"Extempore" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... extempore," she continued, "and more to my satisfaction than ever before. I am amazed at myself, but I could not do it if any of our other speakers were listening to me. I am entirely off old antislavery grounds and on the new ones thrown ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... 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
... 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
... 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
... 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 ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... 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
... 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
... 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
... 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, ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... 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
... 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 produced the following verses: ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... 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
... 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 ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... 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
... 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
... 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
... 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 the same mode of entertainment on the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... 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 |
