"Improvised" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rose and assisted Miss Metoaca in handing the sandwiches, cakes, and cold coffee to Nancy. They did full justice to the good things provided by Miss Metoaca's excellent cook, and lingered over the improvised lunch table. Finally Nancy commenced putting the remains of the lunch into the hamper just as the train reached the railroad bridge which spanned the Potomac at the juncture ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... question of the child's name came up. Mary had fallen into a habit of calling it "Little Stefan," or "Steve" for short, and one morning, as the older Stefan crossed the lawn to his studio her voice floated down from the nursery in an improvised song to her "Stefan Baby." He bounded ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... movement in the right direction, but it ought to be at once supplemented by the rebuilding or extensive enlargement of this improvised prison and the construction of at least one more, to be located in the Southern States. The capacity of the Leavenworth Penitentiary is so limited that the expense of its maintenance, calculated at a per capita rate upon the number of prisoners it can accommodate, does not make as economical ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... unhurt, clambered down the standing part and by the light of congregated and improvised torches helped in that rescue, and helped strongly. Many were pinned beneath wood, smothered by the caving earth. The rent was wide and in places the ruin afire. Groans, cries, appeals shook the hearts of the carnival crowd. All would now have helped, but it was not ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... already occupied. The lovely faces of the women were illuminated by the dazzling light. Everybody turned toward Marianne as she entered the room, under the guidance of Sabine, who led her quickly toward one of the unoccupied seats, close to the improvised stage on which, evidently, Monsieur de Rosas was ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... the stimulating melodies of the old-time awakenings, which were simply airs, and were sung unisonously. "O Cana-an" (pronounced in three syllables) was the chorus, the hymn-lines being either improvised or picked up miscellaneously from memory, the interline, "I am bound for the land of Cana-an," occurring between every two. John Wesley's "How happy is the pilgrim's lot" was one of the snatched stanzas swept into the current ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... is small and hot, we arrange to sleep on the bridge of the steamer which is almost embedded in trees when we tie up to the bank for the night. A tornado bursts about midnight, but the dense foliage acts as a protection and very little water finds its way into our improvised bedroom. ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... accident, or because some one gave it to him either knowingly or unknowingly. This was a sufficiently broad hypothesis on which to base almost anything, thought Colonel Ashley, as he sat and listened in the corner of the improvised courtroom. ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... years since we were together at College, and the same tastes which pleased us then govern us now. The same destiny which led us towards the bar guided us also on the paths of literature. The speaker here improvised a magnificent address to the genius of French-Canadian letters. He alluded to the first pages of Canadian history written in the blood of martyrs, thus giving to the Canadian people a literature of heroes. The speaker then traced the changeful epochs from ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... soon improvised. Jeanne thanked her protectors with overflowing eyes and tremulous voice. For a long while she knelt in thanksgiving, her simple faith discerning a real miracle in her escape. Surely God had sent Owaissa. She forgot the fell purpose of the Indian girl, ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... decision ripened in him, he woke at three in the morning,—waited for the hall clock to strike, that he might be sure of his hour,—tied together the two sheets of Mistress Brummem's bed, opened the window gently, dropped out his improvised cable, slid upon it safely to the ground, and before day had broken or any of the townsfolk were astir, had crossed all the more open portion of the village, and by sunrise had plunged into the wooded swamp-land which lay three ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... along a communication trench called Boyau Maison Rouge, one and a half miles long, and which was not duckboarded. After heavy rain it became very muddy, and the men cut down their trousers which led to the adoption of shorts throughout. Hosetops were improvised by cutting the feet off socks and later they were bought. The colour ranged at first from light heliotrope to flatman's blue, but later was standardized as salmon pink. The expense of providing these hosetops was a heavy drain on any available funds, but fortunately friends of ...
— The Story of the "9th King's" in France • Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts
... so, Emir? I feel warmth returning to my hope. Nay, listening to you, and not believing in improvised heroes, I see how your course may have been for the best. The years gone since you yielded to his importunities, wisely used, have doubtless served ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... in wild confusion, the right wing, 54,000 men strong, was thrown, with the loss of all the artillery, into the entrenchment they had just left, and there laid down their weapons as soon as our guns began to play against the improvised earthworks. The other prisoners taken on the field and during the pursuit, which lasted until nightfall, amounted to 72,000; so that including the 41,000 unwounded men who had fallen into our hands in the Endika passes, we now had 167,000 ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... second bidding, reminded by his stepmother's words of his experiences of the morning. He and Judith scampered away in a suddenly improvised race to see who would reach the chicken-house first. Sylvia went more slowly, looking back once or twice at the picture made by the two women, so dramatically contrasted—her mother, active, very upright, wrapped in a crumpled and stained apron, her dark hair bound closely about her ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... cheering news from Galveston, Texas. Several of our improvised gun-boats attacked the enemy's war vessels in the harbor, and after a sanguinary contest, hand to hand, our men captured the Harriet Lane, a fine United States ship of war, iron clad. She was boarded and taken. ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... post on the Lake Champlain. The keel and floor-timbers, also, of the "Inflexible," a ship of three hundred tons, which had been laid down at Quebec, were taken to pieces, carried over to St. John's, and laid down again at a corner of the lake, where a little dock-yard was improvised. Moreover, thirty long-boats, many large batteaux, and a gondola of thirty tons were carried up to the spot, partly by land, and partly by being dragged up the shoals and rapids of the river Sorel. In a few weeks, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... in small compass the remaining store of provisions, cut a stout stick, and place the hatchet in a belt improvised from a piece of the rope, occupied but a few moments, and ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... One thought that nothing but steam-chisels would be capable of cutting it. Also stacks of timber for shoring up mines which sappers would dig beneath the enemy trenches. Also sacks to be filled with earth for improvised entrenching. Also the four-pointed contraptions called chevaux de frise, which—however you throw them—will always stick a fatal point upwards, to impale the horse or man who cannot or will not look where he is going. Even tarred paper, for keeping the weather out of trenches or anything else. ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... perseverance she surmounted difficulties almost invincible. At first she taught herself crude accompaniments to her songs, and, intuitively perceiving the agreement or disagreement of them, improvised and repeated, until there was heard floating upon the air a very 'lovely song of one that had a pleasant voice, and could play ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... in the British manner. Instantly, the free and independent usher put on his hat and walked off. Seeing which, all the other free and independent ushers (some 20 in number) put on their hats and walked off; leaving us absolutely devoid and destitute of a staff for to-night. One has since been improvised: but it was a small matter to raise a stir and ill-will about, especially as one of our men was equally in fault; and really there is little to be done at night. American people are so accustomed to take care of themselves, that one of these immense audiences will ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... been ordered to take the wheels off a disused landau and fix instead two keels of wood beneath the axles. This improvised sledge, after it had been shod in steel by the blacksmith, was to play ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... listening to Gavotte and Mrs. Louderer telling stories of their different great forests. But soon Gavotte took his big sleeping-bag and retired to another cabin, warning us that we must be up early. Our improvised beds were the most comfortable things; I love the flicker of an open fire, the smell of the pines, the pure, sweet air, and I went to sleep thinking how blest I was to be able to enjoy the things I ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... hundred guns, and garrisons of about six hundred men each. They also had auxiliary defenses: first, of a strong river barrier of log rafts and other obstructions connected by powerful chains, half a mile below the forts; second, of an improvised fleet of sixteen rebel gunboats and a formidable floating battery. None of Farragut's ships were ironclad. He had, from the beginning of the undertaking, maintained the theory that a wooden fleet, properly handled, could successfully pass the batteries of the forts. "I would as soon ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... severity, her mouth opened sweetly as a cherub's, and, looking up like a little, ruddy bird, she sang one of the ancient Kolyadki, Vanya alone understanding as his long, thin fingers wandered instinctively into an improvised accompaniment: ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... neighborly." The director turned, with a smile, to include that lady in the conversation. But the local deafness had engulfed her. She was sitting peacefully by the window, with the air of one retired within herself, to think her own very remote thoughts. The visitor mentally improvised a little theory, and it seemed to fit the occasion. They had quarrelled, she thought, and each was disturbed at any notice bestowed on ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... at his cousin, but the expression contrasted so strongly with his hard eyes, usually fixed on money, that Marguerite discovered the self-interest in his improvised tenderness. ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... remained as though listening. Then he turned the key of the door, and, taking the heavy curtain up in his hand, searched it for a few moments until he arrived at a certain spot in one of the bottom folds. With a penknife which he drew from his pocket, he cut through some improvised stitches, thrust his hand into the opening and drew out a small packet, which he buttoned up in his pocket. In less than a minute he had let the curtain fall again and unlocked the door. Almost immediately ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... apron string, and carrying the apples in this improvised bag, with his arm about her waist sustaining her, they came down ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... suddenly as if I were in a madhouse. Across the table, in the midst of this room full of noisy wretches, tricked out red, blue, purple, and parti-coloured, as men and women of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, as improvised Turks and Eskimos, and dominoes, and clowns, with faces painted and corked and floured over, I seemed to see that sanguine sunset, washing like a sea of blood over the heather, to where, by the black ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... players who knew no more of the theory of music than they did of the theory of the universe, but were guided by natural musical instinct and talent. It made its way to Chicago, where it was popular some time before it reached New York. These players often improvised crude and, at times, vulgar words to fit the melodies. This was the beginning of the ragtime song. Several of these improvisations were taken down by white men, the words slightly altered, and published ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... sore did not bother him, and he sat with his back against the tree for a while, flipping the rag and making figures in the dust with the pronged tail of his horse. Then his hands were still, and as he ran from tune to tune with improvised interludes, he droned a song of his prowess. Sometimes he sang words and sometimes he sang thoughts. He sank farther and farther down and looked up into the tree and ceased his song, chirping instead a stuttering falsetto trill, not unlike a cricket's, holding his breath as long ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... as we remained inactive behind that improvised barrier of doors, shutters, furniture, iron gates and railings. Omar and I were standing together beside one of the three Maxim guns by which our position was defended, watching the preparations being made on the top of the hill for assaulting us, when suddenly there was a bright flash, ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... philosopher, but I must confess that my treatment of him did not become a man so much younger than he. I felt, however, a certain amount of honest indignation at what seemed to me his charlatanic manner of putting off on people his random and improvised suggestions regarding questions which seemed to me then of vital importance to society. It is easy now to see that I was in the stage of mental evolution at which detail is of supreme importance because large views of life and ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... his suggestion, for she sat thoughtfully, almost absently, watching him down the slope. At the foot of the vale, the goat-woman joined him, and it was clear he again used his magic art, for presently he had her chaining for him and holding an improvised flag, while he estimated the section line. But finally, when they left the bed of the pocket and began to cross-cut up the opposite mountainside, the girl rose and looked in the direction of the spring. It was cooler; a breeze ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... and screaming for help, stood the tramp; he seemed like a black object set against a sun, so white and intense was the light at his back. That marshal could not be found, and he had the only key. A battering-ram was quickly improvised, and the thunder of its blows upon the door had so encouraging a sound that the spectators broke into wild cheering, and believed the merciful battle won. But it was not so. The timbers were too strong; they did not yield. It was said that the man's death-grip still held fast to the bars after ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... them on," while he assumed the foul gaberdine and filthy turband and drew a corner of the head-cloth as a mouth-veil[FN56] before his face. Then said he to the fisherman, "Get thee about thy business!; and the man kissed the Caliph's feet and thanked him and improvised the following ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... over and over again. White dresses were put on for the funeral; a cricket was turned upside-down to serve as the coffin; my mother's flower-pots furnished the green leaves for decoration; and I delivered the funeral oration in praise of the little sufferer, while placing her in the tomb improvised of chairs. I hardly ever joined the other children in their plays, except upon occasions like these, when I appeared in the characters of doctor, priest, and undertaker; generally improving the opportunity to moralize; informing my audience, that Ann (the doll) had died in ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska
... even then shifting all possible comfortable furniture to a single story for the women in the building to occupy. The men would sleep on the floor for the present. Beds of boughs could be improvised on the morrow. At sunrise on the following morning many men would go to the streams to fish, guarded by other men. All would be frightened, no doubt, but there would be a grim resolution underneath the fear. Other men would wander ...
— The Runaway Skyscraper • Murray Leinster
... thinking of nothing but the appearances of our fight and his own credit, was varying his assertion that he had thrashed me, with denunciations of me as a "blackguard," and giving half a dozen men a highly colored, improvised, and altogether improbable account of my relentless pursuit and persecution of Lady Mary Justin, and how she had left London to avoid me. They listened, no doubt, with extreme avidity. The matrimonial relations of the Justins had long been a ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... the man with the crushed leg, who saved Gavin's life, and flung away his own for it. Suddenly he was seen on the edge of the bank, holding one end of the improvised rope in his ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... so much in the darkness that they could not be seen, and she was entirely dominated by Toby's physical strength. Within his grasp she was helpless, and not all her dartingly-imagined expedients would be enough to secure her escape. Hastily she improvised ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... Gravel-pits. A mob soon collected round the hole; we were respectful, and there was no 'joeing.' On His Excellency's return to the camp, the miners busily employed themselves in laying down slabs to facilitate his progress. I was among the zealous ones who improvised this shabby foot-path. What a lack! we were all of us as cheerful as fighting-cocks.—A crab-hole being in the way, our Big-Larry actually pounced on Lady Hotham, and lifting her up in his arms, eloped with her ladyship safely across, amid hearty peals of laughter, however colonial they may ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... speaking, there are no theatres in China, the Chinese are passionately fond of dramatic representations. Chinese acting is much admired and praised by travellers who are competent to follow the dialogue. The stage is generally a temporary erection improvised in a market-place, and the stage arrangements are of the most primitive character; no scenery is employed, and the actors introduce themselves in a sort of prologue, in which they state the name and character they represent in the drama. They also indicate the place where ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... seen, one beyond the other, through an open door: the hangings, the objects of art, the chandeliers, even the plate displayed on the sideboards, even the servants who served the breakfast. It was the perfect type of the establishment improvised, immediately upon alighting from the railway train, by a parvenu of colossal wealth, in great haste to enjoy himself. Although there was no sign of a woman's dress about the table, no bit of light and airy material to enliven the scene, it was by no means monotonous, thanks to the incongruity, ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... lower limbs of the trees were not above four feet from the ground, and upon these he rested his pole, extending it from tree to tree. This was to form the ridge pole to support the roof of his lean-to, for he was to form a shelter similar to that improvised by the two men the ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... this wise and learned chat, with which you edify one another. You know she beguiled me into giving her lessons on the organ, as well as the piano, and yesterday when I went over to the church at instruction hour, I was astonished at a prelude, which she had evidently improvised. Screened from her view, I listened till she finished playing. Of course I praised her (for really she has remarkable talent), and asked her when she began to compose, to improvise. Now what do you suppose ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... was telling how hard he had worked to win, for the dear mother's sake; and it was telling, and the notes grew sweeter as it told, how the good God had not forsaken him. The boy seemed almost inspired; his eyes were raised to heaven, and his face glowed with a rapt delight, as he improvised his beautiful song. Not a sound was heard; it seemed as if all were turned to stone, so intense was the silence. His heart seemed to grow lighter of its burden, and the song burst into a wild, sweet carol, that rang rich and clear through the hall; and then it changed ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... an appeal for immediate food supplies and for doctors and medicine. By night three thousand homeless were housed in improvised quarters in ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... from loin-cloths or from behind ears, and the incense of tobacco lifted on the still air of the evening. Brands were improvised and hurried home to light the fires for breadfruit-roasting, while Kahuiti ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... it was, Little Compton saw two flags floating from an improvised flagstaff on top of the court-house. One was the flag of the State, with its pillars, its sentinel, and its legend of "Wisdom, Justice, and Moderation." The design of the other was entirely new to Little Compton. It was a pine tree on a field of white, with a rattlesnake ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... his hand in his improvised bed and held up an oak leaf. The leaf had been doubled ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... in localities where suitable material is procurable, tent poles may be improvised and used in lieu of the rifle and bayonet or intrenching tool as ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... doubt that the attack would be made without loss of time, especially as the Turks believed that they could get their bridge across unseen. The fire ships—which were altogether more formidable than those Gervaise had improvised—were ordered to be made ready for action. This being arranged, the admiral left the council at once, that no time should be lost in getting them in readiness. D'Aubusson then turned ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... of supplies at Perkins' plantation. Now that all our gunboats were below Grand Gulf it was possible that the enemy might fit out boats in the Big Black with improvised armament and attempt to destroy these supplies. McPherson was at Hard Times with a portion of his corps, and the depot was protected by a part of his command. The night of the 29th I directed him to arm one of ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... models for clothiers' advertisements—cutters, pressers, operators, finishers, subcontractors, and sub-subcontractors; for these, too, struck with all the rest. In watching these sewing men and sewing women streaming through the Union office on Tenth Street—an office hastily improvised in an old dwelling-house in a large room, evidently formerly a bedroom, and still papered with a delicate design of white and blue stripes, and a border of garlands of rosebuds—it seemed to an onlooker that almost no economic procession could ever before have comprised elements so very catholic ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... a terrible ordeal. As there was not an inch of the place that was not crowded to the limit of its capacity, painting meant that milk bottles, improvised ice chests, and woodpiles must be put somewhere else; and where that somewhere could be was an enigma. Furthermore, to add to this difficulty there were the children—dozens of them tumbling over one another and surging ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... diameter, which was attached to a tiny tin fire engine not more than a foot in length. Behind the firemen came Hawley, who was dressed as an infant with a lace cap on his head and carefully tied bows under his chin, while in his hands he was carrying a bottle of milk. He was seated in an improvised baby carriage, which was being pushed by one of the smallest members of the freshman class. "Sunny Jim," Charley Chaplin and Ben Turpin were among the characters that could be seen in the long lines of freshmen that, three abreast, were arranged still farther back in the procession, and ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... the thigh. Roland alone, covered with blood that was not his own, had not a scratch. Two of the prisoners were so grievously wounded that it was impossible for them to walk, and the soldiers were obliged to carry them on an improvised litter. Torches were lighted, and the whole troop, with the prisoners, took the road ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... celebrate the execution of the deed, and take into consideration the subject of organizing a town by the election of magistrates. When evening came the house was filled. It is true it had no floor, but the sides were boarded up and a roof was overhead, and we improvised seats out of spare planks. The proprietors sent around to the tents for something to give cheer to the meeting, and, strange as it may seem, they found two baskets of champagne. These they secured, and their contents were joyously disposed of. ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... improvised a bridge—a bridge that swayed upwards and downwards more or less dizzily about the middle, if you will—but an entirely practicable bridge, for all that. And he had saved himself at least a good three miles, to the castle and back, by ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... whom Marta had summoned when she went for the water, appeared with an improvised litter, and the two bore in at the kitchen door a guest for breakfast whose arrival gave Mrs. Galland a distinctly visible surprise. His uniform was gray, and in her heart of hearts she hated gray as the symbol of an enemy whom her husband had ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... together, took a long turn round under the crest, talking very pleasantly—and restfully, after Sin Saxon's continuous brilliancy—all the way. How they searched among loose drift under the cliff, how Mr. Scherman improvised a hammer from a slice of rock; and how, after many imperfect specimens, they did at last "find a-purpose" an irregular oval of dull, dusky stone, which burst with a stroke into two chalices of incrusted crimson crystals,—I ought to be too near the end ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... all, carried with them the obligation of providing for the expenses of the playhouse, and were doubtless in the first instance freely bestowed. Hamlet claims, in the play scene (III. ii. 293), that the success of his improvised tragedy deserved to get him 'a fellowship in a cry of players'—a proof that a successful dramatist might reasonably expect such a reward for a conspicuous effort. In 'Hamlet,' moreover, both a share and a half-share of 'a fellowship in a cry of players' are described as assets of enviable ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... lying under a tree somewhere at the rear. The ground was covered with wounded, and the doctors were busy at an operating-table, improvised from two barrels and a plank. At length two of them who were examining the wounded about me came up to where I lay. A hospital steward raised my head, and poured down some brandy and water, while another cut loose my pantaloons. The doctors exchanged looks, and walked away. I ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... obediently into an improvised dressing-room in the corner, behind a tall screen, and in a very few minutes was about to emerge clad in her own clothes, when ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... about a tomato-can with a rosebush planted in it. Another, very much intoxicated, leaned from her window, and, regarding the whole matter as an agreeable entertainment, called down humorous remarks and ribald jokes to the oblivious audience. There was an improvised hook-and-ladder company pouring water where it was least needed, and a zealous self-appointed commanding officer who did nothing but shout contradictory orders; but as nobody obeyed them, and every man did just ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Henry as the only one who could be spared from more serious duties. Henry packed his trunk again without a word. He could offer no protest. Ridiculous as he knew himself about to be in his new role, he was less ridiculous than his betters. He was at least no public official, like the thousands of improvised secretaries and generals who crowded their jealousies and intrigues on the President. He was not a vulture of carrion — patronage. He knew that his father's appointment was the result of Governor Seward's personal friendship; he did not ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... been said of the army may be affirmed in even a more emphatic way of the navy. A modern navy can not be improvised. It must be built and in existence when the emergency arises which calls for its use and operation. My distinguished predecessor has in many speeches and messages set out with great force and striking language the necessity for maintaining ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... for a time surveying the deer. Then he decided to go hunting himself. The meat-seller obligingly gave him the handle of a floor-brush, and with this improvised gun Bobby went deer-stalking. He turned into the Park, going stealthily, and searching the landscape with keen hunter's eyes. Once or twice he leveled his weapon, killed a deer, cut off the head, and went on. His dog trotted, at his heels. When a particularly good shot ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... distinguished Americans and distinguished Englishmen, in their own or in their friends' houses, or at one or another of our innumerable games, behaving like boys out of school, crawling about beneath improvised skins and growling and roaring in charades; indulging in flying chaff of one another; in the skirts of their wives and sisters playing cricket, or base-ball, or tennis with the one hand only; caricaturing good-humoredly ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... hunted up all the old horse blankets, and empty gunny-sacks they could find about the place, and made a soft bed in the wagon. A stretcher was also improvised from some boards, and when four of them took hold they managed to carry poor Tom to the nearby vehicle, and deposit him ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... least I've done; for when I've thought least I've understood most. Besides, what I said just how is perhaps only improvised, as you call it, and ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... village back of the lines. The non-French fighters belonged to an Army that supplied rations plentifully. They grabbed their allotments and stood about while hastily eating, uninterrupted by conversation or other concern. The French soldiers took their very meager portions of food, improvised a kind of table on the top of a flat rock, and having laid out the rations, including the small quantity of wine that formed part of the repast, sat down in comfort and began their meal amid a chatter of talk. One of the non-French ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... Prince and threaten the left of the Germans and the communications of their forces in Belgium and northern France. But it is easier on paper after the event than it was in action at the time to convert an improvised defensive into a considered offensive strategy; and the Germans themselves had occasion during the autumn and the rest of the war to regret that their second thoughts ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... ball, did not care for football, improvised golf clubs and a baseball were not interesting, further than the use of the clubs on each other, which was not allowed. They did not care what the flowers were, they jerked them up by the roots when ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... and ordered us to assist him to jerk their bodies into a triangle. This being quickly done, we got inside the barricade of mule flesh and were prepared to receive the Indians. We were each armed with a Mississippi yager and two revolvers, and as the Indians came swooping down on our improvised fort, we opened fire with such good effect that three fell dead at the first volley. This caused them to retreat out of range, as with two exceptions they were armed with bows and arrows, and therefore, to approach near enough to do execution ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... Later Jan improvised a "scarlet fever" placard which Kenny in the course of time found nailed upon his door. He read with amazed and offended eyes that he ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... records a humourous scandal of an occasion when he found Beethoven flirting desperately with a fair unknown; Ries sat down at the piano and improvised incidental music to Beethoven's directions— "amoroso," ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... be more particular take a small spring balance or an improvised scale, such as is described in Mr. Goyder's excellent little book, p. 14, which will enable you to weigh down to one-thousandth of a grain. It is often desirable to burn your stone before crushing, as it is thus more easily triturated and will reveal all its gold; ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... the semblance of love or decency. Many and many a night I feared to close my eyes in sleep, lest he should carry out his avowed purpose; for locks and bolts in a house in those days were considered unnecessary, and I improvised such defenses as I could. I used to threaten to call in my little German neighbor, to which he replied she would probably recognize a man's right to occupy the same apartment with his wife! Still, I think he was deterred somewhat ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... ladies were awaiting us with the dinner, which lasted until nine o'clock; and then Clara improvised her Fruehlingslied. I am almost certain that since Ploszow existed there had never been heard such music within its walls, but I paid very little attention to it. I sat near her in the dusk, as she did not want the ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... the authority of knowledge. Nash was an ambiguous character but an excellent touchstone. The two said very little for a while, and they had almost half an hour's silence, during which, after our young man had hastily improvised an exhibition, there was only a puffing of cigarettes. Gabriel walked about, looking at this and that, taking up rough studies and laying them down, asking a question of fact, fishing with his umbrella, on the floor, amid a pile of unarranged sketches. Nick accepted jocosely ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... pursuit. Then wading into the brook, he began to wash the gore from his head and face: one of his people, who from his official air of bustling alacrity, must have been a professional character, or at least an amateur surgeon, examined the wounds, and dexterously applied an improvised poultice of chewed leaves to his gashed face, using broad strips of ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... facility as a writer. Mr. Reginald Smith tells me how James once wrote a leading article in the train between Paddington and Maidenhead. Many of the little poems which he contributed to periodicals were improvised. He was famous for wit and readiness as an after-dinner speaker; and showed an oratorical power in electioneering speeches which gave the highest hopes of parliamentary success. Indeed, from all that I have heard, I think that his powers in this direction ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... helper as soon as the attendance exceeds ten in number. It is far more important to do the training well than to make a great showing in numbers and at the same time fail in creating a proper group standard and in developing individual boys. In the ordinary improvised church gymnasium one man to every ten boys ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... has the disadvantage of limiting the number of guests. The ceremony is exactly the same as that in a church, excepting that the procession advances through an aisle of white satin ribbons from the stairs down which the bridal party descends, to the improvised altar. A small space near the altar is fenced off with other ribbons, for the family. There is a low rail of some sort back of which the clergyman stands, and something for the bride and groom to ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... the janitor to put up a bracket shelf in one corner of the room, tacking a long chintz curtain to it, and, with a dozen hooks screwed into a cleat underneath, thus improvised a very convenient little ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... true, whereas Lorenzo, on the contrary, was remarkably ugly; he had an agreeable, musical voice, whereas Lorenzo had always spoken through his nose; he was instructed in Latin and Greek, his conversation was pleasant and easy, and he improvised verses almost as well as the so-called Magnificent; but he was both ignorant of political affairs and haughtily insolent in his behaviour to those who had made them their study. Added to this, he was an ardent lover of pleasure, passionately addicted to women, incessantly occupied with ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... anchored across the mouth of the river, whilst the transports proceeded some distance up the stream. Wi-ju is the only settlement of any size in this little-known region, though there are numerous fishing-hamlets scattered about. The soldiers improvised their camps along the bank. A wild scene was presented when night fell on the 16th—the glare of the bivouac, extending far along the desolate water-side; the concourse of savage figures in the lurid gloom, with here and there in the ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... Clip was on her feet, had upset Daisy's improvised table of sticks and paper napkins in her haste to secure the water bottle, and was now running over the hill ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... Cleary, and on making inquiries I learned that he was with the wounded, who had all been taken to the hastily improvised hospital in the men's quarters. I was told that he had stuck to his post through the fighting, and had done as good and valorous service as any man ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... The improvised bob-sleigh worked admirably, and if it happened to catch, there was always the banister to clutch at. Its popularity eclipsed even that of the soap-slide and the roller skates. The fun waxed fast and furious, ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... the room, and very comfortable, and it was not long after the boy laid down on the improvised bed before he was sound asleep. He did not wake until the day began to dawn, and the watchman came in and shook him; and it was some moments after he was roused before he could make out just where ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... true, and Harry submitted gladly to such ministrations as Jack knew how to offer. Cold water helped considerably; it reduced the swelling. And then Jack skillfully improvised a brace, that, binding the ankle tightly, gave it a fair measure ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske
... districts. It is due to the presence of the mycelium of one of the wood destroying fungi. The luminosity is often so bright that when brought near a printed page in the dark, words can be read. Hawthorne "reported the light from an improvised torch of mycelium infected wood, to have carried him safely several miles through an otherwise impassable forest." (Asa Gray, Bull. 7: 7, 1900). The sulphur polyporus is said sometimes to be phosphorescent. ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... bounded the principal walks. The prisoner and the retinue of soldiers that dignified him went ahead; the two officers, acknowledging the crash of arms of the sentry's salute at the gate, followed. The improvised prison was in the long wing of the building that housed the stables. They took the crackling pebble ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... ten o'clock on. During the boarders' recreation hours, from the lower hallway of the spacious entrance up to the main floor, there was a bubbling of laughter, shouts, and movement. Boys in scanty clothing played sipa or practised gymnastic exercises on improvised trapezes, while on the staircase a fight was in progress between eight or nine armed with canes, sticks, and ropes, but neither attackers nor attacked did any great damage, their blows generally falling sidewise upon the shoulders of the Chinese pedler who was there selling his ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... the Field.—Haemorrhage is arrested in the limbs by an improvised tourniquet; in the head by a pad and bandage; in the thorax or abdomen by packing if necessary, but this should be avoided if possible, as it favours septic infection. If a limb is all but detached it should be completely severed. A full dose of morphin is given hypodermically. The ampoule ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... 1894. Two years later W.A. Dickey and his partner, Monks, two young Princeton graduates, exploring north from their workings, recognized the mountain's commanding proportions and named it Mount McKinley, by which it rapidly became known, and was entered on the early maps. With crude instruments improvised on the spot, Dickey estimated the mountain's height as twenty thousand feet—a real achievement. When Belmore Browne, who climbed the great peak in 1912, asked Dickey why he chose the name, Dickey told him that he was so disgusted with the free-silver arguments of men travelling with him ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... without exception, been the greatest workers, even to the extent of drudgery. They have not only worked harder than ordinary men, but brought to their work higher faculties and a more ardent spirit. Nothing great and durable was ever improvised. It is only by noble patience and noble labour that the masterpieces of genius have ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... of his inspiration. The old inherent pride of his nature reasserted itself—he reviewed all the circumstances of his "trance" in the most practical manner—and calling to mind how the poet Coleridge had improvised the delicious fragment of Kubla Khan in a dream, he began to see nothing so very remarkable in his own unconscious production of a complete poem while ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... when the men left at six o'clock at the rate of five feet an hour. Clinging to improvised rafts, constructed in the death battle from floating boards and timbers, were agonized men, women and children, their heartrending shrieks for help striking horror to the breasts of the onlookers. Their cries were of no avail. Carried along at railway speed on the breast of this rushing torrent, ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... crossing at unguarded points by hastily improvised means, will dislodge hostile infantry and Maxims much more quickly and effectively than by frontal attacks, however powerfully ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... twelve o'clock, noon, Buchanan called to escort his successor to the Capitol. The retiring President and the President- elect rode side by side through the streets. Reaching the grounds of the Capitol they found an improvised board tunnel through which they walked arm in arm to the building. This tunnel had been constructed to guard against assassination, of which there had recently been many threats. They passed through the senate chamber and through the building to the large platform ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... happy—a good fire, plenty of meat, and strangers with whom to have a grand "shauri." The clatter of tongues was a babel, for almost every one talked at once and excitedly. Those who did not talk crooned weird, improvised chants, in which they detailed the doings ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... excellence realized and satisfied. Not without reason are nations always symbolized as women, for there is something truly feminine in the devotion with which they are willing to give all for and to their ideal man, and the zeal with which they drape some improvised Agamemnon with all the outward shows of royalty from the property-room of imagination. This eagerness of loyalty toward first-rate character is one of the conditions of mastery in every sphere of human activity, for it is the ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... tucked up above the knees, the young washwoman was trampling blankets in the tub. She had no reason to suppose that anybody was within a mile of her. Wherefore, since the world was beautiful and mere life a joy, she improvised ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... native guide, exclaimed, "Captain, the pirogue sinks!" There was no time to be lost, for one of the men could not swim at all, and the other two but indifferently. Fortunately, the trunk of a tree was found near the water, some paddles were improvised, and this primitive kind of boat was quickly afloat, with the captain and Poulone on board. The canoe was some rods from the shore, but the three men were picked up, having been supported meanwhile by their dark companions. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... object, Manikawan gave a low exclamation of pleasure. Taking a chip from the floor she bent the candle over it, permitting some of the hot grease to flow upon it, and setting the candle firmly in the grease placed the improvised candlestick upon ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... because there was an orchestra among some plants at one end of the long dining-room, and after a preliminary stiffness the guests were impelled to converse—necessarily at the tops of their voices. The whole company of fifty sat at a great oblong table, improvised for the occasion by carpenters; but, not betraying itself as an improvisation, it seemed a permanent continent of damask and lace, with shores of crystal and silver running up to spreading groves of orchids and lilies and white roses—an inhabited continent, evidently, for there were ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... soft mystery of night shadows; then the warm glow from the east, behind the house, and the glint of the sunbeams on the tops of the hills and on the racks of cloud lying along the horizon. Diana still kept her place by the improvised bed, and the minister kept his just outside the door. Mrs. Starling began to prepare for breakfast; and finally Josiah, the man-of-all-work on the little farm, came from his excursion and from the barn, bringing the pails of milk. Then the minister ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... hue of a beetroot and keeping an agonised watch on his slumbering fellow-traveller, he swiftly and noiselessly secured the ends of his railway-rug to the racks on either side of the carriage, so that a substantial curtain hung athwart the compartment. In the narrow dressing-room that he had thus improvised he proceeded with violent haste to extricate himself partially and the mouse entirely from the surrounding casings of tweed and halfwool. As the unravelled mouse gave a wild leap to the floor, the rug, slipping its fastening at either end, also came down with a heart-curdling flop, ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... "Morosco's," or even the Baldwin Theatre, and sometimes bought and carried home the materials for a dinner, and invited a few of George's men friends to enjoy it with them. These were happy times; Emeline, flushed and pretty in her improvised apron, queened it over the three or four adoring males, and wondered why other women fussed so long over cooking, when men so obviously enjoyed a steak, baked potatoes, canned vegetables, and a pie from Swain's. After dinner the men always played poker, a mild little game at first, ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... Andy to come and help him wind his exposed film on the crude, improvised film racks that had lately been beer kegs, and closed the dark room door upon the last empty bucket that had been carried in full. In the dull light of the ruby lamp he carefully wound his long strip of exposed negative, emulsion side out, around the keg which ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... 4th. This time, crouched in the shelter of the near-by trees, clinging to the matted haro, we were free to watch a stupendous spectacle. Triplett alone went aboard and lashed himself to the improvised steering post. Our sail had been stretched and rigged with hundreds of yards of eva-eva, in addition to which four large taa-taas were lashed ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... yesterday evening, reading the Roman Elegies to her. Then I laid the book aside, and improvised something for her. She seemed pleased; rather more than that, she actually hung upon my words, and ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... from the city. Suddenly, on the night of the 10th, a large force doubled back on Candahar and made a furious attack on the gates, one of which they set on fire and tore down. The garrison were hard-pressed, but fought valiantly for three hours behind an improvised rampart, and eventually drove off the enemy. Nott was not able to return to Candahar till the 12th, but it was now free from the enemy. Here he had to stay waiting for ammunition and supplies, which eventually reached him, escorted by a force under Sir R. England, and on the 10th of August ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... A bed, the improvised commode, a chair, a small table with a book upon it, and a tallow candle—an idea came to him, ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... referred to, I placed it at the opening chapters of Isaiah in the Bible, as described. There was no one in any of the rooms when I went in, and I encountered only a bell-boy as I came out, but at the door I ran against a young man whom I strictly forbore to recognize, but whom I knew to be my improvised detective coming to take his stand in some place where he could watch the parlor and note who went ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... Victoria idolised him; but it was understanding that he craved for, not idolatry; and how much did Victoria, filled to the brim though she was with him, understand him? How much does the bucket understand the well? He was lonely. He went to his organ and improvised with learned modulations until the sounds, swelling and subsiding through elaborate cadences, brought some solace to his heart. Then, with the elasticity of youth, he hurried off to play with the babies, or to design a new pigsty, ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... of all the boys would have gladly passed the threshold, had it not been too closely guarded. One day, however, he seized an occasion when the doctor had gone in search of some forgotten drug, and crept softly into the improvised infirmary. ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... them. To crown his good fortune, the spout was surmounted from place to place by iron ornaments imbedded in the wall and rolled up in the form of scrolls. Gilbert imparted an oscillating motion to the rope, and when it had become strong enough to make this improvised swing graze the gutter, choosing his time well, he disengaged his right foot and planted it firmly in one of the grooves, loosening at the same time his right hand and quickly seizing one of the scrolls. Midnight sounded, ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... Slowly the light grew dim in the window at my feet, until it was a mere glimmer. Since we had to stay, we thanked the storm for hastening the fall of night. When the gloom became so dense that even the window had disappeared, Couttet lit a tallow dip, but it would not remain upright in its improvised holder, and the freezing draughts that stole through the hut kept it flickering so that he finally put it out, and we remained in the dark, not "seein' things," like Eugene Field's youthful hero, but hearing things no less uncanny. The wind whistled, moaned, screeched, growled, and occasionally ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... stanza upon you," she whispered, "if you care for such things any longer. But you must understand that it has been, so to speak, improvised, and—what with the supper and one thing and another—I have had ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch |
