgent appeal to the noble patron to appoint this man to the benefice, and the Duke's disregard of their petition had produced much bitterness in the parish. Then, again, in Crabbe there was a "lay" element, which had probably not been found in his predecessor, ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... not 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 success ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... since been printed. There was in it a force—there were shades of reflection so fine—allusions so quick and so happy— and strokes of satire and observation so pointed and so apt,— that it had ten times more brilliancy when absolutely extempore than when transmitted to ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... sugar, and sugar upon 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 empty ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... Mann, says:—'The event that has made most noise since my last is the extempore wedding of the youngest of the two Gunnings, two ladies of surpassing loveliness, named respectively Mary and Elizabeth, the daughters of John Gunning, Esq., of Castle Coote, in Ireland, whom Mrs Montague calls "those goddesses the Gunnings." Lord Coventry, a grave young ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... gay, from lively to severe," made him extraordinarily effective on a platform or at a social gathering. Once (in the autumn of 1870) he injured his right arm, and so was prevented from writing his sermons. For three or four Sundays he preached extempore, and even boys who did not usually care for sermons were ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... and unintermitted line, without stop or interruption; whereas the pleader's business and interest compels him to enter the lists upon all occasions, and the unexpected objections and replies of his adverse party jostle him out of his course, and put him, upon the instant, to pump for new and extempore answers and defences. Yet, at the interview betwixt Pope Clement and King Francis at Marseilles, it happened, quite contrary, that Monsieur Poyet, a man bred up all his life at the bar, and in the highest repute for eloquence, having the charge of making the harangue to the Pope committed ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... 2199," which is without date in the MS., but in the edition bears date March 21, 1771; as likewise the "Invitation to Miss Warb[u]rt[o]n," edit. p. 35., which appears in the MS. without any name; and the "Extempore Rhapsody, March 21, 1771," edit. p. 37., also undated in the MS., but which supplies the name of "Yates," expressed in the edition by asterisks; and also six lines at the end, which were omitted in the edition on account of their indecency. There are several variations ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 193, July 9, 1853 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... 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 ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... 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; but a spectator might easily have discovered that ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... eagerness, insisted on matching his epigrammatic powers with Garrick's. It was determined that each should write the other's epitaph. Garrick immediately said his epitaph was finished, and spoke the following distich extempore: ...
— English Satires • Various
... 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 when he ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... Sir John, utterly exhausted, sank back again helplessly upon the ground. Seeing that he was totally unable to walk of his own accord, and in too dirty a condition to lean upon anyone's arm, a rough extempore litter was made, upon which the unfortunate knight was set and carried away, loudly lamenting the unkindness of the fate which had brought him ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... rose, faced about, and knelt to their chairs. It was an extempore prayer, and a long one, and Laura did not hear much of it; for the two big girls on her right kept up throughout a running conversation. Also, when it was about half over she was startled to hear Miss Zielinski say, in a shrill whisper: "Heavens! There's that mouse again," and audibly ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... 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, and who again persisted in wining and dining ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... made no answer. While these two were sitting cozily by the fireside—for since Robinson took to working hard all day he began to relish the hearth at night—suddenly cheerful, boisterous voices, and Mr. Miles and two friends burst in and would have an extempore supper, and nothing else would serve these libertines but mutton-chops off the gridiron. So they invaded the kitchen. Out ran Jenny to avoid them—or put on a smarter cap; and Robinson was to cut the chops and lay a cloth ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... top; the rest of the box was then filled with the birds, displayed in regular rows, with heads and tails alternating, and a thin coat of clean dry wheaten straw between each layer, until but a few inches' depth remained between the noble pile and the lid of this extempore refrigerator; this space being filled in with flannel packed close and folded tightly, the box was locked and thrust into the accurately fitting boot by dint of the ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... for nearly an hour, with frequent pauses and strange changes in the inflexion of the voice. We will not attempt a repetition of his arguments, but must record one sentence in an extempore sermon of great versatility and power; a sentence that, if we understood it aright, was singularly liberal and broad in view. Speaking of the rivalry that existed between the different sects of Christians, and making pointed allusion to the colony of protestant Huguenots ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... people, so, as it was useless to pray and preach in the mosque, Sheykh Yussuf went out upon a hillock in the burying-ground, where they all prayed and he preached. Omar reported the sermon to me, as follows (it is all extempore): First Yussuf pointed to the graves, 'Where are all those people?' and to the ancient temples, 'Where are those who built them? Do not strangers from a far country take away their very corpses to wonder at? What did their splendour avail them? etc., etc. What then, O Muslims, will avail that ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... unparalleled Otto, renowned 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 her of ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... 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 being insupportably ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... 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. ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... the English Established Church, though so modified as to meet the doctrinal views of the Unitarians. There may be good sense in this, inasmuch as it greatly lessens the ministerial labor to have a stated form of prayer, instead of a necessity for extempore outpourings; but it must be, I should think, excessively tedious to the congregation, especially as, having made alterations in these prayers, they cannot attach much ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... "sit down by me, and eat with us." Buddir ad Deen sat down, and attempted to embrace Agib, as a testimony of the joy he conceived upon sitting by him. But Agib pushed him away, desiring him not to be too familiar. Buddir ad Deen obeyed, and repeated some extempore verses in praise of Agib: he did not eat, but made it his business to serve his guests. When they had done, he brought them water to wash, and a very white napkin to wipe their hands. Then he filled a large china cup with sherbet, and put snow into it; and ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... agreed with him, and, rising, delivered an extempore speech, declaring that "we must not delay. The leeches (here he looked at Mr. Pell) are sucking the life-blood of the ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... credit of what is called an "Extempore Epigram on Voltaire," who, when he was in England, ridiculed, in the company of the jealous English poet, Milton's allegory of "Sin ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... often to confess 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 ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... man to buy clothes and build fires for a woman for a whole lifetime at first sight of her is not uncommon among that humble portion of humanity that does not care for Bradstreet or coats-of-arms or Shaw's plays. Love at first sight has occurred a time or two in high life; but, as a rule, the extempore mania is to be found among unsophisticated creatures such as the dove, the blue-tailed dingbat, and the ten-dollar-a-week clerk. Poets, subscribers to all fiction magazines, and schatchens, ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... them respect God and their consciences. I cannot now stop to rehearse to you the mode of proceeding I shall adopt; but it is all arranged in my own mind. It will be necessary to call the Deity the 'Great Spirit' or 'Manitou'—and to use many poetical images; but this can I do, on an emergency. Extempore preaching is far from agreeable to me, in general; nor do I look upon it, in this age of the world, as exactly canonical; nevertheless, it shall be seen I know how to submit even to that, when ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... drawback to these pines is that their inflammable branches are always suggesting a display of extempore fireworks to the Arabs, ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... or carousing over the fine wine of Maronea. In war they trembled at the sound of a trumpet, in peace they quaked before the shouting of their own demagogues; and during the assault of Philip II. they could only be prevailed on to man the walls by the savour of extempore cook-shops distributed along the ramparts. The modern Greeks attribute the introduction of Christianity into Byzantium to St Andrew; it certainly had some hold there in the time ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... rippling after wave along the sunny shores of the Mediterranean, and disappear as if the Teuton possessed the absorbing power of sponges or sea sand. Perfect harmony prevails meanwhile; there is none of the racket that there would be over the liquor in France; the talk is as sober as a money-lender's extempore speech; countenances flush, like the faces of the brides in frescoes by Cornelius or Schnorr (imperceptibly, that is to say), and reminiscences are poured out slowly while the smoke puffs ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... of a circle to be connected together by the taking hold of hands; and in this manner to bow, bend, and dance. In this condition an influence was felt, upon which psychologists and biologists would differ. It would be needless to enumerate the many gifts, the prophecies, the extempore songs, the revelations, the sins exposed, and the hypocrites ejected from the society during this period of two months. But, as near as we could estimate, four hundred new songs were sung in that time, either by improvisation or inspiration, of which I have my opinion. ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... but, as it were, more individual and spontaneous. He is not merely an imitator of the human voice, like the parrots, (and a better one as regards tone,) nor of other birds, like the thrushes, but combines both. The tame crow already mentioned very readily undertook extempore imitations of words, and with considerable success. I once heard a crow imitate the warbling of a small bird, in a tone so entirely at variance with his ordinary voice, that, though assured by one who had heard ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... 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 I ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... 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 for some great and glorious end of Providence, were plainly ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... which was pretty extensive—including melodies of the "Black-eyed Susan" and "Ben Bolt" stamp. When these had been sung over and over again, he took to the Psalms and Paraphrases—many of which he knew by heart, and, finally, he had recourse to extempore composition, which he found much easier than he had expected—the tones flowing naturally and the words being gibberish! Thus he became a sort of David to this remarkable Saul. By degrees, as he learnt the native tongue, he held long conversations with the Big Chief, and told him about his ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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
... cell we came to a barn {26a} where someone was delivering a mock sermon extempore, sometimes repeating the same thing thrice in succession. "These," said the Angel, "have the right sort of spectacles to see 'the things which belong unto their peace,' but there is wanting in their ointment ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... 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 ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... Judgment was opened. Those Greenlanders who had quarrelled stepped forward, and the offended person chanted forth the faults of his adversary in an extempore song, turning them sharply into ridicule, to the sound of the pipe and the measure of the dance. The defendant replied with satire as keen, while the audience laughed, and gave their verdict. The rocks heaved, the glaciers melted, and great masses of ice and ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... 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 Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... supper with him and his wife, and retired early. In the morning he went to his friend's church, in the afternoon rehearsed his sermon to himself, and when the evening came, climbed the pulpit-stair, and soon appeared engrossed in its rites. But as he seemed to be pouring out his soul in the long extempore prayer, he suddenly opened his eyes as if unconsciously compelled, and that moment saw, in the front of the gallery before him, a face he could not doubt to be that of Isy. Her gaze was fixed upon him; he saw her shiver, and knew that ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... happening, by good luck, to be set to a 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 joins. On this occasion, ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... 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. ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... which I used my Saturday pennies was in going with some of my companions into the country to have a picnic. We used to light a fire behind a hedge or a dyke, or in the corner of some ruin, and there roast our potatoes, or broil a red herring on an extempore gridiron we contrived for the purpose. We lit the fire by means of a flint and steel and a tinder-box, which in those days every boy used to possess. The bramble-berries gave us our dessert. We thoroughly enjoyed these glorious Saturday afternoons. ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... rode slowly 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
... the promise of his eloquence and rare public gifts. He blessed himself that he had been bred from infancy as it were in the public eye, and he looked forward to the debates in the Senate on great political questions as to his fit and native element. And with reason, for in extempore debate his speech was music, and the precision, the flow and the elegance of his discourse equally excellent. Familiar as I was with his powers, when a year ago I first heard him take part in a debate, he ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... says of him that he has not the power of speaking extempore; that he requires careful and studious preparation, and is never ready, off-hand, to shoot on the wing. I do not agree with Mr. Blaine's estimate of Mr. Schurz in that particular. I have heard him make very effective speeches in the Senate, and elsewhere, that were undoubtedly extemporary. ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... following explanations of Gray's Hymn to Adversity, that the boy to whom they were addressed, was not much accustomed to read even the most popular English poetry; yet this is the same child, who a few months afterwards, wrote the translation from Ovid, of the Cave of Sleep, and who gave the extempore description of a summer's evening in tolerably ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... Grasmere. The first eight stanzas were composed extempore one winter evening in the cottage, when, after having tired myself with labouring at an awkward passage in 'The Brothers', I started with a sudden impulse to this to get rid of the other, and finished it in a day or two. My sister and I had passed the place a few weeks before ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... a dreadful ordeal. In fact, in after times it was several years before I could seize a pen, rattle up a subject and dash off a leader. Now I can write far more easily than I can talk. And it is a curious fact that soon after I became really skilled at such extempore work in the opinion of the best judges, such as Raymond, I no longer had any opportunity ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... him, he changed his tune and burst into an extempore lyric, "The quids! The quids! The golden quids—the quids!" and so on, until, filled with a sudden hot suspicion, he snatched up his hat, with its jingling contents, hugged it to his breast, and ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... the greatest curiosities you meet with in Italy, is the Improvisatore; such is the name given to certain individuals, who have the surprising talent of reciting verses extempore, on any subject you propose. Mr. Corvesi, my landlord, has a son, a Franciscan friar, who is a great ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... 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 ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... specimen of his speaking and writing style, what Elias Hicks himself says in allusion to it—one or two of very many passages. Most of his discourses, like those of Epictetus and the ancient peripatetics, have left no record remaining—they were extempore, and those were not the times of reporters. Of one, however, deliver'd in Chester, Pa., toward the latter part of his career, there is a careful transcript; and from it (even if presenting you a sheaf of hidden wheat that may need to be pick'd and thrash'd ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... o'clock, Mrs. Falconer rang the bell for Betty, and they had worship. Robert read a chapter, and his grandmother prayed an extempore prayer, in which they that looked at the wine when it was red in the cup, and they that worshipped the woman clothed in scarlet and seated upon the seven hills, came in for a strange mixture, in which the vengeance yielded ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... 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
... let in for that. It was run by the three C. of E. Padres and the Wesleyan hand in hand: the latter has been in the Nile Expedition of '98 and all through South Africa. We had Mission Hymns roared by the Tommies, and then a C. of E. Padre gave a short address—quite good. The Wesleyan did an extempore prayer, rather well, and a very nice huge C. of E. man gave the Blessing. Now they are having a Tommies' concert—a talented boy ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... publicly prayed by the direction of the venerable pastor, Calvin Van de Lear, of his own motion and as a matter of course, took the floor and launched into a florid supplication almost too elegant to be extempore. ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... informed us, Sir, that his speech on that occasion was sudden and off-hand, he being called up by the request of a friend. I am sure the gentleman so remembers it, and that it was so; but there is, nevertheless, much method, arrangement, and clear exposition in that extempore speech. It is very able, very, very much to the point, and very decisive. And in another speech, delivered two months earlier, on the proposition to repeal the internal taxes, the honorable gentleman had touched the same subject, and had declared ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... must practise somewhere. I don't blame you in the least; though I don't profess to like it. No one can do that sort of thing extempore and if it happens to suit ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... 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 fixed, and are handed down by tradition; and this species ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... 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
... the most part printed as they were read, mending only obscure sentences here and there. The parts which were trusted to extempore speaking are supplied, as well as I can remember (only with an addition here and there of things I forgot to say), in the words, or at least the kind of words, used at the time; and they contain, at all events, ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... Dwight is said to have remarked 'That young man has ability enough to be President of the United States and will become one yet.' Before returning home he spent eighteen months in the law-school at Litchfield, Connecticut. He also cultivated extempore speaking, and finally returned South to ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... cried Frank, very glad to escape from his threatened bumper, and still fearful that it might be insisted upon, "a song extempore, as becomes a poet in his cups, and in thine own vein; for what ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... England service, lessons and all, the 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 ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... ought to give good bread week in and week out, so saving you from the frequent calamity of soda-biscuits. These may be used for dumplings, or as a sudden extempore, but do not let them be habitual. True, you will occasionally meet people who say that they can eat these, when raised ones are fatal. But some persons find cheese good for dyspepsia, many advocate ice-cream, others can eat only beans, while some are cured by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... regulations so required, were favorite stratagems with him. On one occasion, so tradition ran, some half-dozen midshipmen had congregated in a room "after taps," and, with windows carefully darkened, had contrived an extempore kitchen to fry themselves a mess of oysters. The process was slow, owing to the number of oysters the pan could take at once and the largeness of the expectant appetites; but it had progressed nearly to completion, when without premonition the door opened and —— appeared. ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... the back chamber looking on the Meadows, where he toiled on his cases till the hours were small. There was no "fuller man" on the bench; his memory was marvellous, though wholly legal; if he had to "advise" extempore, none did it better; yet there was none who more earnestly prepared. As he thus watched in the night, or sat at table and forgot the presence of his son, no doubt but he tasted deeply of recondite ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... afternoon meeting was held at 2:00 o'clock in the same hall in which the exhibit was placed. This was largely attended, some two or three hundred taking advantage of the opportunity to listen to those who found place on this extempore program. Our society reporter took some notes of what transpired at the meeting, but they were only partial notes, and what here follows in regard to what took place is only in the ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... 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 ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... binary form is of the later type, i.e. there is a return to the principal theme in the second section. No. 3 opens with a Prelude, and a note states that "in this and other Preludes, which are meant as extempore touches before the Lesson begins, neither the composer nor performer are oblig'd to a Strictness of Tune." The pleasing Allegro which follows shows the influence of Scarlatti-Handel. The sonata concludes with an attractive Minuet and variations. No. 5, with its graceful Gavotta, and No. ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... hard-faced man of forbidding 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 ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... 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 ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... from England. These began to arrive in December, and on the 11th January the General Officer Commanding the lines of communication was able to report to the Secretary of State that "... speaking in general terms, units of all sorts have been completed with authorised or extempore regimental transport and ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... have remained so strong in hearts in which every other feeling of virtue had so long been dead. The Vicar of Wakefield's sermon in prison is, it seems, founded on a deep and true knowledge of human nature; the spark of good is often smothered, never wholly extinguished. Mrs. Fry often says an extempore prayer; but this day she was quite silent; while she covered her face with her hands for some minutes, the women were perfectly silent, with their eyes fixed upon her; and when she said, "You may go," they went away slowly. The children ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... behind him till he had reached the meeting house, where he stopped and in his unconscious delirium caught at the bell rope and rang the bell with a vigor that started every one from his work, so that in a few minutes 'Extinguisher No. 1' was hurried along the roads by an extempore company of about fifty ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... was not a burden. He tells us of having spent an evening at the house of a friend "where Maria is making sunshine just now," and he declared that he had been exceedingly funny. He had in the course of the evening recited "near upon five hundred extempore macaronic verses; composed and executed an oratorio and opera" upon a piano without strings, namely the center-table; drawn "an entirely original view of Nantasket Beach"; made a temperance address; ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... soon settled, and Marston not only suspended his engagement with the Elder, but entered into a contract with the neighbouring planters, by the terms of which Harry will fill their pulpit, and preach extempore—the Elder has brought written sermons into contempt with Harry—at a stipulated price per Sunday. In this new avocation-this leap from the plantation to the pulpit, Harry, as a piece of property, became extremely valuable; while, through the charm of his new ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... when they glided into Roma again. The hall had been closed an hour before and the disappointed audience, after listening impatiently to the extempore speakers who had tried to fill the time until the principals in the joint debate should appear, had gone home doubtful ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... a contemporary 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
... describes the condition of things. "I have heard painters acknowledge that they could do better without nature than with her, or, as they expressed themselves, it only put them out. Our neighbours, the French, 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!" Twelfth Discourse, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... to learn German, in order to converse with the 26 Germans on board. On Sunday I preached extempore and then administered the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... the national costume?—or a league for repealing the laws still existing upon the Statute-book against witches?—Happy Jack was ever in the thickest of the fray, lecturing, expounding, arguing, getting up extempore meetings of the frequenters of public-houses, of which he sent reports to the morning papers, announcing the 'numerous, highly respectable, and influential' nature of the assembly, and modestly hinting, ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... which the unfortunate student is placed being far more uneasy than the tightest fitting "Scavenger's daughter" in the Tower of London. After an anxious hour, Mr. Jones returns, with a light bounding step to a joyous extempore air of his own composing: he has passed. In another twenty minutes Mr. Saxby walks fiercely in, calls for his hat, condemns the examiners ad inferos, swears he shall cut the profession, and marches ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... of a minister who is said to be the only extempore preacher in Shetland, if the word can be appropriately applied to one who, being blind, has to prepare his sermons in "the quick forge and working-house of thought" without the succour of books. This gentleman spent long years in the little islets called ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... failed us at the last moment without giving us notice. Then J. and I had to run an entertainment of an instructive kind extempore. J. was strong on personal hygiene. He might start with saluting or the theft of Miss N.'s purse, our great club scandal, but he worked round in the end to soap and tooth brushes. My own business, if we were utterly driven against the ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... 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 style ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... recently settled in Shepperton; and because, being himself a dabbler in drugs, he had the credit of having cured a patient of Mr. Pilgrim's. 'They say his father was a Dissenting shoemaker; and he's half a Dissenter himself. Why, doesn't he preach extempore in that cottage up ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... these two were sitting cozily by the fireside—for since Robinson took to working hard all day he began to relish the hearth at night—suddenly cheerful, boisterous voices, and Mr. Miles and two friends burst in and would have an extempore supper, and nothing else would serve these libertines but mutton-chops off the gridiron. So they invaded the kitchen. Out ran Jenny to avoid them—or put on a smarter cap; and Robinson was to cut the chops and lay a cloth on the dresser and help cook. While his master went off to the ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... and the extempore official proceeded—with greater solemnity than many another judge of more regular appointment exhibits on ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... 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 and take away all sacredness. ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... joke—especially when it was not directed towards himself. When visiting Dublin he was accompanied by the celebrated violinist Dubourg, who was engaged to play at his performances. One evening Dubourg was delighting the audience with an extempore cadenza, and wandered so far away from the original key that he found it no easy matter to return to it. At length, after some moments of suspense, the shake was heard which announced that the violinist was about to return to the theme; Handel thereupon looked up from the harpsichord, ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... 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; but a spectator might easily have ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... you meet with in Italy, is the Improvisatore; such is the name given to certain individuals, who have the surprising talent of reciting verses extempore, on any subject you propose. Mr. Corvesi, my landlord, has a son, a Franciscan friar, who is a great genius in ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... the figure pursues and bites every body it can lay hold of, and does not release them except on payment of a fine. It is generally accompanied by some men dressed up in a grotesque manner, who, on reaching a house, sing some extempore verses requesting admittance, and are in turn answered by those within, until one party or the other is at a loss for a reply. The Welsh are undoubtedly a poetical people, and these verses often display a good deal of cleverness. ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.12 • Various
... issue of the paper for the same year are some extempore lines on Brighton, dated from East Street, which end ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... 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 ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... prince in that prince's country, I should advise him to do just as other people do there. He will probably question, and not unreasonably, if he should accept the implied inferiority; but the best of all principles for extempore action is to do what seems the usual thing, unless we have previously decided from mature consideration to do the unusual thing. It is not the prince's fault that he is a prince: he means to be civil to you, and you can do no good by making him and yourself uncomfortable. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... the harbour, or carousing over the fine wine of Maronea. In war they trembled at the sound of a trumpet, in peace they quaked before the shouting of their own demagogues; and during the assault of Philip II. they could only be prevailed on to man the walls by the savour of extempore cook-shops distributed along the ramparts. The modern Greeks attribute the introduction of Christianity into Byzantium to St Andrew; it certainly had some hold there in the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... 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 do't: I hold it the more knauerie to conceale it; and therein am I constant to my Profession. Enter ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... desperation to the very brink of the crag. Some fishermen had brought with them the mast of a boat, and this 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 down to the flat shelf on ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... same sorrows, cheered by the same hopes, torn asunder by the same temptations as the gracious one and myself?" And immediately he launched forth into a flood of eloquence about units; for in Germany sermons are all extempore, and the clergy, from constant practice, acquire a fatal fluency of speech, bursting out in the week on the least provocation into preaching, and not by any known means to ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... species. The verbal theme 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 the ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... air did not, however, bring any change to their new and constrained relations. It only seemed to offer a reason for Falkner to leave the house very early for his daily rounds, and gave Lee that occasion for unaided exercise with an extempore crutch on the veranda which allowed Mrs. Hale to pursue her manifold duties without the necessity of keeping him company. Kate also, as if to avoid an accidental meeting with Falkner, had remained at home with her sister. With ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... 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 ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... but, 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 ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... and rare public gifts. He blessed himself that he had been bred from infancy as it were in the public eye, and he looked forward to the debates in the Senate on great political questions as to his fit and native element. And with reason, for in extempore debate his speech was music, and the precision, the flow and the elegance of his discourse equally excellent. Familiar as I was with his powers, when a year ago I first heard him take part in a debate, he surprised me with his success. He spoke so well that he was ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... and the Caoinan fell into a sort of slipshod metre amongst women. Each province had different Caoinans, or at least different imitations of the original. There was the Munster cry, the Ulster cry, etc. It became an extempore performance, and every set of keepers varied the melody ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... the office of Superintendent of the Rocky Mountain 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 ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... clergy," Dr. Cook observes, "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 ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... other Cherokees have printed many essays and tracts in that tongue, but whether original or merely translated I do not know. The sermons of the native Protestant missionaries to their fellows were probably extempore addresses. At any rate, I have not seen any in manuscript or print. A volume of the kind exists, however, in manuscript, in the Library of the Instituto Historico of Rio Janeiro, which it would be very desirable to ...
— Aboriginal American Authors • Daniel G. Brinton
... admirably 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, ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... 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 that brother Brandon ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... morning and evening he was wont to gather in his quarters a group of naval captains and mariners whose ability he recognised. These were his confidants, to whom he communicated what he intended to say or do: they were his pupils, to whom he gave lessons in oratory, now calling upon them to speak extempore, and now again after deliberation. By these means Hermocrates had gained a wide reputation at the council board, where his mastery of language was no less felt than the wisdom of his advice. Appearing at Lacedaemon as the accuser of Tissaphernes, (9) he had carried his case, not only by ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... coadjutor, is attributed to mental distress, and nothing is more probable than that 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 up to the highest ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... enthusiasm without which weak man can accomplish nothing,—whether he be a deer-stalker or mammoth-fancier, or angle for live salmon or dead Pterichthyes,—has a trick of forgetting the right times of dining and taking tea, and of throwing the burden of his bodily requirements on early extempore breakfasts and late suppers; and so reporting myself a man of irregular habits and bad hours, whose movements could not in the least be depended upon, I had to decline the hospitality which would fain have adopted me as its guest, notwithstanding the ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... the fifty-five rose, faced about, and knelt to their chairs. It was an extempore prayer, and a long one, and Laura did not hear much of it; for the two big girls on her right kept up throughout a running conversation. Also, when it was about half over she was startled to hear ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... worship; so likewise in other places of political importance, 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 ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... dreams and sleep that brought no rest. The close air and narrow bounds began to tell upon his appetite and 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... an ounce of cayenne pepper into half a pint of wine or brandy, let it steep a fortnight, and then pour off the clear liquor. This article is very convenient for the extempore seasoning and finishing of soups and sauces, its flavour ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... Liturgie! I grudge at the Puritans for having abolished it; and though I felt not its comprehensive Fullessse [Transcriber's note: Fullnesse?] before I married, nor indeed till now, yet I wearied to Death in London at the puritanicall Ordinances and Conscience-meetings and extempore Prayers, wherein it was soe oft the Speaker's Care to show Men how godly he was. Nay, I think Mr. Milton altogether wrong in the View he takes of praying to God in other Men's Words; for doth he not doe soe, everie Time he followeth the Sense of another Man's extempore ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... Brothers must be perfect companions for amateurs, and know all about charades and extempore costumes. ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... exercises, and, after several persons had publicly prayed by the direction of the venerable pastor, Calvin Van de Lear, of his own motion and as a matter of course, took the floor and launched into a florid supplication almost too elegant to be extempore. ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... it in preparing breakfast," said Bickley. "I have always noticed that you are at your best extempore." ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... 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
... the birthday of the marquis's valet de chambre. The servants had dined more sumptuously than usual. They had toasts and songs over their dessert; and at the conclusion of the repast, they amused themselves by an extempore ball. ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... Colonel John A. Joyce, from ten to twenty 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 has laid ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... beg her pardon,) stood and watched him. After he had discussed the contents of the baskets, he again looked at us, and, rearing himself upon his hind legs, with his fore paws hanging down like a dancing Shaker, made two or three awkward movements, as if dancing an extempore hornpipe, either in triumph or to thank us for his dinner; he next opened his great jaws in resemblance to a laugh, again thrust out his tongue, saying plainly by it, "hadn't you better pick some more whortleberries," then deliberately fell upon his fore feet and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... Slavonic Sonata; and the unparalleled Otto, renowned 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 ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... 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 ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... ingenious and distracting species. The verbal theme 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 the fundamental tone ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... to Bohemia or from it,—where the Pandour torrents used to issue into the first Silesian Wars; where Friedrich himself was once to have been snapped up, but was not quite,—and only sang Mass as Extempore Abbot, with Tobias Stusche, in the Monastery of Camenz, according to the myth which readers may remember. No more can Pandours issue that way; only Prussians can enter in. Friedrich's windows in the Schloss of Schonwalde,—which are on the left hand, if you ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... taught at Athens at the same time as Isocrates, whose rival and opponent he was. We possess two declamations under his name: Peri Sofiston, directed against Isocrates and setting forth the superiority of extempore over written speeches (a recently discovered fragment of another speech against Isocrates is probably of later date); 'Odusseus, in which Odysseus accuses Palamedes of treachery during the siege of Troy (this is generally considered spurious). According to Alcidamas, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... 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 which he could continuously express himself in private, were acknowledged ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... the fish pounded and mixed with butter, with a little lemon-juice, &c. is an elegant and inoffensive relish to fish (see No. 288). Mushroom sauce extempore (No. 307), or the soup of mock turtle (No. 247), will make an ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... and more manly. It is better to say "a saint" than "a saintly man." It is better to say "This is the truth" than "This is the truthful result." Of course an adjective may be absolutely necessary. But you may often detect extempore speakers in piling in adjectives, because they have not yet hit on the right noun. In writing, this is not to be excused. "You have all the time there is," when you write, and you do better to sink a minute ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... cf. Dr. Davy, "Notes and Observations on the Ionian Islands." "The grain is beaten out, commonly in the harvest field, by men, horses, or mules, on a threshing-floor prepared extempore for the purpose, where the ground is firm and dry, and the chaff is separated by winnowing."—Wilkinson, ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... bestowed on their fellows, they are not said to surpass the bounds of human nature, unless their special qualities are such as cannot be said to be deducible from the definition of human nature. (3) For instance, a giant is a rarity, but still human. (4) The gift of composing poetry extempore is given to very few, yet it is human. (5) The same may, therefore, be said of the faculty possessed by some of imagining things as vividly as though they saw them before them, and this not while asleep, but while awake. (6) But if anyone could be found who possessed other means ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... I said, "you must practise somewhere. I don't blame you in the least; though I don't profess to like it. No one can do that sort of thing extempore and if it happens to suit you to ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... to these pines is that their inflammable branches are always suggesting a display of extempore fireworks to the Arabs, who are ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... through the night air. The crowd of beggars and idlers, generally gathered in the street, saw so much that they might be considered to "assist," in an independent but festive capacity, at the entertainment from outside. Matches were hawked about for the convenience of the male portion of this extempore assembly, and fruit in baskets was on sale for the women. "Cigars—cigars of quality!"—"Good fruit—ripe fruit!" were cries audible even in the ballroom; and a fine aroma of coarse tobacco mounted rapidly upward ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... and with them a greater number of the unconverted; heads were uncovered, a hymn was sung, and a long extempore string of intercessions, praying that the Lord would lay bare his arm and strike the guilty with terror; that Christ crucified would be among them; that they might be washed in the blood of the immaculate lamb; and that the holy spirit would breathe the God-man ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... 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 his age, with the single exception of Varro. One of his letters ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... 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 surprising that we found it sufficiently strong for our purpose. ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... From an extempore prayer and a godly ditty, From the churlish government of a city, From the power of a country committee, Libera ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... Charming horse, am uncommonly fond of the Amusement, replied I quite recovered from my Confusion, and in short I ride a great deal." "You are in the right my Love," said she. Then repeating the following line which was an extempore and equally adapted to recommend ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Sancho, must be the painter or the writer (for it is all one) who produced the story of this new Don Quixote that has lately come out, for he painted or wrote 'whatever should turn out.' Or he must be like a poet called Mauleon, who went about Madrid some years ago, and would give answers extempore to any questions, and when somebody asked what was the meaning of 'Deum de Deo,' answered, 'Done ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... and simply, for, as he had told me before by word and gesture, God has made the heart and the mouth. His long and earnest prayer, spoken extempore in his own language, was evidently well prepared, and thoroughly suitable to the occasion. He asked the Lord to be among us with His blessings, His faithfulness, and His mercies. He continued: "O Saviour, Thou hast all fulness; Thou ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe
... from tears while it was acting. The piece concluded with the reception she was supposed to meet with from her friends at her return; which was not a very favourable one. These people can add little extempore pieces to their entertainments, when they see occasion. Is it not then reasonable to suppose that it was intended as a satire against this girl, and to discourage others from following ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... 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
... of Rorie, 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 great and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... P. was conveyed, in a stifling hack, (the fare had risen, under the unusual circumstances, about one hundred and ten degrees,) to a stifling little room under the hot roof of an hotel exposed to the sun on every side, and had taken an extempore Russian bath while changing his linen, and had partaken of a hot dinner, he might have been excused for saying that he would like to cool off ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 22, August 27, 1870 • Various
... 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
... have been, he declares that it appeared artificial when set by that of Townshend, which was so abundant in him that it seemed a loss of time to think. Townshend's utterances had always the fascinating effervescence of spontaneity, while even Burke's extempore utterances were so pointed and artfully arranged that they wore the appearance of study and preparation. This brilliant, resplendent creature, in every respect the opposite to George Grenville, showy where Grenville ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Read the 'Extempore Prologue' which Sly speaks at the conclusion of the Induction—a shameless travesty of the Epilogue in As You Like It. Read the beginning of act iii. sc. 2 of The Malcontent, where Malevole ('in some freeze gown') burlesques ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... 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 this must be carelessness, since it transcended the bounds of possible stupidity, ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... cleverest men in the South and we ought to have something good. He's just drawn from one hat the words 'Daddy Longlegs' and from the other 'What sort of shoe was made on the last of the Mohicans?' He says he doesn't ask to wait until the next meeting, but he'll connect them extempore. Now we'll see what he ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... the commencement of a laughable extempore ditty," said I to my young friend, A. C—-, who was staying with me, "composed by my husband, during the first very cold night ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... this little extempore speech,— applause accompanied by an odorous rain of flowers. There were many women in the crowd, and these had pressed eagerly forward to catch every word that dropped from the Poet-Laureate's mellifluous ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... monk initiated 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 ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... arrangements for the commissariat on the march. He had always insisted on it that they were indispensable, and he had been bitterly opposed the week before by some of his brethren, who were in favour of extempore foraging which looked very much like plunder. He carried his point, notwithstanding some sarcastic abuse and insinuations of half- heartedness, which had touched also Caillaud and Zachariah, who supported him. Zachariah ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... perhaps with no resolution to publish them, he may stand acquitted of part of this charge. It is reported of our author that he was very smart, and witty in his repartees, and had a most excellent talent at extempore versifying, above any poet of his time. In the year 1645, when the plague was raging in Scotland, our author came accidentally to Forfar, but was not allowed to enter any house, or to get lodging in the town, though it was very late; he went two miles further to Kirrimuir, where he was well ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... 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 ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... spur of the 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
... court. Large stomachs and large heads are indispensable for those who serve the court of Bornou, and those who unfortunately possess not the former by nature, make up the deficiency with wadding. A little to our left, or nearly in front of the Sultan, was an extempore declaimer, shouting forth praises of his master, with his pedigree; and near him one who bore the long wooden "frum-frum," on which he ever and anon blew a blast, loud and unmusical,' The major says, the appearance of these courtiers was ridiculous in the ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... the 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
... about the subject." But the pupils followed me with appreciation in their looks—indeed they did. Ah, that is how youth is so precious! I gave a second written lecture, and a third. After that I began to lecture extempore.' ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... military hospital. Ruddy of cheek, a burly figure in his academic gown, without a scrap of notes and armed only with an old volume of Rabelais in the medieval French, he held us spellbound for an hour and a half—or was it three hours?—with flashing extempore talk about this greatest figure of ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... those professional story-tellers from whom I have already largely quoted. I have indeed listened to many more stories than I have ventured here to insert; some I have rejected from the nature of their details, others from there being a strong impression on my mind that they were the extempore invention of the story-teller with a view to the rupee, which he feared he would not secure if he confessed he had nothing to relate. I have not perhaps been judicious in my selection of those which I hoped would amuse ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... writing to Mann, says:—'The event that has made most noise since my last is the extempore wedding of the youngest of the two Gunnings, two ladies of surpassing loveliness, named respectively Mary and Elizabeth, the daughters of John Gunning, Esq., of Castle Coote, in Ireland, whom Mrs Montague ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... the text we find for all termination, "After this he (Yusuf) invited Mohammed ibn Ibrahim to lie that night in the palace." Scott (vi. 364) ends after his own fashion:—"They (the ten girls) recited extempore verses before the caliph, but the subject of each was so expressive of their wish to return to their beloved sovereign, and delivered in so affecting a manner, that Mamoon, though delighted with their wit and beauty, sacrificed his own pleasure to their feelings, and sent them back ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... 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 ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... 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 ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... lecturer failed us at the last moment without giving us notice. Then J. and I had to run an entertainment of an instructive kind extempore. J. was strong on personal hygiene. He might start with saluting or the theft of Miss N.'s purse, our great club scandal, but he worked round in the end to soap and tooth brushes. My own business, if we were utterly driven against the wall, was to ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... Demades, a contemporary 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 incurred the ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... back chamber looking on the Meadows, where he toiled on his cases till the hours were small. There was no "fuller man" on the bench; his memory was marvellous, though wholly legal; if he had to "advise" extempore, none did it better; yet there was none who more earnestly prepared. As he thus watched in the night, or sat at table and forgot the presence of his son, no doubt but he tasted deeply of recondite pleasures. To be wholly devoted to some intellectual exercise is to have succeeded in life; ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... notwithstanding the weighty affairs in which he was engaged, he is said to have read, written, and declaimed every day. He never addressed the senate, the people, or the army, but in a premeditated speech, though he did not want the talent of speaking extempore on the spur of the occasion. And lest his memory should fail him, as well as to prevent the loss of time in getting up his speeches, it was his general practice to recite them. In his intercourse with individuals, and even with his wife Livia, upon subjects of importance he wrote on his ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... 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 ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... my time these last few years, just sauntering about, reading nothing but periodicals, making acquaintance with loafers of every description. The truth is, I have been collecting ideas, and ideas that are convertible into coin of the realm, my boy; I have the special faculty of an extempore writer. Never in my life shall I do anything of solid literary value; I shall always despise the people I write for. But my path will be that of success. I have always said it, and now I'm ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... dancing a horn-pipe, the Dr. with great eagerness insisted upon trying his epigrammatic powers with Mr. Garrick, and each of them was to write the other's epitaph. Mr. Garrick immediately said that his epitaph was finished, and spoke the following distich extempore:— ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... dulness of intellect and inability to follow out an intricate argumentation. They show the acuteness of their understanding in a thousand ways; in poetry, in romantic tales, in narrative compositions, in legal acumen and extempore arguments, in the study of medicine, chiefly in that masterly eloquence by which so many of them are distinguished. Who shall say that they might not also have reached a high degree of eminence in philosophical discussions ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... faith to every circumstance of his story, which indeed could not well be supposed to be invented extempore; the ring was immediately restored, and our adventurer took his leave, congratulating himself upon his signal deliverance from the snare in which ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... that you would have seen me before this; but I asked for news of you from that burly old impostor of a guard, and he—he gave me no intelligible message' (Mark remembered suddenly the official's extempore effort), 'and certainly ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... be the first man to whom he would apply himself for succour. To convince him that this was not the case at present, he produced the bank-note which he had received in the letter, together with his own ready money; and mentioned some other funds, which he invented extempore, in order to amuse the lieutenant's concern. In the close of this expostulation, he desired Pipes to conduct Mr. Hatchway to the coffee-house, where he might amuse himself with the newspaper for half an hour; during which he would put on his clothes, and bespeak ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... mixture 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 some such ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... meeting was held at 2:00 o'clock in the same hall in which the exhibit was placed. This was largely attended, some two or three hundred taking advantage of the opportunity to listen to those who found place on this extempore program. Our society reporter took some notes of what transpired at the meeting, but they were only partial notes, and what here follows in regard to what took place is only ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... 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 do't: I hold it the more ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... times she and this same niece could joke so heartily over their needlework and talk such nonsense together that Cassandra would beg them to stop out of mercy to her, and not keep her in such fits of laughing. Sometimes the laughter would be provoked by the composition of extempore verses, such as those given in the Memoir[211] celebrating the charm of the 'lovely Anna'; sometimes the niece would skim over new novels at the Alton Library, and reproduce them with wilful exaggeration. On one occasion she threw down a novel on the counter with contempt, ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... 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 now before him, the one as performer—he used ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... what could we better exhort them to accustom themselves? For perfection is only attained by neither speaking nor acting at random—as the proverb says, Perfection is only attained by practice.[18] Whereas extempore oratory is easy and facile, mere windbag, having neither beginning nor end. And besides their other shortcomings extempore speakers fall into great disproportion and repetition, whereas a well considered speech preserves its due proportions. It is recorded by tradition that ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... Augustus's time. They had a kind of plays too, in these early times, derived from what they had seen of the Tuscan actors when sent for to Rome to expiate a plague that raged in the city. These seem to have been either like our dumb-shows, or else a kind of extempore farces—a thing to this day a good deal in use all over Italy and in Tuscany. In a more particular manner, add to these that extempore kind of jesting dialogues begun at their harvest and vintage feasts, and carried on so rudely and abusively ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... mounted behind a savage chief. Jacob chanced fortunately to be concealed in a rugged piece of ground where horses could not act. As the Indians were riding away he shot the horse that bore the pastor, and at the same time uttered a series of yells and extempore war-whoops so appalling that the savages gave him credit for being at least a dozen foes, and fled over a ridge before turning to see what had happened. The fall of the horse had stunned the pastor, ...
— The Thorogood Family • R.M. Ballantyne
... dining-room in common, and proceeded so far on the third day after our arrival, as to lay out a very imposing spread of books upon all the tables; and there it remained in evidence of our good intentions, until the first time we were called upon to do the honours of an extempore luncheon. Unfortunately, from the very first, Willingham and myself were set down by Hanmer as the idle men of the party; the sort of prophetical discrimination, which tutors at Oxford are very much in the habit of priding ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 495, June 25, 1831 • Various
... that, but the visit gave opportunity for making speeches, both set and extempore, in Esperanto, and the prized language came through the ordeal with flying colours. Englishmen have now English testimony that Esperanto is not merely an interesting toy to while away the leisure hours, but a sound, solid language, ...
— The Esperantist, Vol. 1, No. 1 • Various
... 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. ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... H— 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 emulation in schoolboys, ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... his 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
... of the Septuagint Bible with the highest honours, entertaining them at his table. Under the atmosphere of the place their usual religious ceremonial was laid aside, save that the king courteously requested one of the aged priests to offer an extempore prayer. It is naively related that the Alexandrians present, ever quick to discern rhetorical merit, testified their estimation of the performance with loud applause. But not alone did literature and the exact sciences thus find protection. As if no subjects ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... filled with a half resentful sense of wrong, and hugging with gloomy pride an increasing sense of loneliness and of getting dangerously wet. The swollen creek still whispered, murmured and swirled beside the bank. At another time he might have had wild ideas of emulating the surveyors on some extempore raft and so escaping his present dreary home existence; but since the disappearance of 'Lige, who had always excited an odd boyish antipathy in his heart, although he had never seen him, he shunned the stream ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... 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
... sixth lecture, an admirable one, because it did nothing more than expound the Christian doctrine of eternal life. As an extempore performance—marvelously exact, finished, clear and noble, marked by a strong and disciplined eloquence. There was not a single reservation to make in the name of criticism, history or philosophy. It was all beautiful, noble, true and pure. It seems ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... self-abasement, during which he—in 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 ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... 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
... 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 ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... a testimony of the joy he conceived on his sitting by him; but Agib, 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 go to prayers, they reckon ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... first, and had directed a deed of separation to be prepared, which should provide for the complete payment of Fiorsen's existing debts on condition that he left Gyp and the baby in peace. After telling Gyp this, he took an opportunity of going to the extempore nursery and standing by the baby's cradle. Until then, the little creature had only been of interest as part of Gyp; now it had for him an existence of its own—this tiny, dark-eyed creature, lying there, watching him so gravely, clutching his finger. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... took the command as captain; and thus, as will be seen, I went promptly to work. The following day I assembled the population of the peninsula, and, surrounded by my extempore guard, I chose a situation where I wished to found a village, and a site on which I wished my own habitation to be built. I ordered the heads of families to construct their huts on an allotment which I indicated, and I directed my lieutenant ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... quoits—using quoits of rope—on the poop, for a good part of the day. But this soon becomes monotonous; and we begin to consider whether it may not be possible to get up some entertainment on board to make the time pass pleasantly. We had a few extempore concerts in one of the middies' berths. The third-class passengers got up a miscellaneous entertainment, including recitals, which went off very well. One of the tragic recitations was so well received that it was encored. And thus the time was whiled away, while we still kept ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... am begun Nap. 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
... 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 her withdrawal; a cloud which, thick as it was, never obscured our impression ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... 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
... league for reforming the national costume?—or a league for repealing the laws still existing upon the Statute-book against witches?—Happy Jack was ever in the thickest of the fray, lecturing, expounding, arguing, getting up extempore meetings of the frequenters of public-houses, of which he sent reports to the morning papers, announcing the 'numerous, highly respectable, and influential' nature of the assembly, and modestly hinting, that Mr Happy Jack, 'who was received with ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... associated in the popular mind with the idea of a lecture. After a moment of silence, there was a spontaneous burst of applause. It was renewed when Amelius, first placing on his table a little book, announced his intention of delivering the lecture extempore. The absence of the inevitable manuscript was in itself an act of mercy that cheered the public ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... of an eye, in the twinkling of an eye, in a trice; in one's tracks; right away; toute a l'heure[Fr]; at one jump, in the same breath, per saltum[Lat], uno saltu[Lat]; at once, all at once; plump, slap; "at one fell swoop"; at the same instant &c. n.; immediately &c. (early) 132; extempore, on the moment, on the spot, on the spur of the moment; no sooner said than done; just then; slap-dash &c. (haste) 684. Phr. touch and go; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... three things that make a poet, and they are Fire of Song, and Light of Knowledge, and the Art of Extempore Recitation. Before he departed he made this lay to prove his art, and it is called "The Song of Finn in Praise ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... tribune was M. Louis Blanc, who excited a smile by his first act, which was to stoop and arrange a tabouret, or footstool, on which to raise himself high enough to be seen. The voice that came from this small form was firm, clear, and loud; and he, instead of reading, delivered an extempore oration in favour of his Organisation du Travail, to which he said the government stood committed by its promises to the people assembled before the Hotel de Ville the day after the revolution. The assembly received ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... hardly 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
... consonant. 2. In Greek and Latin words, in which it has its open sound, and forms a distinct syllable, or the basis of one; as in Penelope, Pasiphae, Cyanee, Gargaphie, Arsinoe, apostrophe, catastrophe, simile, extempore, epitome. 3. In the terminations ere, gre, tre, in which it has the sound of close or curt u, heard before the r; as in ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... 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 ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... limbs,—the chair on which the unfortunate student is placed being far more uneasy than the tightest fitting "Scavenger's daughter" in the Tower of London. After an anxious hour, Mr. Jones returns, with a light bounding step to a joyous extempore air of his own composing: he has passed. In another twenty minutes Mr. Saxby walks fiercely in, calls for his hat, condemns the examiners ad inferos, swears he shall cut the profession, and marches ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... does not go round arguing with them, persuading them, but in the crises of their lives, as the answer to every question, as the solution of every difficulty and doubt, as the consolation in every sorrow, he offers them the Blessed Sacrament. All his prayers (and he makes a great use of extempore prayer, much to the annoyance of the Bishop, who considers it ungrammatical), all his sermons, all his actions revolve round that one great fact. "Jesus Christ is what you need," he says, "and Jesus Christ is here in your ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... 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 and take away all sacredness. The King ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... are a sort of travelling bards and musicians, who sing extempore songs in praise of those who employ them. A fuller account of them will be ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... was infinitely unsatisfactory for a variety of reasons. The good lady wished him to be at her elbow, ready to read from the philosophers or have on hand a talk on ethics or metaphysics to deliver extempore. Besides, though not a slave or freedman, he fared in the household much worse sometimes than they. A slave stole the dainties, and drained a beaker of costly wine on the sly. Pisander, like Thales, who was so intent looking at the stars that he fell ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... Creation and the Empire thereof His?"[FN480] Then the gaolers built the cage[FN481] over him and left him therein, lorn and lone, whereupon longing and consternation entered into him and the tongue of his case recited in extempore verse, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... the limited mail at 8.45. A telegram, informing him of what had taken place, reached him the next morning at Brighton while he was at breakfast. He preached his sermon, charming the congregation by the graces of his extempore eloquence,—moving every woman there to tears,—and then was after his wife before the ladies had taken their first glass of sherry at luncheon. But her ladyship had twenty-four hours' start of him,—although he did his best; and when he reached Portray ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... you 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 when ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... of J. Thompson Harrower, Esq., of this city, was exhibited the full uniform of an artillery officer of the year 1775. Several quaint old sketches and paintings were placed around the Library, which, with the Museum, was converted for the time into an extempore conversazione hall, and while the melodies of the 'B' Battery band were wafted hither and thither through the building, the dames and cavaliers gossiped pleasantly over their tea or coffee and delicacies ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... did not engross the same proportion of time which in many other colleges is devoted to them. Not more time was given to each than to ancient and modern history, and less than to mathematics. This last was a special object of study. It was taught, as was history, by extempore lectures, while the students took notes in short-hand; and we seldom employed any printed work to aid us, in the evening, in making out from recollection, aided by these notes, a written statement of the propositions and their solution, to be handed, next day, to the professor. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... from Bologna, and two servants, known to us as Harlequin and Columbine. When we add to these a couple of sons, one virtuous and the other profligate; a couple of daughters, and a pert, intriguing chambermaid, we have nearly the whole dramatis personae of these plays. The extempore dialogue by which the plot was developed was replete with drollery and wit, and there was no end to the novelty ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... with the former Palaces of Pleasure, because comparisons are odious, and because they contain histories, translated out of grave authors and learned writers; and this containeth discourses devised by a green youthful capacity, and repeated in a manner extempore."[310] It was, again, the personal preference of the individual or the extent of his linguistic knowledge that determined whether the translator should employ the original Italian or Spanish versions of some collections or should content ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... perhaps the best example of this class of public speaking that is available. Although they were extempore, as far as the actual language is concerned, they have been preserved in full. In spite of the informal style appropriate to the "stump," these discussions of the Dred Scott decision, Popular Sovereignty, and the other questions suggested by slavery are marked by a closeness of ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... part of the family, who stood gazing in fixed astonishment, to resume their task of spinning cotton, in which they employed themselves the greater part of the night. They lightened their labours by songs, one of which at least was extempore, as their guest was the subject of it. It was sung by one of the young women, the rest joining in chorus. The air was sweet and plaintive, and the words, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... of what is called an Extempore Epigram on Voltaire; who, when he was in England, ridiculed, in the company of the jealous English poet, Milton's ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... are very annoying, but if it is stopped, the crew no longer keep good time, and the boat, therefore, travels very slowly. The singing, on the other hand, is by no means unpleasant. One of the crew sings a solo, a kind of recitative, the words being an extempore criticism, as a rule, of the white passenger, and then the whole join in chorus in perfect harmony. The music is now wild and weird, now passionate and joyful, but always natural. There is nothing of the catch penny type of ditties, which become ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... Wesleyan hand in hand: the latter has been in the Nile Expedition of '98 and all through South Africa. We had Mission Hymns roared by the Tommies, and then a C. of E. Padre gave a short address—quite good. The Wesleyan did an extempore prayer, rather well, and a very nice huge C. of E. man gave the Blessing. Now they are having a Tommies' concert—a talented ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... and all, the 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 ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... so ready with a pathetic answer as he usually was with touching episodes in his extempore sermons. He felt that he ought to say something pretty, something also that should remove the impression on the mind of his lady love. But he was rather put about how ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... therefore an "invited guest" 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 ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... is of a similar kind. The binary form is of the later type, i.e. there is a return to the principal theme in the second section. No. 3 opens with a Prelude, and a note states that "in this and other Preludes, which are meant as extempore touches before the Lesson begins, neither the composer nor performer are oblig'd to a Strictness of Tune." The pleasing Allegro which follows shows the influence of Scarlatti-Handel. The sonata ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... edition of 1780, p. 1., entitled "The State of England in the year 2199," which is without date in the MS., but in the edition bears date March 21, 1771; as likewise the "Invitation to Miss Warb[u]rt[o]n," edit. p. 35., which appears in the MS. without any name; and the "Extempore Rhapsody, March 21, 1771," edit. p. 37., also undated in the MS., but which supplies the name of "Yates," expressed in the edition by asterisks; and also six lines at the end, which were omitted in the edition on account of their indecency. There are several variations in the manuscript, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 193, July 9, 1853 • Various
... 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 a poem ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the 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, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... out abruptly, "I see a man!" Every one looked to that point,—"I see a man of Tarsus; and he says, Make mention of me!" It must not be supposed that the discourses of "Uncle Ebenezer," with these abrupt appeals and sudden starts, were unwritten or extempore; they were carefully composed and written out,—only these flashes of thought and passion came on him suddenly when writing, and were therefore quite natural when delivered—they came on ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... called in a new doctor, recently settled in Shepperton; and because, being himself a dabbler in drugs, he had the credit of having cured a patient of Mr. Pilgrim's. 'They say his father was a Dissenting shoemaker; and he's half a Dissenter himself. Why, doesn't he preach extempore in that cottage up here, ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... is evident that the very minuteness with which the comparison is sought to be sustained, destroys the effect. Regarding the repetition, they are just such as one may expect to find in verses composed extempore. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... and, after several persons had publicly prayed by the direction of the venerable pastor, Calvin Van de Lear, of his own motion and as a matter of course, took the floor and launched into a florid supplication almost too elegant to be extempore. ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... 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 ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... madam frowned so majestically that they passed on into another car, leaving us to our extra seat. At Rhinebeck, however, she found her match in a very fine-looking man, apparently forty or thereabouts, with a weed on his hat and a certain air, which savored strongly of psalms and hymns and extempore praying. In short, I guessed at once that he was a Presbyterian minister, old school at that. Now, madam, you know, is true blue—apostolically descended, and cannot tolerate anything like a dissenter. But I do not give her credit for having ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... of him, and trailed on the ground behind like the duchess of ——'s beautiful breasts. Solomon, however, gave small attention to this procession, being caught with the charms of the lovely Pissimissi: he immediately began the song of songs extempore; and what he had seen—I mean, all that came out of the humming-bird's throat had made such a jumble in his ideas, that there was nothing so unlike to which he did not compare all Pissimissi's beauties. As he sung his canticles too to no tune, and god knows had but a bad voice, they ...
— Hieroglyphic Tales • Horace Walpole
... pending, and many had been imprisoned four or five times for the same offence, yet never brought to justice. In this law were included both robbers by profession and those bodies of insurgents who were merely extempore amateurs. ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... house, as well as in places of public resort. Hugh Branning was soon convinced that the village was no place for him. He had bravely horsewhipped a cripple, but he could not stop the tongues of the whole parish, even if he could protect himself from swift and extempore justice. He gathered his clothes, and, after a long private conference with his mother, started before daylight for the railway-station. As he does not appear on the stage again, we may say here, that, not long after, during a financial panic in New York, he made a fortune of nearly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... the room, and Mrs. Caxton opened her book and read a chapter in the Bible. Eleanor listened, in mute wonder where this would end. It ended in all kneeling down and Mrs. Caxton offering a prayer. An extempore prayer, which for simplicity, strength, and feeling, answered all Eleanor's sense of what a prayer ought to be; though how a woman could speak it before others and before men, filled her with ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... assembled, and with them a greater number of the unconverted; heads were uncovered, a hymn was sung, and a long extempore string of intercessions, praying that the Lord would lay bare his arm and strike the guilty with terror; that Christ crucified would be among them; that they might be washed in the blood of the immaculate lamb; and that the holy spirit would breathe the God-man Jesus into all hearts, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... 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 CHRIST ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... count an opportunity of gratifying his curiosity. The object of attraction was now plainly visible. Sir Norman's surmises had been correct. The green table of the parliament-house of the midnight court had been converted, by the aid of cushions and pillows, into an extempore couch; and half-buried in their downy depths lay Miranda, the queen. The sweeping robe of royal purple, trimmed with ermine, the circlets of jewels on arms, bosom, and head, she still wore, and the beautiful face was white: than fallen snow. Yet ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... convince him that this was not the case at present, he produced the bank-note which he had received in the letter, together with his own ready money; and mentioned some other funds, which he invented extempore, in order to amuse the lieutenant's concern. In the close of this expostulation, he desired Pipes to conduct Mr. Hatchway to the coffee-house, where he might amuse himself with the newspaper for half an hour; during which he would put on his clothes, and bespeak something for dinner, that they ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... this? or to what could we better exhort them to accustom themselves? For perfection is only attained by neither speaking nor acting at random—as the proverb says, Perfection is only attained by practice.[18] Whereas extempore oratory is easy and facile, mere windbag, having neither beginning nor end. And besides their other shortcomings extempore speakers fall into great disproportion and repetition, whereas a well considered speech preserves its due proportions. ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... while Sir John, utterly exhausted, sank back again helplessly upon the ground. Seeing that he was totally unable to walk of his own accord, and in too dirty a condition to lean upon anyone's arm, a rough extempore litter was made, upon which the unfortunate knight was set and carried away, loudly lamenting the unkindness of the fate which had brought him to such a ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... the bishops upon the request of the Puritans to be allowed occasionally to substitute extemporaneous for liturgical devotions. "The gift or rather spirit of prayer consists in the inward graces of the spirit, not in extempore expressions which any man of natural parts having a voluble tongue and audacity may attain to without any special gift." Nothing very conciliatory in that. To the complaint that the Collects are too short, ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... us, could no longer be moved by our 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 now for the first time I heard a clergyman ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... I; "indeed I have nothing to propose." He would not, however, be refused; but urged me so much to say something, that at last, not to make him wait any longer, I ventured to propose an extempore couplet upon some given subject. Mr. Coverley instantly made me a bow, or, according to Mrs. Selwyn, a shrug, crying, "Thank you, Ma'am; egad, that's my forte!-why, my Lord, the Fates ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... with the pastoral music of reeds and bagpipes—bagpipes of two kinds, the common Calabrian variety and that of Basilicata, much larger and with a resounding base key, which will soon cease to exist. A heaving ebb and flow of humanity fills the eye; fires are flickering before extempore shelters, and an ungodly amount of food is being consumed, as traditionally prescribed for such occasions—"si mangia per divozione." On all sides picturesque groups of dancers indulge in the old peasants' measure, the percorara, to the droning ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... 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 sister—in—law, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... were so great that he could not be prevailed upon to learn either to read or write. He was, for a short time, Manager of one the play-houses, and conceived the extraordinary and almost incredible project of composing a play extempore, which he was to recite in the Green-room to the actors, who were immediately to come on the stage and perform it. The players refusing to undertake their parts at so short a notice, and with so little preparation, he threw up ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... mamma decided that extempore prayer must be discouraged, and seeking out in one of the manuals a form of prayer of strictly limited range, ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... 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 do't: I hold it the more knauerie to conceale it; and therein am I constant to ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... came right in due time. For after supper, which was early, Barty 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
... go, I am obliged to be the figurante of the circle. Yesterday I preached twice, and, indeed, performed the whole service, morning and afternoon. There were about fourteen hundred persons present, and my sermons (great part extempore) were preciously peppered with Politics. I have here, at least, double the number ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... 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 joins. On this occasion, all was silent. After ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... bivouacked as follows:—His rifles were tied together near the muzzles, the butts resting on the ground widely apart; a knife was laid on the rope that tied them together, to cut it in case of an alarm; over this extempore framework was thrown a large india-rubber cloth, with which he covered his packs when on the road; it made a cover sufficiently large to receive about half of his bed, and was a place ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... 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. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... sitting erect and bleak in his tall marble chair, explained how he, and all the domain and all the infernal hierarchies he ruled, had been created extempore by Koshchei, to humor the pride of Jurgen's forefathers. "For they were exceedingly proud of their sins. And Koshchei happened to notice Earth once upon a time, with your forefathers walking about it exultant in the enormity of their sins and ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... 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
... my sermon, I will give my reader some lines with which he may not be acquainted, from a writer of the Elizabethan time. I had meant to introduce them into my sermon, but I was so carried away with my subject that I forgot them. For I always preached extempore, which phrase I beg my reader will not misinterpret as meaning ON THE SPUR OF THE MOMENT, OF WITHOUT THE DUE ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... true—I back him at a Rebus or a Charade against the best Rhymer in the Kingdom—has your Ladyship heard the Epigram he wrote last week on Lady Frizzle's Feather catching Fire—Do Benjamin repeat it—or the Charade you made last Night extempore at Mrs. Drowzie's conversazione—Come now your first is the Name of a Fish, your second a ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... and garrets are ransacked for costumes and properties; hats, canes, umbrellas, and firearms are mustered, and old dresses that haven't seen the light for forty years are rummaged out as disguises for the actors in these extempore theatricals. ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... not, will not, form any separate sect, but from principle remain, what we have always been, true members of the Church of England.'[732] In 1778, 'To speak freely, I myself find more life in the Church prayers than in any formal extempore prayers of Dissenters.' In 1780, 'Having had opportunity of seeing several Churches abroad, and having deeply considered the several sorts of Dissenters at home, I am fully convinced our own Church, with all her blemishes, is nearer ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... individuals and cities, making the lover and the beloved alike eager in the work of their own improvement. But all other loves are the offspring of the other, who is the common goddess. To you, Phaedrus, I offer this my contribution in praise of love, which is as good as I could make extempore. ...
— Symposium • Plato
... 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 ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... side. At length he found a canoe, in which he rowed at night, and when morning came, he would sink it, and hide in the bushes; then in the evening raise it, and again pursue his way. Twice he passed the extempore gun-boat Mitchel had made, but feared it was some secession craft, and therefore crept cautiously by in the shadow of the shore, without being discovered. At last he thought he was beyond the danger of probable capture, and went boldly forward ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... the Commander of the Faithful. When he stood in the presence, he looked at the Wazirs and Emirs and Chamberlains, and Viceroys and Grandees and Captains, and then at the Caliph. Hereupon he sweetened his speech and his eloquence and, bowing his head to the ground, broke out in these extempore couplets, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... To a Lady Weeping On a Valetudinarian On a Miser To Cassim Obio Allah A Friend's Birthday To a Cat An Epigram upon Ebn Naphta-Wah Fire To a Lady Blushing On the Vicissitudes of Life To a Dove On a Thunder Storm To My Favorite Mistress Crucifixion of Ebn Bakiah Caprices of Fortune On Life Extempore Verses On the Death of a Son To Leila On Moderation in our Pleasures The Vale of Bozaa To Adversity On the Incompatibility of Pride and True Glory The Death of Nedham Almolk Lines to a Lover Verses to My Daughters Serenade to My Sleeping Mistress The ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... long prayer; and Dale, surmising it to be an extempore composition, admired Mr. Osborn's flow of language, command of erudite words, and success in bringing some very intricate sentences to ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... learned his name the promise of his eloquence and rare public gifts. He blessed himself that he had been bred from infancy as it were in the public eye, and he looked forward to the debates in the Senate on great political questions as to his fit and native element. And with reason, for in extempore debate his speech was music, and the precision, the flow and the elegance of his discourse equally excellent. Familiar as I was with his powers, when a year ago I first heard him take part in a debate, he surprised me with his success. ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... 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
... the Cedars a solemn stillness reigned in the nursery, and instead of an orderly room a perfect chaos of doll revelry prevailed. All the chairs were turned into extempore beds, and the twelve dolls, with bandaged heads and arms, were tucked ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... disloyalty, unanimously opened the door, and kicked him into the inside. He had all the inside places to himself; but such is the rapacity of ambition that he was still dissatisfied. "I say," he cried out in an extempore petition addressed to the Emperor through the window—"I say, how am I to catch hold of the reins?"—"Anyhow," was the imperial answer; "don't trouble me, man, in my glory. How catch the reins? Why, through the windows, through the keyholes—anyhow." Finally this contumacious coachman ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... building. In an instant I was at their side, for it struck me indisposition was the cause of so strange a movement. Fortunately, at this moment, the whole audience rose in a body, and one of the ministers commenced an extempore prayer. ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... passage, he called out abruptly, "I see a man!" Every one looked to that point,—"I see a man of Tarsus; and he says, Make mention of me!" It must not be supposed that the discourses of "Uncle Ebenezer," with these abrupt appeals and sudden starts, were unwritten or extempore; they were carefully composed and written out,—only these flashes of thought and passion came on him suddenly when writing, and were therefore quite natural when delivered—they came ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... 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
... in the popular mind with the idea of a lecture. After a moment of silence, there was a spontaneous burst of applause. It was renewed when Amelius, first placing on his table a little book, announced his intention of delivering the lecture extempore. The absence of the inevitable manuscript was in itself an act of mercy that cheered the ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... is able to read Tully, or such like classical Latin author EXTEMPORE, and make and speak true Latin in verse and prose suo (ut aiunt) Marte, and decline perfectly the paradigms of nouns and verbs in the Greek tongue, then may he be admitted into the College, nor shall any claim ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... the 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 ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... 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 her withdrawal; a cloud ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... thereof His?"[FN480] Then the gaolers built the cage[FN481] over him and left him therein, lorn and lone, whereupon longing and consternation entered into him and the tongue of his case recited in extempore verse, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... they had eaten before; "Come," said Agib, "sit down by me, and eat with us." Buddir ad Deen sat down, and attempted to embrace Agib, as a testimony of the joy he conceived upon sitting by him. But Agib pushed him away, desiring him not to be too familiar. Buddir ad Deen obeyed, and repeated some extempore verses in praise of Agib: he did not eat, but made it his business to serve his guests. When they had done, he brought them water to wash, and a very white napkin to wipe their hands. Then he filled a large china cup with sherbet, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... 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 ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the Dunlop family: it was printed from a hasty sketch, which the poet called extempore. The major whom it mentions, was General Andrew Dunlop, who died in 1804: Rachel Dunlop was afterwards married to Robert Glasgow, Esq. Another of the Dunlops served with distinction in India, where ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... have set fire to the woods, and burnt a considerable extent of 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 him, any more than a Spanish don his toledo, some cut down wood ...
— 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
... perplex his matter; which is 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 ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... 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 ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Dic mihi musa 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 aloud." There's ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... brink of the grave, man is not wont to compose poems, may be refuted by a reference to the history of the ancient Arabic poetry. The Arabic poets before the time of Mohammed often recited long poems extempore,—so natural to them was poetry. (Compare Tharaphae Moallakah, ed. Reiske, p. xl.; Antarae Moallakah, ed. Menil. p. 18.) The poet Lebid, who attained to the age of 157 years (compare Reiske prolegg. ad Thar. Moall. p. xxx.; De Sacy, Memoires de l'Academie des inscriptions, ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... clothes and build fires for a woman for a whole lifetime at first sight of her is not uncommon among that humble portion of humanity that does not care for Bradstreet or coats-of-arms or Shaw's plays. Love at first sight has occurred a time or two in high life; but, as a rule, the extempore mania is to be found among unsophisticated creatures such as the dove, the blue-tailed dingbat, and the ten-dollar-a-week clerk. Poets, subscribers to all fiction magazines, ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... one's tracks; right away; toute a l'heure [Fr.]; at one jump, in the same breath, per saltum [Lat.], uno saltu [Lat.]; at once, all at once; plump, slap; at one fell swoop; at the same instant &c n.; immediately &c (early) 132; extempore, on the moment, on the spot, on the spur of the moment; no sooner said than done; just then; slap-dash &c (haste) 684. Phr. touch and go; no sooner ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... not so ready with a pathetic answer as he usually was with touching episodes in his extempore sermons. He felt that he ought to say something pretty, something also that should remove the impression on the mind of his lady love. But he was rather put ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... sir. A fellow who believes in extempore prayer and republican government; and swears England was never so happy or prosperous ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... Apostolic Church is simple and consistent, as well as spiritual and sublime. The way of redemption it discloses is not an extempore provision of Supreme benevolence called forth by an unforeseen contingency, but a plan devised from eternity, and fitted to display all the divine perfections in most impressive combination. Whilst it recognises the voluntary agency of ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... fiction fairly exhausted. The demand on the part of my class-fellows was, however, as great and urgent as ever; and, setting myself, in the extremity of the case, to try my ability of original production, I began to dole out to them by the hour and the diet, long extempore biographies, which proved wonderfully popular and successful. My heroes were usually warriors like Wallace, and voyagers like Gulliver, and dwellers in desolate islands like Robinson Crusoe; and they had not unfrequently to ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... 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
... a good deal of powder and blue lights would be burnt, but no bullets or lives would be spent. In streets in which fighting actually occurs no one of course shows except combatants, and these show as little as possible, lying down or sheltering behind extempore barricades and windows. The people indoors, as may be supposed, do not keep near them, as the bullets fired down the sides of the streets under cover of doorways or corner houses glance and ricochet about ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... following irregular stanzas on the occasion were written extempore by an officer of the ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... admirable one, because it did nothing more than expound the Christian doctrine of eternal life. As an extempore performance—marvelously exact, finished, clear and noble, marked by a strong and disciplined eloquence. There was not a single reservation to make in the name of criticism, history or philosophy. It was all beautiful, ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... well-known Lectures. There are prayers morning and afternoon every day, which the students are expected to attend. Such was the present engagement. One of the professors read a chapter; gave out a hymn, which was magnificently sung; and then offered an extempore prayer. There were between 300 and ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... corrections and new forms of expression, both of what others had said to him, and he had addressed to them. Hence, it was concluded that he was not a man of much genius, and that all his eloquence was the effect of labour. A strong proof of this seemed to be that he was seldom heard to speak anything extempore, and though the people often called upon him by name, as he sat in the assembly, to speak to the point debated, he would not do it unless he came prepared. For this many of the orators ridiculed him; and Pytheas, in particular, told him, "That all his arguments ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... says:—"The Gipsies have no writing peculiar to themselves in which to give a specimen of the construction of their dialect. Music is the only science in which the Gipsies participate in any considerable degree; they likewise compose, but it is after the manner of the Eastern people, extempore." Grellmann asserts that the Hindustan language has the greatest affinity with that of the Gipsies. He also infers from the following consideration that Gipsies are of the lowest class of Indians, namely, Parias, or, as they are ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... 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 ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... sisters dressed in black. The girl alone who was about to take the habit was in white; and, in front of all the others, knelt down before a table, on which was placed the cross. The abbate, from the outside, now addressed her in a long extempore charge, in which he pointed out the duties of the situation she was about to enter, and forcibly set forth the advantages of it; while he painted, in the strongest and most seducing colours, the superior happiness of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various
... a more eminent degree than they do now. For example, in Welch, Tewgris, todykris, ty'r derrin, gwillt, &c. in Italian, Donne, O danno che selo affronto affronta: in selva salvo a me, with a thousand more. The whole secret of improvisation, however, seems to consist in this; that extempore verses are never written down, and one may easily conceive that much may go off well with a good voice in singing, which no one would read if they were once registered ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... o'clock the prayer-bell rang. Immediately all the boarders took their seats for prayers, each with an open Bible before him; and when the school servants had also come in, Dr. Rowlands read a chapter, and offered up an extempore prayer. While reading, he generally interspersed a few pointed remarks or graphic explanations, and Eric learnt much in this simple way. The prayer, though short, was always well suited to the occasion, and calculated to carry with it the ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... troubadour!" exclaimed a voice, which he could not mistake; "but, prithee, my tuneful knight, were those concluding lines extempore, or had you really the vanity to anticipate the ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... Superintendent of the Rocky Mountain 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, the words, "Died at half ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... up a meagre supper, of which the mother and daughter partook almost in silence. Then Mrs. Howland went to her room, where she fell fast asleep, and Maggie had the drawing-room to herself. She had arranged a sort of extempore bed on the hard sofa, and was about to lie down, when Tildy opened ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... to ourselves? Units on the way to heaven, units bowed down by the same sorrows, cheered by the same hopes, torn asunder by the same temptations as the gracious one and myself?" And immediately he launched forth into a flood of eloquence about units; for in Germany sermons are all extempore, and the clergy, from constant practice, acquire a fatal fluency of speech, bursting out in the week on the least provocation into preaching, and not by any ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... song, Rhimeson," cried Frank, very glad to escape from his threatened bumper, and still fearful that it might be insisted upon, "a song extempore, as becomes a poet in his cups, and in thine own vein; ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... into the woman of business, and one who was evidently quite accustomed both to arrange and command, Miss Balquidder put Hilary through a sort of extempore arithmetical catechism, from which she came ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... found Biondello in his room playing upon the flute, with his 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
... dispatched a telegram to Leonard; "Please let me know immediately your mother's present address." The reply was to be sent to his rooms in Devonshire Street, and thither he straightway betook himself, hoping that in an hour or so he would have news. An extempore lunch was put before him; never had he satisfied his hunger with less gusto. Time went on; the afternoon brought him no telegram. At seven o'clock he lay on his sofa, exhausted by nervous strain, anticipating ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... Holden cf. Dr. Davy, "Notes and Observations on the Ionian Islands." "The grain is beaten out, commonly in the harvest field, by men, horses, or mules, on a threshing-floor prepared extempore for the purpose, where the ground is firm and dry, and the chaff is separated by winnowing."—Wilkinson, "Ancient ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... of beggars and idlers, generally gathered in the street, saw so much that they might be considered to "assist," in an independent but festive capacity, at the entertainment from outside. Matches were hawked about for the convenience of the male portion of this extempore assembly, and fruit in baskets was on sale for the women. "Cigars—cigars of quality!"—"Good fruit—ripe fruit!" were cries audible even in the ballroom; and a fine aroma of coarse tobacco mounted rapidly upward to the ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... 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, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... good bread week in and week out, so saving you from the frequent calamity of soda-biscuits. These may be used for dumplings, or as a sudden extempore, but do not let them be habitual. True, you will occasionally meet people who say that they can eat these, when raised ones are fatal. But some persons find cheese good for dyspepsia, many advocate ice-cream, others can ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... But, lads, I am glad you have the money. Hostess, clap to the doors. Watch to-night, pray to-morrow. Gallants, lads, boys, hearts of gold; all the titles of good-fellowship come to you! What! shall we be merry? Shall we have a play extempore? ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... 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 by the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... my room with the most thoughtful care. A large bouquet adorns the table; fancy writing materials are displayed; and a waiter, with sirups and an extempore soda fount, one of Parisian household refinements, stands just at my elbow. Above all, my walls are hung with beautiful engravings from ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... two quarts of the liquor meat or poultry has been boiled in; give it a boil up, and in five minutes it will make excellent extempore pease soup, especially if the pudding has been boiled in the same pot as the meat (see No. 218, &c.) Season it ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... is our Liturgie! I grudge at the Puritans for having abolished it; and though I felt not its comprehensive Fullessse [Transcriber's note: Fullnesse?] before I married, nor indeed till now, yet I wearied to Death in London at the puritanicall Ordinances and Conscience-meetings and extempore Prayers, wherein it was soe oft the Speaker's Care to show Men how godly he was. Nay, I think Mr. Milton altogether wrong in the View he takes of praying to God in other Men's Words; for doth he not doe soe, everie Time he followeth the Sense of another Man's extempore Prayer, wherein ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... exigencies of family distress, with a wife and children, whom he tenderly loved, looking up to him for subsistence, with a body lacerated by the acutest pains, and with a mind distracted by a thousand avocations and obliged for immediate supply to produce almost extempore a farce, a pamphlet, or a newspaper." Murphy's careless pen seems here to confuse the student years with those of assiduous effort at the Bar; and the extempore farces are, judging by the dates of Fielding's collected plays, no more than a rhetorical ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 495, June 25, 1831 • Various
... sir, I have a pretty wit. I can rhyme you extempore; I can convulse you with quip and conundrum;I have the lighter philosophies at my tongue's tip; I can be merry, wise, quaint, grim, and sardonic, one by one, or all at once; I have a pretty turn for anecdote; I know all ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... paper for the same year are some extempore lines on Brighton, dated from East Street, which ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... behind a savage chief. Jacob chanced fortunately to be concealed in a rugged piece of ground where horses could not act. As the Indians were riding away he shot the horse that bore the pastor, and at the same time uttered a series of yells and extempore war-whoops so appalling that the savages gave him credit for being at least a dozen foes, and fled over a ridge before turning to see what had happened. The fall of the horse had stunned the pastor, but the Indian leaped up and drew his knife. Fortunately Jacob's rifle was a ...
— The Thorogood Family • R.M. Ballantyne
... of art, or, at least, with very feeble beginnings of it. Those ancient Romans at these holy days, which were a mixture of devotion and debauchery, had a custom of reproaching each other with their faults in a sort of extempore poetry, or rather of tunable hobbling verse, and they answered in the same kind of gross raillery—their wit and their music being of a piece. The Grecians, says Casaubon, had formerly done the ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... several years before I could seize a pen, rattle up a subject and dash off a leader. Now I can write far more easily than I can talk. And it is a curious fact that soon after I became really skilled at such extempore work in the opinion of the best judges, such as Raymond, I no longer had ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... turned upon a war which the king had just brought to a happy conclusion against the prince of Hircania, his vassal. Zadig, who had signalized his courage in this short war, bestowed great praises on the king, but greater still on the lady. He took out his pocketbook, and wrote four lines extempore, which he gave to this amiable person to read. His friends begged they might see them; but modesty, or rather a well-regulated self love, would not allow him to grant their request. He knew that extemporary verses are never approved of by any but by the person in whose ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... On this subject the Bishop believes that each man must use the method best suited to himself. There have been effective preachers both of written and extempore sermons. The question of memory came up, and the Bishop said: "I learnt something of this from the biography of Chancellor Bird, of Lincoln, who said, 'The memory is very sensitive of distrust; if you trust it, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... 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 form that these were very welcome. She urged ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... villain, thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen years ago, and wert taken with the manner, and ever since thou hast blush'd extempore." 1 Henry IV.Act ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... he lives 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 trainers ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... Areius receive from Caesar; and by his intercession many lives were saved, amongst the rest that of Philostratus, a man, of all the professors of logic that ever were, the most ready in extempore speaking, but quite destitute of any right to call himself one of the philosophers of the Academy. Caesar, out of disgust at his character, refused all attention to his entreaties. So, growing a long, white beard, and dressing himself in black, he followed behind Areius, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... from this and many other passages, that extempore prayer was usual among these monks, as it was afterwards among the Puritans (who have copied them in so many other things), whenever ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... the pulpit. Failing to understand that the use of "the paper" could interfere in the remotest degree with the due and proper effect of the pulpit, and knowing that he could not do either himself or his congregation adequate justice by extempore preaching, Dr. Anderson continued to adhere to written sermons, until the Presbytery at last gave way, leaving him master of the situation. The feud between Dr. Anderson and his Presbytery has been described by himself as "the eleven months of anguish ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... and interesting subject. I have just been working at it, and you will find my opinions in my book." If he were asked to give his opinions now, or at least to indicate them, he shook his head and gently said, "I am not good at extempore speaking. My thoughts only come out clearly when I have a pen in my hand." Not a day passed by without an allusion to "the book," to which he devoted his nights, and of which he always spoke, with emotion in his voice, as the ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... of a martyrdom to monotony and life-weariness. He was a pious man, but loved prescription and form: he loved to think of himself as a member of the great Catholic Church and not as an isolated individual, and he found more relief in praying the prayers which millions had before him than in extempore effusion; humbly trusting that what he was seeking in consecrated petitions was all that he really needed. "In proportion as your prayers are peculiar," he once told his congregation in a course of sermons on Dissent, "they are worthless." There was ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... old man, walking feebly up the aisle, shading his eyes with his right hand, and supporting himself with a cane, the quiet congregation, and the singular dress and venerable bald head of the old preacher, all formed a character-picture, that is not often seen. His sermon was extempore, and consisted of a series of running paraphrases and simple and touching explanations upon a few verses selected ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... hymn was finished, which was sung by the whole congregation, in the most delightful discord,—everyone chose his own key—he gave an extempore prayer, which was most unfortunately incomprehensible, and then commenced his discourse, which was on Faith. I shall omit the head and front of his offending, which would, perhaps, hardly be gratifying ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... portion of their time is passed in revelry, music, dancing, and gambling. Their music scarcely deserves the name; the instruments being of the rudest kind. Their singing is harsh and discordant; the songs are chiefly extempore, relating to passing circumstances, the persons present, or any trifling object that strikes the attention of the singer. They have several kinds of dances, some of them lively and pleasing. The women are rarely permitted to dance with the men, but form ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... no place. It was a wild and fearful sight only witnessed by a wild and fearful race. During the tragedy they listened with delight to the piper of the band, who marching round the burning pile, played to drown the screams of the victims, an extempore pibroch, which has ever since been distinguished as the war tune of Glengarry under the title of "Cilliechriost." The flaming roof fell upon the burning victims, soon the screams ceased to be heard, a column of smoke and flame leapt into the air, the pibroch ceased, the last smothered ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... the business 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, ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... the 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. In a debate begun and ended at one sitting, the speaking takes very little ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... sung, Rowland stood behind the high desk of the mistress, and gave a short lecture on the words, 'Thou crownest the year with thy goodness.' Rowland was not ungifted with the talent for extempore preaching, common to so many of his countrymen, and therewith possessed, in general, much self-possession; on the present occasion, it must be confessed that he felt unusually nervous, still he commanded himself and his feelings, and by degrees, forgetting them ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... that the very minuteness with which the comparison is sought to be sustained, destroys the effect. Regarding the repetition, they are just such as one may expect to find in verses composed extempore. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... able gentlemen who were ranged along that table, who are very much more anxious to know what the press to-morrow morning will have to say about them [laughter], and I know it because I saw the care with which they handed up to the reporters the manuscript copies of their entirely unprepared and extempore remarks. [Laughter.] ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... two 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 came to examine ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... light. He got up into trees, and clustered there, grinning from ear to ear. He bawled about island horses and Barbadian horses—for the Barbadians mustered strong, and a fight was expected, which, however, never came off; he sang songs, possibly some of them extempore, like that which amused one's childhood concerning a once notable ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... 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 emulation in schoolboys, or desiring that they should ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... neighbour to each parishioner; their private adviser, their public monitor, their example in christian conduct, their joy in health, their consolation in sickness." In the same vault with Mr. Archdeacon Clive, lies buried Robert Lord Clive, conqueror of Plassy: on whose death appeared these extempore lines, by a man of distinction, ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... masses of tradition, vituperation, complaint, ejaculation in the Koran, a vein of true direct insight, of what we might almost call poetry, is found straggling. The body of the Book is made-up of mere tradition, and as it were vehement enthusiastic extempore preaching. He returns forever to the old stories of the Prophets as they went current in the Arab memory: how Prophet after Prophet, the Prophet Abraham, the Prophet Hud, the Prophet Moses, Christian and other real and fabulous Prophets, had come ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... an 'twere any nightingale'. Snug the Joiner is the moral man of the piece, who proceeds by measurement and discretion in all things. You see him with his rule and compasses in his hand. 'Have you the lion's part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study.'—'You may do it extempore,' says Quince, 'for it is nothing but roaring.' Starveling the Tailor keeps the peace, and objects to the lion and the drawn sword. 'I believe we must leave the killing out when all's done.' Starveling, however, does not start the objections himself, but seconds them when made ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... these feet were gradually neglected, and the Caoinan fell into a sort of slipshod metre amongst women. Each province had different Caoinans, or at least different imitations of the original. There was the Munster cry, the Ulster cry, &c. It became an extempore performance, and every set of keepers varied the melody ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... remained so strong in hearts in which every other feeling of virtue had so long been dead. The Vicar of Wakefield's sermon in prison is, it seems, founded on a deep and true knowledge of human nature; the spark of good is often smothered, never wholly extinguished. Mrs. Fry often says an extempore prayer; but this day she was quite silent; while she covered her face with her hands for some minutes, the women were perfectly silent, with their eyes fixed upon her; and when she said, "You may go," they went away slowly. The children sat quite still the whole time; when one leaned, her ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... the Church of England service, lessons and all, the 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 of the afternoon he took his pleasure in ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... 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 proceeds ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... is generally a very extempore affair, providing there is enough of meat and drink to be had; but on the present occasion, Ludovic bustled about to procure some better wine than ordinary; observing that the old Lord was the surest gear in their aught, and that, ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... writing, drawing, dissecting; sitting, no doubt, as I grew afterwards accustomed to see him, absolutely motionless, with his eye glued to the microscope, for twenty minutes at a time. So the greater part of every weekday was spent, and on Sunday he usually preached one, and sometimes two extempore sermons. His workday labours were rewarded by the praise of the learned world, to which he was indifferent, but by very little money, which he needed more. For over three years after their marriage, neither of my parents left London for a single day, not being ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... 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 Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various
... moreover how, tho he could not speak in Parliament, he might preach, rhapsodic preaching; above all, how he might be great in extempore prayer. These are the free outpouring utterances of what is in the heart: method is not required in them; warmth, depth, sincerity are all that is required. Cromwell's habit of prayer is a notable feature of him. All his great enterprises were commenced with prayer. In dark inextricable-looking ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... house, where he stopped and in his unconscious delirium caught at the bell rope and rang the bell with a vigor that started every one from his work, so that in a few minutes 'Extinguisher No. 1' was hurried along the roads by an extempore company of about fifty ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... for in whatever company I go, I am 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
... 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 being insupportably ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... dishes cleared, an amateur luti from among the villagers produces a tambourine and castanets, and, taking the middle of the room, proceeds to amuse the company by singing extempore love songs in praise of the bride and groom to tambourine accompaniment and pendulous swayings of the body. Pretending to be carried away by the melodiousness and sentiment of his own productions, he gradually bends backward with hands ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
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