"Extempore" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... 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, and their ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... 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 had got his call, and was now indisputably one ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... "Extraordinary as his extempore playing was it was less successful in the performance of printed compositions; for, since he never took the time or had the patience to practice anything, his success depended mostly on chance and mood; and since, also, his manner of playing as well as composing was ahead of his ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... was almost exclusively doctrinal—the fall: the nature, the extent, and the application of the remedy. In the hands of able men, no doubt, there might be much variety of exposition, but with weaker or indolent men preaching extempore, or without notes, it too often ended in a weekly repetition of what had been already said. An old elder of mine, whose recollection might reach back from sixty to seventy years, said to me one day, 'Now-a-days, people make a work if a minister preach the same sermon over ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... 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
... same delight and interest if they were put into book form. He at once acted upon the suggestion and wrote out a chapter of his story for each day, and instead of telling it to his children in an extempore fashion, read what he had written. When the story was completed, the various chapters were placed together and dispatched to a publisher, who at once accepted and published it. It was in this way the long series of ...
— The Golden Canyon - Contents: The Golden Canyon; The Stone Chest • G. A. Henty
... found out afterward, with an inexplicable disappointment, that her husband had not been talking extempore, but was freely quoting his "Compiler's Foreword" just as it figured ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... down to 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
... 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
... of mathematics De Morgan was unrivalled. He gave instruction in the form of continuous lectures delivered extempore from brief notes. The most prolonged mathematical reasoning, and the most intricate formulae, were given with almost infallible accuracy from the resources of his extraordinary memory. De Morgan's writings, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... when Osmyn delivered an extempore poem before the Caliph, his rival, after having warmly applauded him, cast down his eyes by accident, and saw shining on the floor one of the pastilles that Osmyn, who was led away by the vivacity of his declamation, had let fall ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 495, June 25, 1831 • Various
... 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 Tavish M'Tavish ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... vehicles 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
... of her family which had stood gazing on me all the while in fixed astonishment, to resume the task of spinning cotton, in which they continued to employ themselves a great part of the night. They lightened their labors by songs, one of which was composed extempore, for I was myself the subject of it. It was sung by one of the young women, the rest joining in a sort of chime. The air was sweet and plaintive, and the words, literally translated, were these: 'The winds roared ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... the summer, she started on a regular tour early in the fall, writing Lydia Mott: "I can not feel easy in my conscience to be dumb in an hour like this. I am speaking now extempore and more to my satisfaction than ever before. I am amazed at myself, but I could not do it if any of our other speakers were listening to me. I am entirely off old anti-slavery grounds and on the new ones thrown up by the war. What a stay, counsel and ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... called the 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... 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
... 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. ...
— The Thorogood Family • R.M. Ballantyne
... obscure family pew just behind the churchwardens', were detected, one Sunday, in the free seats by the communion-table, actually lying in wait for the curate as he passed to the vestry! He began to preach extempore sermons, and even grave papas caught the infection. He got out of bed at half-past twelve o'clock one winter's night, to half-baptise a washerwoman's child in a slop-basin, and the gratitude of the parishioners ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... 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 ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... 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
... service, of a High-Church character, was fully choral, assisted by a robed choir and a good organ. The sermon was preached by the Rev. Provost Powell, who took for his text Romans xiv. 7: "For none liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself." He gave us a clever oration, but whether extempore or otherwise we could not tell, as from where we sat we could not see the preacher. There was not a large congregation, probably owing to the fact that the people in the North are opposed to innovations, and look upon crosses and candlesticks ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... by the song of the bird. Here finding all real things, even the most beautiful, pall upon him, he extols the fancy, which can escape from reality and is not tied by place or season in its search for new joys. This is, of course, only a passing mood, as the extempore character of the poetry indicates. We see more of settled conviction in the deeply-meditative Ode to Autumn, where he finds the ideal in the rich and ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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, a friend to ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... used to say that a speaker's success before an audience depended chiefly upon the thoroughness of his previous preparation. Mr. Bright has often spoken extempore with great effect, when circumstances demanded it. But his custom is to prepare carefully, and in his earlier days he used frequently to write his speech and learn it by heart. He received his first lesson in oratory from a Baptist clergyman of great note, whom ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... 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 honor they are written. ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... noise. It burst upwards through the companion-way, loud and earnest and plaintive, and the winds caught it and carried it over the water, a thin and appealing cry. After the hymn Weeks prayed aloud, and extempore and most seriously. He prayed for each member of the crew by name, one by one, taking the opportunity to mention in detail each fault which he had had to complain of, and begging that the offender's chastisement might be light. Of Duncan he spoke in ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... 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 ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... 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, Madness and ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... 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 ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... worse, he could avoid perpetual disgrace and punishment and live at peace. Nor was he unwilling to promise Mrs. Woodford to say daily, and especially when tempted, one or two brief collects and ejaculations which she selected to teach him, as being as unlike as possible to the long extempore exercises which had made him hate the very name of prayer. The Doctor gave him a Greek Testament, as being least ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... still between him and the city of Knei Yang, entered the camphor-laurel forest which stretched almost to his destination. No person of consequence ever made the journey unattended; but Kai Lung professed to have no fear, remarking with extempore wisdom, when warned at the previous village, that a worthless garment covered one with better protection than that afforded by an army of bowmen. Nevertheless, when within the gloomy aisles, Kai Lung more ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... (in Germany) to Luther's tune that gave it for some time the designation of "Luther's Hymn," the title by which the music is still known—an air either composed or adapted by Luther, and rendered perhaps unisonously or with extempore chords. It was not until early in the last century that Vincent Novello wrote to it the noble arrangement now in use. It is a strong, even-time harmony with lofty tenor range, and very impressive with full choir and organ or the vocal volume of a congregation. ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... Palo Alto), 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 the two ends to his tongue, to taste, at the fatal moment, the words, ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... ought to be called to answer an 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 a debate ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... 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
... of the Press can also be said of periodical literature and modern fiction. "The very nature of periodical literature," says Cardinal Newman, "broken into small wholes and demanded punctually to an hour involves the habit of extempore philosophy . . . and that philosophy, we know is not Christian philosophy. The writers can give no better guarantee for the philosophical truth of their principles than their popularity at the ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... 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
... struggle to get loose? Who mourns through Monkey-tricks his damaged clothing? Who has been hissed by the Canadian Goose? On whom did Llama spit in utter loathing? Some Smithfield Saint did jealous feelings tell To keep the Puma out of sight till Monday, Because he preyed extempore as well As certain wild Itinerants on Sunday— But what is ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... clad in rusty black, and bearing in his hand a small plain Bible from which he selects some passage for his text, while the hymn is concluding. The congregation fall upon their knees, and are hushed into profound stillness as he delivers an extempore prayer, in which he calls upon the Sacred Founder of the Christian faith to bless his ministry, in terms of disgusting and impious familiarity not to be described. He begins his oration in a drawling tone, and his hearers listen with silent ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... litanies were concluded the clergyman, who appeared to be a middle-aged man, and who had rather a fine voice, began to preach. His sermon was from the 119th Psalm: "Am hynny hoffais dy gorchymynion yn mwy nag aur:" "Therefore have I loved thy commandments more than gold." The sermon, which was extempore, was delivered with great earnestness, and I make no doubt was a very excellent one, but owing to its being in South Welsh I did not derive much benefit from it as I otherwise might have done. When it was over ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... scarcely repeats a single motive throughout the extent of the song, but is constantly introducing new tonal ideas argues an extempore performance. It would be interesting to have for comparison another record of the same song made ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... much like to try your plan," I said, and, as Sylvie and Bruno happened to run up to us at the moment, I left them to keep the Earl company, and strolled along the platform, making each person and event play its part in an extempore drama for my especial benefit. "What, is the Earl tired of you already?" I said, as the ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... half of the country fellows about had now appeared, either out of zeal or curiosity, it was soon sunk in the ground, and sufficiently secured. A yard across the upright mast, and a rope stretched along it, and reeved through a block at each end, formed an extempore crane, which afforded the means of lowering an arm-chair, well secured and fastened, down to the flat shelf on which the sufferers had roosted. Their joy at hearing the preparations going on for their deliverance was considerably qualified when they beheld the ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... the Chattanooga 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 ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... manly." When he was first presented to Louis the Fourteenth, who was desirous of asking some questions concerning the invasion of Scotland, he is said to have prepared an elaborate address, which he forgot in the confusion produced by the splendour around him, but to have delivered an able extempore speech, with infinite ease and good taste, upon the spur of the moment, to the great amusement of Louis, who learned from ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... Irrawaddy, when all trouble and sorrow would cease! Animated by his subject, his voice gradually became bolder and more spirited, as well as his performance, and without any hesitation he sung with much facility two or three stanzas composed extempore. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... a sort of letter of form on the occasion, for there is nothing worth telling you. The event that has made most noise since my last, is the extempore wedding of the youngest of the two Gunnings, who have made so vehement a noise. Lord Coventry,(295) a grave young lord, of the remains of the patriot breed, has long dangled after the eldest, virtuously with regard to her virtue, not very honourably with regard to his own credit. About ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... I began to learn German, in order to converse with the 26 Germans on board. On Sunday I preached extempore and then administered the Lord's ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... and yet few cared to use this liberty. Debate is good, but on matters which concern the treatment of more than ten millions of people—eight of Negroes, two of mountain whites, besides Indians and Chinese—extempore addresses are not the best use of time. As a result of this preparation, Wednesday, the day when most of the papers were read, will compare favorably with the best days of the American Board. The ability of the younger men in our denomination was conspicuous. None of our great benevolent ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... be 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
... 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 sufficient sagacity to detect the heretic in this handsome, ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... prepared. Many of them arrayed themselves in a store on Fort Hill. The original number of one of the parties was fifteen or twenty. Many others joined in the act of breaking up the boxes, who disguised themselves as best they could, and some, chiefly extempore volunteers, were not disguised at all. Hewes himself, while the crowd rushed down Milk Street, made his way to a blacksmith's shop, on Boylston's wharf, where he hastily begrimmed his face with a soot-able preparation, thence to the house ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... nations, comes from 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 ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... the fauna of our neighborhood. Possessing the lawless freedom of their normal condition, they still evinced a tender attachment to man and his habitations. Spirited steeds got up extempore races on the sidewalks, turning the street into a miniature Corso; dogs wrangled in the areas; while from the hill beside the house a goat browsed peacefully upon my wife's geraniums in the flower-pots of the second-story window. "We had a fine hail-storm ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... that at so great an age, and on the 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. ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... 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
... remarks that his predecessor at the Middlesex Hospital entered into a conversation with his barber over an attempt at suicide in the neighborhood, during which the surgeon called the "would-be suicide" a fool, explaining to the barber how clumsy his attempts had been at the same time giving him an extempore lecture on the anatomic construction of the neck, and showing him how a successful suicide in this region should be performed. At the close of the conversation the unfortunate barber retired into the back area of his shop, and following minutely the ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... 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
... The Moslem religious has no absurd shame of this natural passion. I have heard of a Persian Imam, who, suddenly excited as he was sleeping in a friend's house, awoke the master with, "Shahwah daram" "I am lustful" and was at once gratified by a "Mut'ah," temporary and extempore marriage to one of the slave-girls. These morganatic marriages are not, I may note, allowed to ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... disreputable aspect. He usually handles a short stick; and, when drummer and piper are absent, he carries a tiny tom-tom shaped like an hour- glass, upon which he taps the periods. This Scealuidhe, as the Irish call him, opens the drama with extempore prayer, proving that he and the audience are good Moslems: he speaks slowly and with emphasis, varying the diction with breaks of animation, abundant action and the most comical grimace: he advances, retires ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... 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 ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... and soft warm 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 one exception, they did not make their guests the subject of their usual ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... 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 ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... that night in the chapel Margaret Grant and the other girls of the Specialities were startled when Mr. Fairfax made special mention of Betty Vivian, praying God to comfort her in sore distress and to heal her sickness. The prayer was extempore, and roused the ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... on the river and the crowded shipping that passed so near its streets. But above all he found a source of interest in the living individuals whom he met in his daily round and who needed his help; and though he achieved signal success in the pulpit by his power of extempore preaching, he himself cared more for the effect of his visiting and other social work. Sermons might make an impression for the moment; personal sympathy, shown in the moment when it was needed, might change the ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... may conclude that, like the Grecian, it was void 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 same in the persons of their petulant Satyrs; but I am afraid ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... 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, whose language was not, generally, plain and simple; for it is absolutely ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... text the clergyman preached long and well: he did not read his sermon, but spoke it extempore; his doing so rather surprised and offended me at first; I was not used to such a style of preaching in a church devoted to the religion of my country. I compared it within my mind with the style of preaching used by the high-church rector in ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... I hope, than I can feel in reciting them. For prudent judges are wont to judge finished works by a somewhat severe standard, but are far more complaisant to improvisations. For you weigh and examine all that is actually written, but in the case of extempore speaking pardon and criticism go hand in hand, as it is right they should. For what we read forth from manuscript will remain such as it was when set down, even though you say nothing, but those words which I must ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... particularly wise or witty in the words; but their truth was so evident, and the manner in which they were spoken so clear and calm, that they were followed by a roar of laughter that for a little time upset the mighty humorist, though, in the extempore song in which he rallied, he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... fatiguing. But the men stepped out merrily, and joke and song lightened the way. There was an improvisatore in the Blankshire, whose comrades considered him a wonderful genius, though, as a matter of fact, his extempore effusions only consisted of taking some well-known song, and altering certain words or lines to suit ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... 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 ear with a straw every time it bent its head towards the bundle of hay which lay at its feet. No clown or pantaloon was there to inflict condign punishment, because none was needed. A brother carter standing by performed the part, extempore. His eye suddenly lit on the culprit; his whip sprang into the air and descended on the urchin's breech. Horror-struck, his mouth opened responsive to the crack, and a yell came forth that rose high above the surrounding din, while his little legs carried ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... "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 offering it to Agib, "This," said ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... work of heaven; but we see here, that an hypocrite may get into that vein, even while an hypocrite, and while on earth below. Nor do I think that this prayer of his was a premeditated stinted form, but a prayer extempore, made on a sudden, according to what he felt, thought, or understood ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the 17th of January: 'Wrote a Maori sermon this morning, not feeling able yet to preach extempore in the native language, though it is much better to do so as soon as I can. Now I must stick to the vessel again. I have been quite frisky, really, for two days past, and have actually slept on shore, the fourth time since September 24. The sensation is exceedingly pleasant of firm ground underneath ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... yourself, after the following directions, and you will have a delicious relish for made dishes, ragouts, soup, sauces, or hashes. Mushroom gravy approaches the nature and flavor of made gravy, more than any vegetable juice, and is the superlative substitute for it; in meagre soups and extempore gravies, the chemistry of the kitchen has yet contrived to agreeably awaken the palate ...
— A Poetical Cook-Book • Maria J. Moss
... "this 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 himself with an intermediary French rendering. Painter, accurate ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... and jury scene afforded much amusement; lectures were given to approving assemblies. The Sundays were decently observed, and services were held morning and evening; reading was dispensed with, and the sermons were extempore perforce. ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... 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 us before he would let us go. "The ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... at a time, a series of extempore verses telling of the life and deeds of the hero—his accomplishments and goodness—in the poetical language of this ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... 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 one of the most necessary ingredients, ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... 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, and threw into her countenance and style ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... 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, ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... 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 about how to ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... conversations with one and another in much the same way. Polly had initiated him in the mysteries of a discovery of mine, that it is not necessary to finish your sentence in a crowd, but by a sort of mumble, omitting sibilants and dentals. This, indeed, if your words fail you, answers even in public extempore speech—but better where other talking is going on. Thus: "We missed you at the Natural History Society, Ingham." Ingham replies: "I am very gligloglum, that is, that you were m-m-m-m-m." By gradually dropping the voice, the interlocutor is compelled to supply the answer. "Mrs. Ingham, I hope ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... are weak and cold compared with the ovations which Jasmin has received. At a recitation given shortly before my visit to Auch, the ladies present actually tore the flowers and feathers out of their bonnets, wove them into extempore garlands, and flung them in showers upon the panting minstrel; while the editors of the local papers next morning assured him, in floods of flattering epigrams, that humble as he was now, future ages would acknowledge the 'divinity' ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... 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 ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... pines is that their inflammable branches are always suggesting a display of extempore fireworks to the Arabs, who ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... not return till the 20th. To-morrow I am to dine with Madame and Madlle. de Branca, the latter being a kind of half pupil of mine, for Sigl seldom comes, and Becke, who usually accompanies her on the flute, is not here. On the three days that I was at Count Salern's I played a great many things extempore—two Cassations [Divertimentos] for the Countess, and the finale and Rondo, and the latter by heart. You cannot imagine the delight this causes Count Salern. He understands music, for he was constantly saying Bravo! ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... 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 although ludicrous. He reminded me of a monkey imitating a man; ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... making some 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 was ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... 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 ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... is really nothing but a small extempore opera, and what you will hear is only rhythmical prose or a kind of irregular verse, such as passion and necessity make ...
— The Imaginary Invalid - Le Malade Imaginaire • Moliere
... knowledge, instead of searching for it; and, ready as Burke's wit was, it appeared artificial when set by that of Townshend, which was so abundant that in him it seemed a loss of time to think. He had but to speak, and all he said was new, natural, and yet uncommon. If Burke replied extempore, his very answers that sprang from what had been said by others were so pointed and artfully arranged that they wore the appearance of study and preparation; like beautiful translations, they seemed to want the soul of the original author. Townshend's ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... 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
... 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 contaminated with ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... was desired to make a pun extempore. "Upon what subject?" said Daniel. "The king," answered the other. "O, sir," said he, "the king ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... Sam Baker and Boylston Smith reverently uncovered with the rest of the boys, while Deacon Baggs made an extempore prayer. But for the remainder of the day Old Twitchett's administrators foamed restlessly about, and watched each other narrowly, and listened to the conversation of every group of men who seemed to be talking with any spirit; they kept a sharp ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... Elias Boudinot and 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 have printed. It is the Sermones e Exemplos em lengua Guarani, by Nicolas Japuguay, ...
— Aboriginal American Authors • Daniel G. Brinton
... could warm the heart, or one that could offend the ear. He had so great a horror of a vulgarism that, like Canning, he would have made a periphrasis of a couple of lines to avoid using the word "cat." It was only in extempore speaking that a ray of his real genius could indiscreetly betray itself. One may judge what labor such a super-refinement of taste would inflict upon a man writing in a language not his own to some distinguished statesman or some literary institution,—knowing that language just well enough to recognize ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 bring him ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... 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
... raised his eyes to heaven and said, "Is not the whole 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
... strengthen the verbal memory; and he was not given to hypothesis and experiment. It did occur to him that he could perhaps get some help by praying for it; but as the prayers he said every evening were forms learned by heart, he rather shrank from the novelty and irregularity of introducing an extempore passage on a topic of petition for which he was not aware of any precedent. But one day, when he had broken down, for the fifth time, in the supines of the third conjugation, and Mr. Stelling, convinced that this ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... numbers of mankind are too little self-reverent to dispense with the services of self-conceit, they like to think themselves equal, and very easily equal, to any truth, and habitually assume their extempore, off-hand notion of its significance as a perfect measure of the fact. As if a man hollowed his hand, and, dipping it full out of Lake Superior, said, "Lake Superior just fills my hand!" To how many are ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... malice or heat. Dull poems to read let none privilege take. Let no poetaster command or intreat Another extempore verses to make. ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... him," said Ruth, reappearing after a longer absence than old Phoebe had anticipated. She was removing an out-of-door cloak, and an extempore headwrap, when she entered the room. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... one direction by the 5 P.M. express train on Saturday, and she in the other by 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 Castle the door was shut in his face. He ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... resolutions that Mr. Calhoun prepared his last formal speech. He attempted to deliver it in the Senate on the 4th of March, but was so weak that he requested Mr. Mason of Virginia to read it for him. On two or three subsequent occasions Mr. Calhoun made brief extempore remarks showing each time a gradual decay of strength. He died on the last day of March. Most touching and appreciative eulogies were delivered by Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster, after his death had been announced by his colleague, Judge Butler. Mr. Clay spoke of his ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... Reverend Hulton-Sams—known as the Fighting Parson—and who was the winner of many friendly fights. He travelled the west visiting stations and shearing sheds with his Bible and prayer-book on one handle of his bike, and a set of boxing gloves on the other, and after preaching an impressive extempore sermon, concluding the service, would invariably say, "Now, boys, we will have a little recreation!" and invite his hearers to put on the gloves. He was not always the winner, however. His manly virtues, the sincerity of his life, and the beauty of his character, made him one of the best ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... mode or 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
... 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 ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... 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 men ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of 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
... drunkenness and episodes of animalism by orgies of 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 Welsh language; and David on his three or four visits—and ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... became quiet, and the extempore official proceeded—with greater solemnity than many another judge of more regular appointment exhibits on similar ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... 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 ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... close 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
... of hollow bamboo, about a foot long. The drums were blocks of wood of cylindrical form, solid at one end, but scooped out and covered at the other with shark's skin. They were beaten by the hands instead of sticks. The natives sang to these instruments, and often made extempore verses. ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... argued that congregations would, with the aid of a liturgy, be enabled to take both a more lively and a more intelligent part in public prayer than they can possibly do when endeavoring to follow a minister who uses extempore prayer only. This argument must appear to be of considerable weight to those only who forget how lifeless and unmeaning a mere form of words, with which the lips have grown familiar, can become. Paley frankly admitted, when treating of this matter, that "the ...
— Presbyterian Worship - Its Spirit, Method and History • Robert Johnston |
