"Extemporaneous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... animated discussion arose ez to wich corner uv it the Convenshun wuz to ockepy. This settled, the biznis wuz begun. Genral Wool wuz made temporary Chairman, to wich honor he responded in a elokent extemporaneous speech, which he read from manuscript. General Ewing made another extemporaneous address, which he read from manuscript, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... character and wonderful enthusiasm attracted vast audiences. His voice was unusually powerful, clear and melodious, and he used it with consummate skill. In the preparation of his sermons he meditated much but wrote not a word, so that he was in the truest sense a purely extemporaneous speaker. Sincerity, intensity, imagination and humor, he had in preeminent degree, and an English style that has been described as "a long bright river of silver speech which unwound, evenly and endlessly, like ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... Mr. Solsgrace, upon the tender subject of lay-preaching and lay-ministering; nor did he think it altogether prudent or decent to indulge the wishes of some of the warmer enthusiasts of the party, who felt disposed to make the rest partakers of their gifts in extemporaneous prayer and exposition. These were absurdities that belonged to the time, which, however, the Major had sense enough to perceive were unfitted, whether the offspring of hypocrisy or enthusiasm, for ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... moment there was silence in the meeting-house. Then the voice of another preacher rose in the universal prayer, "Our Father, which art in heaven." Every extemporaneous prayer in the Church of the Brethren is complemented by the model prayer ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... she was the widow of an English gentleman; she had recently come to America, and had but few acquaintances, and still fewer friends; she felt the loneliness of her situation, and admitted that she much desired a friend to counsel and protect her; the adroit adventuress concluded her extemporaneous romance by adroitly insinuating that her income was scarcely adequate to ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... than the lodgings of the landlord's horses. There is no epithet too strong to express their indignation against the devoted Colonel, who was described by one imaginative peasant, who had worked himself up to a sort of descriptive convulsion, as a "Rawhacious Vagabone," a fine instance of extemporaneous word-coining of the ideo-phonetic school, which will doubtless be greedily accepted by Nationalist Parliamentarians who, long ago, exhausted their vocabulary of expletives in dealing with ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... all. What is to become of our churches? And what is he to do? It relieves me very much to hear that Gannett's case is no worse. My love and sympathy to him when you see him. Is he not one of our noblest and most disinterested, as well as ablest men,—nay, as an extemporaneous speaker, unrivalled among ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... sermons. All were written out with great care, but when it came to delivering them, although he had the manuscript on his little reading-desk, he seldom referred to it. The man was most conscientious and had a beautiful contempt for the so-called extemporaneous speaker. His lyceum lectures were shavings from his workshop, as most lectures are. But preparing one new address, and giving on an average four lectures a week, with much travel, made sad inroads on his vitality. Every phase of man's relationship to man was vital to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... the process to which he is subjected, is, confessedly, an extemporaneous one, it appears from the Duke of Cornwall's statement, that it was only the form which was wanting to make it legal. Thus ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... well knew the wrongs of the red men when he endeavoured, several years before the war, to induce the Osages to unite in a general Indian confederacy against the continued encroachments of the Americans, and gave extemporaneous utterance before a large assemblage to the following simple but faithful narration of their grievances. The harangue, eloquent as it is, suffers under all the disadvantages of translation, and is ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... of superiority is more flattering or alluring than that which is conferred by the powers of conversation, by extemporaneous sprightliness of fancy, copiousness of language, and fertility of sentiment. In other exertions of genius, the greater part of the praise is unknown and unenjoyed; the writer, indeed, spreads his reputation to a wider extent, but receives little pleasure or advantage from the diffusion ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... merchandise to the Equator and to the Pole! Vain were the auspicious breeze unless it blew upon thy opening sails; and what were the sheet-anchor, but for that cable of thine which connects it with the ship. Vegetable iron! incomparable hemp! Extemporaneous memory can scarcely follow thy services. Talk of the battering-ram—but what propelled it forward? The shot, whizzing in the teeth of adverse winds, carries thy coil to snatch the sailor from the rock ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... in his recent work on African folk-tales, says of the natives of Angola: "No Angola child finds difficulty at any time in producing extemporaneous song." ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... Webster been idle. He was not an extemporaneous speaker, and he passed the summer in carefully studying, in his intervals of professional duties, the great constitutional question which he afterward so brilliantly discussed. A story is told at Providence about a distinguished lawyer of that place—Mr. John Whipple—who ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... down a few words in advance, so as to be able to say something when called upon. Indeed, I believed he would have regarded it as an unworthy attempt to appear in a false light if he had made preparations in advance for an "extemporaneous" speech. Even when he did in later years write some notes on the back of a dinner-card, he would take care to let everybody see that he had done so by holding the card in plain view while he read his little speech. After telling a story in ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... to the hope that the day would dawn when his mother would come into his own way of thinking. He only resigned that hope, while he listened to the prayer of the village parson beside his mother's open grave. It was an extemporaneous prayer; but it lacked no detail on that account. And there are few things in life more tragic than permanent misunderstandings between a child and parent. That this one must now be permanent not even Scott Brenton's theological tenets could ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... remaining lectures were given like his conversation, which no one can hear without feeling that, with all its glow and inspiration, every sentence would be, if taken down, found faultless. It was so in his remarkable extemporaneous address yesterday. He had no notes whatever. 'But,' says our correspondent, in transmitting the report, 'I have never heard a speech of whose more remarkable qualities so few can be conveyed on paper. You will read of "applause" and "laughter," but you will little realize the eloquent ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... that, in such imperfect reports of, for the most part, extemporaneous utterances, often most hurriedly corrected, there may be found abundant ground for criticism; but, if this book may be the means of leading only a few souls to devote themselves more fully to God and to the salvation ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... of the rabble, a ragged fellow of mechanical aspect, in a tattered black doublet and an old straw hat, ascended the pulpit. Opening a sacred volume which he found there, he began to deliver an extemporaneous and coarse caricature of a monkish sermon. Some of the bystanders applauded, some cried shame, some shouted "long live the beggars!" some threw sticks and rubbish at the mountebank, some caught him by the legs and strove to pull ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Sermons. By HENRY. J. RIPLEY, Professor in Newton Theological Institution, Including Professor Ware's Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching. ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... seldom able to copy our own compositions, and have employed an amanuensis for the last six years. Every work that we have had published has been extemporaneously written; and out of fifty lectures and sermons that we have delivered the last year, forty-four have been extemporaneous. We have distributed many of our unpublished manuscripts; loaned to one of our youngest students, R. K————y, between three and four hundred pages, of which we were sole author—giving him liberty to copy but not ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... astonished at this surprising perversion of the words and meaning of a Latin line, which, at first, he could not help thinking was a premeditated joke; but, upon second thoughts, he saw no reason to doubt that it was the extemporaneous effect of sheer pertness and ignorance, at which he broke out into an immoderate fit of laughter. Pallet, believing that the gentleman's mirth was occasioned by his arch animadversion upon the work of Sangpree, underwent the same emotion ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... Bagarag was advised to deal with illustrations in his dilemma, by-ways of expression, and spake in extemporaneous verse, and with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... fight dooels in the West? Why, yes—some. My mem'ry comes a-canterin' up right now with the details of an encounter I once beholds in Wolfville. Thar ain't no time much throwed away with a dooel in the Southwest. The people's mighty extemporaneous, an' don't go browsin' 'round none sendin' challenges in writin', an' that sort of flapdoodle. When a gent notices the signs a-gettin' about right for him to go on the war-path, he picks out his meat, surges up, an' declar's himse'f. The victim, ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... with which they were able to express their thoughts, and at the freshness and fulness with which thoughts crowded upon them, while actually addressing a great assemblage of people. Of course, such extemporaneous speaking is an uncertain thing. It is a hit or a miss. A little physical or mental derangement, and the extempore speaker gets on lamely enough; he flounders, stammers, perhaps breaks down entirely. But still, I hold that though ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... stomachs. Gottsched, among his other labours, composed a great deal for the theatre; connected with a certain Madam Neuber, who was at the head of a company of players in Leipsic, he discarded Punch (Hanswurst), whom they buried solemnly with great triumph. I can easily conceive that the extemporaneous part of Punch, of which we may even yet form some notion from the puppet-shows, was not always very skilfully filled up, and that many platitudes were occasionally uttered by him; but still, on the whole, Punch had certainly ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... discovered that the ambition of Pippin chiefly consisted in the utterance of his speech. He saw, too, in a little while, that the nonsense of the lawyer had not even the solitary merit—if such it be—of being extemporaneous; and in the slow and monotonous delivery of a long string of stale truisms, not bearing any analogy to the case in hand, he perceived the ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... sickness. In pursuance of the humane duties of his calling, the minister of the Episcopal Church called upon me, and after a short conversation, proposed addressing the throne of grace. This he did in a few eloquent extemporaneous phrases, closing with the Lord's prayer. Now, from the outset, I felt an uncontrollable inclination to laugh; but for a time succeeded in restraining it. But when, in close succession upon the minister's ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... began or what it was all about she didn't know, so the story by rounds hasn't been told. The next thing she knew though, they'd hustled her into the Bend and bottled her up in that back room, but not before she'd done a little extemporaneous carvin' on her own account. I gathered that three or four of the Malabistos needed some plain sewin' done on 'em after the bell rang, and that the rest wasn't so anxious for her society as at first. She'd been cooped up for two days when ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... questioned the children a little, and then we sang two hymns, which we also translated. While the hymns were being sung, I felt I must try to do something more, although the language seemed to defy me. I never experienced such an inward burning to speak before, and therefore I determined to try an extemporaneous address in Tsimshean. The Lord helped me: a great stillness prevailed, and, I think, a great deal was understood of what I said. I told them of our condition, the pity and love of God, the death of the Son of God ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... upon it. He heard Mr. Clay deliver his celebrated reply to Josiah Quincy—a venerable statesman who still survives;—and he ever spoke of it as admirable in its way. In the same spirit he spoke of Col. Benton's extemporaneous reply to Mr. Webster in the debate on the bank veto, delivered late at night in the Senate, as surpassing any thing of the kind that he had ever heard, or that the speaker ever reached before or after. He said he thought a speech of Webster's delivered during the ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... at the entrance of woods of the evergreen oak, with hawthorn, many trees of each kind twined round with honeysuckle. There Shaikh Yusuf, (the Moslem of Es-Salt,) who is a fine singer, entertained us with his performances, often bursting into extemporaneous verses suitable to the occasion ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... conversation with my big-whiskered friend, Lewis Brown. That gentleman gave me an angry look, but said not a word. It was clear that Captain Lordick had betrayed the secret of my citizenship, and had given him information in regard to his old friends and gossips, which differed materially from my extemporaneous effusions; so that so far from being rejoiced, as a reasonable man would have been, at finding his friends alive and well, he seemed greatly provoked, and eyed me with the ferocity of a cannibal on learning that they had not shuffled off this mortal coil ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... state papers, read to Congress, and were carefully composed. Others, delivered in various places, appear to have been more or less extemporaneous. All are full of their author's political philosophy, and many of them contain expressions of his opinions on general subjects, such ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... child he distinguished himself by his proficiency in arithmetic and mathematics. Music he studied early, as a science as well as an art. He invented a species of lyre for himself, and sung his own poetical compositions to his own music, both being frequently extemporaneous. But his favorite pursuit was the art of design in all its branches; he modelled in clay or wax, or attempted to draw every object which struck his fancy. His father sent him to study under Andrea Verrocchio, famous ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... resemblance, will at last be happy enough to possess the substance. By a long habit of writing he acquires a justness of thinking, and a mastery of manner which holiday writers, even with ten times his genius, may vainly attempt to equal." The wit of BUTLER was not extemporaneous, but painfully elaborated from notes which he incessantly accumulated; and the familiar rime of BERNT, the burlesque poet, his existing manuscripts will prove, were produced by perpetual re-touches. Even in the sublime efforts of imagination, this art of meditation may be practised; ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... unpremeditated, and were not ill received. I feel that much practice will be necessary to make me a good debater on points of detail; but my friends tell me that I have raised my reputation by showing that I was quite equal to the work of extemporaneous reply. My manner, they say, is cold and wants care. I feel this myself. Nothing but strong excitement, and a great occasion, overcomes a certain reserve and mauvaise honte which I have in public speaking; not a mauvaise honte which ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... languages, and to dwell on those niceties of method and expression which form so large a part of the charm of literary works; acquires a critical delicacy of taste, which renders him fastidiously sensitive to those crudities and roughnesses of speech, which almost necessarily attend an extemporaneous style. He is apt to exaggerate their importance, and to imagine that no excellencies of another kind can atone for them. He therefore protects himself by the toil of previous composition, and ventures ...
— Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching • Henry Ware
... Ramble." I'd have liked to hear more—it was Dixieland times two—what the Psis call Psixieland. That's jazz played by a gang of telepaths. Each one knows what the others are about to play. The result is extemporaneous counterpoint, but without the clinkers we associate with jazz. Almost too ...
— Modus Vivendi • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the sermon that day, for not only was the preacher aware that bright eyes looked upon his deeds, but he saw his enemies in the front of the battle. Surely all extemporaneous speakers, in court, pulpit, or senate, must be accessible to such external influences. It ought not to be so, of course, but I fancy it is. Would John Knox have been so fiery in denunciation if those wicked maids of honor had not derided him? I doubt if a discourse delivered in ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... be inured, from the first, to rigid attention, in order to a lasting remembrance of the truths offered to him. It would be a useful exercise for the instructor, he thought, to elucidate obscure phenomena and complicated structures by words only, assisting himself, perhaps, occasionally, by extemporaneous drawings. Such a course would inspire the scholar with deference for his teacher, and confidence in his own ability to acquire a similar grasp of the subject. While there is certainly some truth in this opinion, it would not be difficult, perhaps, to invalidate ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... "The oration by Judge Devens was magnificent. He spoke wholly without notes and his effort was largely extemporaneous. He began by saying that the lateness of the hour ('twas nearly six o'clock) would prevent his following the train of any previously prepared effort and he would briefly review the history of the battle and its results ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... Etruscans probably furnished the spectacle, all that which addresses itself to the eye, while the habits of Italian rural life supplied the sarcastic humor and ready extemporaneous gibe, which are the essence of the true comic. The next advance in point of art must be attributed to the Oscans, whose entertainments were most popular among the Italian nations. They represented in broad caricature national peculiarities. Their language was, originally, Oscan, as well as ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... the love of the common people, his faith, his sympathy had all been expended in an effort to brighten the life of the too frequently neglected masses. Page's address on this occasion was entirely extemporaneous; no record of it was ever made, but those who heard it still carry the memory of an eloquent and fiery outburst that placed Knapp's work in its proper relation to American history and gave an unforgettable picture of a patient, ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick |
