"Improvise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who are descended from the ancient sultans, the women are given the title Timanokalin, "royal women," on account of their beauty and their talent in the art of music. They often give concerts, to which the men come "from long distances—decked out like male ostriches." In these concerts the women improvise the songs, accompanying themselves on the tambourine and a sort of violin or rebaza. They are much sought after in marriage, because of the title of cherif which they confer on ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... "I see,—you can improvise," said the manager, quite pleased, "and I've no objection when it's well done like that; but you'd better go on now, and stick to ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... George, don't improvise. It looks too egotistical. It will provoke remark. Just stick to 'Coronation,' like the others. It is a good tune—you can't improve it any, just off-hand, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... part of it." Maggie went, she went—she felt herself going; she reminded herself of an actress who had been studying a part and rehearsing it, but who suddenly, on the stage, before the footlights, had begun to improvise, to speak lines not in the text. It was this very sense of the stage and the footlights that kept her up, made her rise higher: just as it was the sense of action that logically involved some platform—action ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... the occasion. Selden evinced an extraordinary interest in her household arrangements: complimented her on the ingenuity with which she had utilized every inch of her small quarters, asked how her servant managed about afternoons out, learned that one may improvise delicious dinners in a chafing-dish, and uttered thoughtful generalizations on the burden ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... Slocum, who had not provided himself with an explanation, and was puzzled to improvise one. "I discharged him,—that is to say, I let him go. I forgot to mention it. He didn't take to ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... both smiled. "Who doesn't go in for these things for fun?" they asked. "Is it likely that we improvise verses in real earnest? Why, if any one treated our verses as genuine verses, and took them outside this garden, people would have such a hearty laugh at our expense that ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... heard of anything so delightful! Why, we shall be able to slip down at night and hear him improvise! What ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... instruction hour, I was astonished at a prelude, which she had evidently improvised. Screened from her view, I listened till she finished playing. Of course I praised her (for really she has remarkable talent), and asked her when she began to compose, to improvise. Now what do you suppose she answered? A brigade of Philadelphia lawyers could never guess. She looked at me very steadily, and said as nearly as I can quote her words: 'I really don't know exactly when I began, but I suppose a long time ago, when ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... "I wonder, ... and yet I suppose you are right. Some devilish incident will twist things out of gear, and then the old Adam must improvise for safety and success. Yes, I suppose my one beautiful virtue will ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... "that about describes it. And now I think it is about bed-time. Jim, my dear," she continued, as she took her bed-room candle, "as you have thought fit to improvise a ball, you had better take care that the young ladies have partners by asking three or four of the officers from Rockcliffe, if they will ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... opened by two non-commissioned officers, and take possession of the arms and ammunition, carrying them to the Church of Santa Annunziata, where all the guns should be stored. At certain places in the city material was already gathered with which to improvise barricades. One hundred republicans had promised to take part in the movement, not as a group, but individually. On the 7th copies of the proclamation of the Italian Committee for the Social Revolution were distributed throughout the city, calling the masses to arms and urging the ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... at Weimar, when a young man came in, dressed in a short, green shooting-jacket, booted and spurred, and having a pair of brilliant, black, Italian eyes. He in turn offered to read; but finding probably the poetry of the Musen-Almanach of that year rather too insipid for him, he soon began to improvise the wildest and most fantastic poems imaginable, and in all possible forms and measures, all the while pretending to read from the book. 'That is either Goethe or the Devil,' said good old father Gleim to Wieland, who sat near him. To which the 'Great ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... New material was to occupy the place which had not yet been vacated by the old, and I began to grow obstinate. Thus they even drove me into hating music, which is now the delight and at the same time the support of my life. When I used to improvise on my violin at twilight in order to enjoy myself in my own way, they would take the instrument away from me, asserting that this ruined my fingering. They would also complain of the torture inflicted upon their ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... will talk about it," Cyn said. "And now, we must improvise you a cup, plate, knife, fork, and spoon. I know you must ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... stream enters the Kanawha from the north and below the city, it may have seemed to him that it would delay our progress; but as a large number of empty coal barges were lying at the town, it took our company of mechanics, under Captain Lane of the Eleventh Ohio, but a little while to improvise a good floating bridge, and part of the command passed through the town and camped beyond it. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. p. 425.] One day was now given to the establishment of a depot of supplies at Charleston and to the organization of regular ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox |
