"Extempore" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of 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
... been the putative head of two families; in fact, it was owing to some legal informality in these proceedings that Roaring Camp—a city of refuge—was indebted to his company. The crowd approved the choice, and Stumpy was wise enough to bow to the majority. The door closed on the extempore surgeon and midwife, and Roaring Camp sat down outside, smoked its pipe, and awaited ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... of the following treatise remains in the exact form in which it was read at Manchester; but the more familiar passages of it, which were trusted to extempore delivery, have been written with greater explicitness and fulness than I could give them in speaking; and a considerable number of notes are added, to explain the points which could not be sufficiently considered in the time I had at my disposal ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... 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; no sooner said ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... generally 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 and wheels ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... that Jones wrote verses for the ladies extempore, and gives a sample, the sentiments of which are as characteristic of the declamatory century as of ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood
... I go, I am obliged to be the figurante of the circle. Yesterday I preached twice, and, indeed, performed the whole service, morning and afternoon. There were about 1,400 persons present, and my sermons, (great part extempore,) were preciously peppered with politics. I have here at least double the number of subscribers I had expected. * ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... have a 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
... credit of what is called an Extempore Epigram on Voltaire; who, when he was in England, ridiculed, in the company of the jealous English poet, Milton's allegory of Sin ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... ribbon-like leaves the eel-fishers fastened their lines securely, 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 ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... be a merry and happy Banquet, in the first Place I command, that no Man tell a Story but what is a ridiculous one. He that shall have no Story to tell, shall pay a Groat, to be spent in Wine; and Stories invented extempore shall be allow'd as legitimate, provided Regard be had to Probability and Decency. If no Body shall want a Story, let those two that tell, the one the pleasantest, and the other the dullest, pay for Wine. Let the Master of the Feast be at no Charge for Wine, but only for the Provisions ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... French cock has to crow thrice, "Let Germany flourish." In another game between two students who are contending in the play of striking a ball through an iron ring, it is arranged that he that is beat shall make and repeat extempore some verses in praise of him that beat him. This certainly would make many a youth keen ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... 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 begun ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... 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 cloth ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... 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
... 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 pitch of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... 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 ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the request of the Puritans to be allowed occasionally to substitute extemporaneous for liturgical devotions. "The gift or rather spirit of prayer consists in the inward graces of the spirit, not in extempore expressions which any man of natural parts having a voluble tongue and audacity may attain to without any special gift." Nothing very conciliatory in that. To the complaint that the Collects are too short, the bishops ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... after times it was several years before I could seize a pen, rattle up a subject and dash off a leader. Now I can write far more easily than I can talk. And it is a curious fact that soon after I became really skilled at such extempore work in the opinion of the best judges, such as Raymond, I no longer had any ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... 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
... this 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 old church of pretty D . . ., ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... 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
... 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 his oration with ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... performances among the Greeks and Romans, in comic representation of scenes in ordinary life, often in extempore dialogue. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... speaking now 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 up by ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... mediocre, his mind honest, his will variable, his heart in the right place. His talent, which they affected to compare with Mirabeau's, was nothing more than a power of skilfully rivetting public attention. His habit of pleading gave him, with its power of extempore speaking, an apparent superiority which vanished before reflection, Mirabeau's enemies had created him a pedestal on their hatred, and magnified his importance to make the comparison closer. When reduced to his actual stature, it was easy to recognise the distance ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... describes the condition of things. "I have heard painters acknowledge that they could do better without nature than with her, or, as they expressed themselves, it only put them out. Our neighbours, the French, are much in this practice of extempore invention, and their dexterity is such as even to excite admiration, if not envy; but how rarely can this praise be given to their finished pictures!" Twelfth ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... writing of Beau Brummell, and, like 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 of the Board, after recalling particulars of some ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... Export eksteren sendi. Expose montri. Exposition ekspozicio. Expostulate rezonegi. Expound klarigi. Express esprimi. Express-train rapida vagonaro. Expression esprimo. Expressly speciale. Expulsion elpelo. Expunge elstreki. Exquisite rava. Extant ekzistanta. Extempore senprepara. Extend etendi. Extension etendo. Extensive vasta. Exterior eksterajxo. Exterminate ekstermi. External ekstera. Extinct estingita. Extinguish estingi. Extirpate elradikigi. Extol lauxdegi. Extort eltiregi. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... stranger most peculiarly is their style of singing. They run on, in a low, guttural, monotonous sort of chant, their lips and tongues seeming hardly to move, and the sounds modulated solely in the throat. There is very little tune to it, and the words, so far as I could learn, are extempore. They sing about persons and things which are around them, and adopt this method when they do not wish to be understood by any but themselves; and it is very effectual, for with the most careful attention I never could detect a word ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... lurid 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 reminded her of ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... 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 ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... 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 ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... 22.—Apuleius, lib. ii.... Anthony-a-Wood.... Mr. Jenkinson's name (now Lord Liverpool) being proposed as a difficult one to rhyme to, a lady present hit off this verse extempore.—N. B. Both father and son (Lord Hawkesbury) have a peculiarity ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... song. She is soon taken up and answered by one of the bujangs in company, whose greatest pretensions to gallantry and fashion are founded on an adroitness at this polite accomplishment. The uniform subject on such occasions is love, and, as the words are extempore, there are numberless degrees of merit in the composition, which is sometimes surprisingly well turned, quaint, and even witty. Professed story-tellers are sometimes introduced, who are raised on a little stage and during several hours arrest the attention ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... begin, but did not dare to stir first for fear of the law, counterfeited a distraction, and by his own family it was spread about the city that he was mad. He then secretly composed some elegiac verses, and getting them by heart, that it might seem extempore, ran out into the market-place with a cap upon his head, and, the people gathering about him, got upon the herald's stand, and sang that elegy ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... think the canniest man of whom I ever heard was the old Scottish minister who was accustomed to preface his extempore petition with the words:— ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... 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 something for dinner, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... evidently ran with Congress, yet Johnson had the promise of very respectable support until he threw it away. His extempore expressions suggested an overweening view of his own position. To the committee reporting to him the Philadelphia convention, he said, "We have seen hanging upon the verge of the government, as it were, a body called, or which assumes to be, the Congress ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... this kind of impromptu acting that the actors are freer than when speaking words they have learnt, and can therefore behave with more naturalness. It is the difference between delivering an extempore speech and reciting one that has been learnt—the difference between "recitare a soggetto" and "recitare col suggeritore." So great is the freedom that an actor may introduce anything appropriate that occurs to him at ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... been to have pressed the anti-impositionists with their utter forgetfulness of the possible, nay, very probable differences of opinion between the ministers and their congregations. A vain minister might disgust a sober congregation with his 'extempore' prayers, or his open contempt of their kneeling at the Sacrament, and the like. Yet by what right if he acts only as an individual? And then what an endless source of disputes and preferences of this minister ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... and the most frequently and loudly expressed. Macaulay was only too easily bored, and those whom he considered fools he by no means suffered gladly. He once amused his sisters by pouring out whole Iliads of extempore doggrel upon the head of an unfortunate country squire of their acquaintance, who had a habit of detaining people by the button, and who was especially addicted to the society of the ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... 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 must be carelessness, since it transcended the bounds of possible stupidity, ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... Bostonians with Jenny Lind 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 ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... stand, and was 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 but ten minutes ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... prayer came round, which was early in those days. It was Manasseh's place to conduct it, as head of the family; a post which his mother had always been anxious to assign to him since her husband's death. He prayed extempore; and to-night his supplications wandered off into wild, unconnected fragments of prayer, which all those kneeling around began, each according to her anxiety for the speaker, to think would never end. Minutes elapsed, and grew to quarters of an hour, and his words only became more emphatic ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... 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 ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... concludes, 'do not, will not, form any separate sect, but from principle remain, what we have always been, true members of the Church of England.'[732] In 1778, 'To speak freely, I myself find more life in the Church prayers than in any formal extempore prayers of Dissenters.' In 1780, 'Having had opportunity of seeing several Churches abroad, and having deeply considered the several sorts of Dissenters at home, I am fully convinced our own Church, with all her ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... Saturday pennies was in going with some of my companions into the country to have a picnic. We used to light a fire behind a hedge or a dyke, or in the corner of some ruin, and there roast our potatoes, or broil a red herring on an extempore gridiron we contrived for the purpose. We lit the fire by means of a flint and steel and a tinder-box, which in those days every boy used to possess. The bramble-berries gave us our dessert. We thoroughly enjoyed ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... Howland. Tildy presently brought up a meagre supper, of which the mother and daughter partook almost in silence. Then Mrs. Howland went to her room, where she fell fast asleep, and Maggie had the drawing-room to herself. She had arranged a sort of extempore bed on the hard sofa, and was about to lie down, when Tildy opened ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... days after Heath was close enough to have made a dash at Covington, at any hour, there were no other defenders in the works around the place than these extempore soldiers. A very few only of their guns mounted were in a condition to be worked, and the ammunition first provided was not of the proper caliber. On the first, Gen. Heath came within sight of the works, that he had prepared to attack, and just before he moved upon them, received dispatches ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... made no answer. While these two were sitting cozily by the fireside—for since Robinson took to working hard all day he began to relish the hearth at night—suddenly cheerful, boisterous voices, and Mr. Miles and two friends burst in and would have an extempore supper, and nothing else would serve these libertines but mutton-chops off the gridiron. So they invaded the kitchen. Out ran Jenny to avoid them—or put on a smarter cap; and Robinson was to cut the chops and lay a cloth on the dresser and help cook. While his master went off to the cellar ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... together, when among other things Garrick repeated an epitaph upon Phillips, by a Dr. Wilkes, which was very commonplace, and Johnson 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, ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... not this pretty for a plain rhyme extempore? if ye will ye shall have more.' 'Nay, it is enough,' said Roberto, 'but how mean you to use me?' 'Why, sir, in making plays,' said the other, 'for which you shall be well paid, if you will take ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... at these common-place funereal lines, and said to Garrick, 'I think, Davy, I can make a better.' Then, stirring about his tea for a little while, in a state of meditation, he almost extempore produced ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... I began to learn German, in order to converse with the 26 Germans on board. On Sunday I preached extempore and then administered the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... rid of a great deal of water, so that the boat was freed to an extent which set aside all danger of our sinking; but with all their efforts they never got beyond a certain point, for the water oozed in pretty constantly through and round the extempore plug. ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... because Shakespear had much the most wit and fancy, it was retorted on the other, that Johnson wanted both. Because Shakespear borrowed nothing, it was said that Ben Johnson borrowed every thing. Because Johnson did not write extempore, he was reproached with being a year about every piece; and because Shakespear wrote with ease and rapidity, they cryed, he never once made a blot. Nay the spirit of opposition ran so high, that ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... 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 by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 495, June 25, 1831 • Various
... on Literature was made by its chairman, Miss Caroline Ruutz-Rees, showing the usual careful selection of valuable matter for publication. Two important compilations she had made herself—Ten Extempore Answers to Questions by Dr. Shaw and extracts from a number of her speeches, gleaned from scattered reports; also an eloquent address made at Birmingham, Ala., the preceding April. So little from Dr. Shaw existed in printed form that ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... But, lads, I am glad you have the money. Hostess, clap to the doors. Watch to-night, pray to-morrow. Gallants, lads, boys, hearts of gold; all the titles of good-fellowship come to you! What! shall we be merry? Shall we have a play extempore? ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... my tent, played on his one-stringed fiddle, and sang an extempore song for the protection of the Consul. I gave him a handkerchief. It appears that ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... the good of the Whole, and the well Being of each Individual. But alas! Tom, in Ireland, we neither think, or act for ourselves or the Publick, nor seem to have any System of Rules, for managing our Estates or our Country; but we live in an extempore Method, and as Time serves, and Accidents happen, we Conduct ourselves. When we are famish'd we think of Bread, when frozen to Death, of Coals and Fire, and when we grow uneasy with the Thoughts of all our Mismanagements, ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... 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 ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... end, she inquired of one of the physicians in attendance, "How long can this last?" "Your Majesty will soon be eased of your pains," was the reply. "The sooner the better," said the Queen: and she then most fervently engaged in extempore prayer. Shortly afterwards, she twice desired that cold water might be thrown over her, to support her strength, while her family put up a final petition in her behalf. "Pray aloud," said she, "that I may hear you." She then faintly joined them in repeating the Lord's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 545, May 5, 1832 • Various
... themselves on seats round the room, and Mrs. Caxton opened her book and read a chapter in the Bible. Eleanor listened, in mute wonder where this would end. It ended in all kneeling down and Mrs. Caxton offering a prayer. An extempore prayer, which for simplicity, strength, and feeling, answered all Eleanor's sense of what a prayer ought to be; though how a woman could speak it before others and before men, filled her with astonishment. But ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... grew afterwards accustomed to see him, absolutely motionless, with his eye glued to the microscope, for twenty minutes at a time. So the greater part of every weekday was spent, and on Sunday he usually preached one, and sometimes two extempore sermons. His workday labours were rewarded by the praise of the learned world, to which he was indifferent, but by very little money, which he needed more. For over three years after their marriage, neither of my parents left London for ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... sort of travelling bards and musicians, who sing extempore songs in praise of those who employ them. A fuller account of them will ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... 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 children ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... Lord's Prayer four times, we said it once; we left out half the psalms for the day, the Rector explaining from the chancel steps that they were not fit to be read in a Christian church; we altered this prayer and that prayer; we listened to an extempore prayer for the widows and orphans of some poor fellows who have been killed in a mine ten miles from here, which made me cry like baby; and, most amazing of all, when it came to ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of similar structure. No. 2 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 concludes with an attractive ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... was another 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, ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... distinguished from all other European 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 discussions and ontological theories? They have always abstained ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... singers and players have a smug little fashion of forgetting that there is a composer back of you. You don't sing extempore, Thayer, make up the song as you go along. You're nothing more than a species of elocutionist, you know, trying to show the people who weren't on the spot what the composer really did when he created ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... artist: possessive, incurious, and contemptuous. Dayson, however, ignored George Cannon's attitude, perhaps did not even perceive what it was. He gloried in his performance. Accustomed to dictate extempore speeches on any subject whatever to his shorthand pupils, he was quite at his ease, quite master of his faculties, and self-satisfaction seemed to stand out on his brow like genial sweat while the banal phrases poured glibly from the cavern behind his jagged ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... 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 of an acquaintance ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... was produced and seized to the end of a boat-hook; this extempore flag and staff Grummet took in his hand, and, proceeding to the summit of the beach, commenced waving it to and fro, to attract the attention of the people on board the doomed ship. She was now so close that we could see the two men at her wheel, and a man, whom we supposed to be the ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... 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
... ready with a pathetic answer as he usually was with touching episodes in his extempore sermons. He felt that he ought to say something pretty, something also that should remove the impression on the mind of his lady love. But he was rather put ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... 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
... to these pines is that their inflammable branches are always suggesting a display of extempore fireworks to the Arabs, ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... John, utterly exhausted, sank back again helplessly upon the ground. Seeing that he was totally unable to walk of his own accord, and in too dirty a condition to lean upon anyone's arm, a rough extempore litter was made, upon which the unfortunate knight was set and carried away, loudly lamenting the unkindness of the fate which had brought him to such a ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... he changed his tune and burst into an extempore lyric, "The quids! The quids! The golden quids—the quids!" and so on, until, filled with a sudden hot suspicion, he snatched up his hat, with its jingling contents, hugged it to his breast, and ran ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... tones of tenderness, truth, or courage. The oratorio has already lost its relation to the morning, to the sun, and the earth, but that persuading voice is in tune with these. All works of art should not be detached, but extempore performances. A great man is a new statue in every attitude and action. A beautiful woman is a picture which drives all beholders nobly mad. Life may be lyric or epic, as well as ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... 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 ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... together with "whole epics" of his composition; a certain work "of scarcely less than Miltonic grandeur", called The Lyric of the Golden Age—a lyric pretty nigh as long as one of Mr. Howitt's volumes—dictated by Mr. (not Mrs.) Harris to the publisher in ninety-four hours; and several extempore sermons, possessing the remarkably lucid property of being "full, unforced, out-gushing, unstinted, and absorbing". The candidate for examination in pure belief, will then pass on to the spirit-photography department; this, again, will be found in so- favoured America, under ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... as extemporaneous as the prayer, if any thing can come extempore from a mind so drilled and fortified in opinion. It contained much the same matter, delivered a little less in the form of an apostrophe. The stricken congregation, while they were encouraged with the belief that they were vessels set apart for some great and glorious end of Providence, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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 ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... A fellow who believes in extempore prayer and republican government; and swears England was never so happy ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... Perfesser Bunker Hill Monument," he said, but spoiled it by laughing himself. It was extempore and had caught him unawares. The harried Bean ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... instruments, some of which were very ingenious and musical. Those in particular, who had come a long distance from the interior, executed with spirit and taste some very beautiful airs; much finer, indeed, than any native music I had yet heard. They accompanied their instruments with extempore recitatives in praise of those chiefs whom they knew. I was, of course, included, as they expected that I would be inclined to reward them handsomely. Each minstrel of any repute had a person attached to him by way of fool or jester, several of whom acted their parts very well, and ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... though we must own it probable that some more jokes were (as they call it) cracked during their dinner; but we have by no means been able to come at the knowledge of them. When dinner was removed, the poet began to repeat some verses, which, he said, were made extempore. The following is a copy of them, procured ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... with that wit which is always, like the British Tar, 'Ready, aye ready!'—"then we must get somebody Else Sir!" and scarcely had the words escaped his lips, than Madame NORDICA, who happened to be passing by, sang out in an extempore recitative, "Me voici!" "Bravissima!" cried Sir DRURIOLANUS. "Saved! Saved!" General dance ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various
... in the house whither she was going to pay one of her extempore visits; but then there was the habit of old affection, begun before characters develop themselves into the infinite variety from which mental sympathy is evolved. She could not help liking Emma Thornycroft, her sole childish acquaintance, whose elder sister ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... 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 ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... 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 knew no bounds—the very churchwardens grew generous, and insisted ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... 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 ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... rubbed my eyes! Where was I? Mrs. Reading stood by me in very extempore costume, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... twenty men, with the three women of the place, had assembled at the funeral. An extempore prayer was made, filled with all the peculiarities usual to that style of petition. Ah, how different from the soothing verses of the glorious ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... will believe 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), ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... 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
... repeated, and the liveliest tales were told; charades were acted; a judge 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
... for horse-stealing, but had with noble candor confessed to the finer offense of manslaughter. That swift and sure justice which overtook the horse-stealer in these altitudes was stayed a moment and hesitated, for the victim was clearly the mysterious unknown. Curiosity got the better of an extempore judge and jury. ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... were addressed, was not much accustomed to read even the most popular English poetry; yet this is the same child, who a few months afterwards, wrote the translation from Ovid, of the Cave of Sleep, and who gave the extempore description of a summer's evening in tolerably ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... read the lessons. Chichester intoned with an agreeable light tenor voice. During the third hymn, "Fight the Good Fight," Mr. Harding mounted into the pulpit. He let down the brass reading-desk. He had no notes in his hands. Evidently he was going to preach extempore. After the "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" had been pronounced, Malling settled himself to listen. He felt tensely interested. Both Mr. Harding and Chichester ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... more presence of mind and histrionic resource have women than fall to the lot of our clumsy sex—whether the return of the Count was not, in truth, a surprise to her; and this scrutiny of the contents of my strong box, an extempore undertaking of the Count's. But it was clearing more and more every moment: and I was destined, very soon, to comprehend minutely ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu |
