"Extemporaneous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... extensive prospect, but attract so many clouds and vapors, that most often all prospect is precluded. Still, however, Mr. Pitt's situation, however inauspicious for his real being, was favorable to his fame. He heaped period on period; persuaded himself and the nation, that extemporaneous arrangement of sentences was eloquence; and that eloquence implied wisdom. His father's struggles for freedom, and his own attempts, gave him an almost unexampled popularity; and his office necessarily associated with his name all the great ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... lasting remembrance of the truths offered to him. It would be a useful exercise for the instructor, he thought, to elucidate obscure phenomena and complicated structures by words only, assisting himself, perhaps, occasionally, by extemporaneous drawings. Such a course would inspire the scholar with deference for his teacher, and confidence in his own ability to acquire a similar grasp of the subject. While there is certainly some truth in this opinion, it would not be difficult, perhaps, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... dirty white neckcloth, with the corners of that cunning mouth drawn downwards, and those small eyes turned up in sanctimonious gravity, while thou wast offering to a crowd of halfgrown boys an extemporaneous exhortation in the capacity of a travelling preacher. Have I not seen it peering out from under a blanket, as that of a poor Penobscot Indian, who had lost the use of his hands while trapping on the Madawaska? Is it not the face of the forlorn father of six ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... called Methodism to be attributed to any cause beyond the enthusiasm excited by its vehement faith and doctrines (the truth or error of which I presume neither to canvass nor to question), I should venture to ascribe it to the practice of preaching in the fields, and the unstudied and extemporaneous effusions of its teachers. The Mussulmans, whose erroneous devotion (at least in the lower orders) is most sincere, and therefore impressive, are accustomed to repeat their prescribed orisons and prayers, wherever they may be, at the stated ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... very triumph of the scene. The child, sitting down with the old man close behind it, had been thinking how strange it was that horses who were such fine honest creatures should seem to make vagabonds of all the men they drew about them, when a loud laugh at some extemporaneous witticism of Mr Short's, having allusion to the circumstances of the day, roused her from her meditation and ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... the Etruscans probably furnished the spectacle, all that which addresses itself to the eye, while the habits of Italian rural life supplied the sarcastic humor and ready extemporaneous gibe, which are the essence of the true comic. The next advance in point of art must be attributed to the Oscans, whose entertainments were most popular among the Italian nations. They represented in broad caricature national peculiarities. Their ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... vast audiences. His voice was unusually powerful, clear and melodious, and he used it with consummate skill. In the preparation of his sermons he meditated much but wrote not a word, so that he was in the truest sense a purely extemporaneous speaker. Sincerity, intensity, imagination and humor, he had in preeminent degree, and an English style that has been described as "a long bright river of silver speech which unwound, evenly and endlessly, ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... he acquires the ability to utter a phrase, and at last a short sentence, without interruption. Nature prompts the child to this exercise, which from the first attempt, to the full flow of eloquence in the extemporaneous debater, consists simply in commanding and managing one set of ideas in the mind, at the moment the person is giving utterance to others. This cannot be done by the child, but it is gradually acquired by the man; and we shall see in its proper place, that this acquisition ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... must be practised, to procure admission for the most evident propositions into understandings frighted by their novelty, or hardened against them by accidental prejudice; it can scarcely be conceived, how frequently, in these extemporaneous controversies, the dull will be subtle, and the acute absurd; how often stupidity will elude the force of argument, by involving itself in its own gloom; and mistaken ingenuity will weave artful fallacies, which reason can scarcely ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... in the poetical dedication of his "Sea-piece" to Voltaire it seems that this extemporaneous reproof, if it must be extemporaneous (for what few will now affirm Voltaire to have deserved any reproof), was something longer than a distich, and something more gentle than the distich ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... invisible strand of lint (the universal act of woman to proclaim ownership) and bade me to take care of my cold. I had no cold. Next came her kiss of parting—the level kiss of domesticity flavored with Young Hyson. There was no fear of the extemporaneous, of variety spicing her infinite custom. With the deft touch of long malpractice, she dabbed awry my well-set scarf pin; and then, as I closed the door, I heard her morning slippers pattering back to her ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... labours, composed a great deal for the theatre; connected with a certain Madam Neuber, who was at the head of a company of players in Leipsic, he discarded Punch (Hanswurst), whom they buried solemnly with great triumph. I can easily conceive that the extemporaneous part of Punch, of which we may even yet form some notion from the puppet-shows, was not always very skilfully filled up, and that many platitudes were occasionally uttered by him; but still, on the whole, Punch had certainly more sense ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... well knew the wrongs of the red men when he endeavoured, several years before the war, to induce the Osages to unite in a general Indian confederacy against the continued encroachments of the Americans, and gave extemporaneous utterance before a large assemblage to the following simple but faithful narration of their grievances. The harangue, eloquent as it is, suffers under all the disadvantages of translation, and is but the shadow of the substance, because the gestures, and the interests and feelings ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... right in the middle of a chorus of "Muskrat Ramble." I'd have liked to hear more—it was Dixieland times two—what the Psis call Psixieland. That's jazz played by a gang of telepaths. Each one knows what the others are about to play. The result is extemporaneous counterpoint, but without the clinkers we associate with jazz. Almost ...
— Modus Vivendi • Gordon Randall Garrett
... with a mortal horror of extemporaneous speaking. Each week we wrote two sermons and a lecture all out, from the text to the amen. We did not dare to give out the notice of a prayer-meeting unless it was on paper. We were a slave to manuscript, and the chains were galling; and three months more of such work ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... tuning the strings to given intervals, and playing upon each string. The little light which has been thrown on the condition of instrumental music at the time renders it doubtful whether any bowed instrument was used, other than for the purpose of rendering a rude extemporaneous accompaniment to the voice ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... plea, a silence not unmixed with a certain sympathy, fell upon all hearers, as in low voice and faltering accents the friendless fellow began his story. Partly from manuscript, which he seemed to find hard reading, but mainly as an extemporaneous effort, his remarks ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... made it necessary to fight,—reasons which none but a consistent Friend or avowed non-resistant can pretend to dispute: His ordinary style in speaking is pointed, staccatoed, as is that of most successful extemporaneous speakers; he is "short-gaited"; the movement of his thoughts is that of the chopping sea, rather than the long, rolling, rhythmical wave-procession of phrase-balancing rhetoricians. But when the lance has pricked him deep enough, when the red flag has flashed in his face often enough, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... brought on from Boston to accommodate the expected crowd, and quite an animated discussion arose ez to wich corner uv it the Convenshun wuz to ockepy. This settled, the biznis wuz begun. Genral Wool wuz made temporary Chairman, to wich honor he responded in a elokent extemporaneous speech, which he read from manuscript. General Ewing made another extemporaneous address, which he read from manuscript, and ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... part, proverbs illustrated, or figures of speech applied to the occurrences of life. Some that they rehearse, in a kind of recitative, at their bimbangs or feasts, are historical love tales like our old English ballads, and are often extemporaneous productions. An example of the former species ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... therefore emphasize too strongly the administration of the Spirit in directing the worship of God's house. The use of liturgical forms is a relapse into legalism, a consent to be taught to pray as "John taught his disciples." True, there may be extemporaneous forms as well as written forms, praying by rote as well as praying by the book. Against both habits we simply interpose the higher teaching of the Spirit, as belonging especially to this dispensation, in which the Father seeketh worshipers who ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... brazen trumpets, and enforced by the discharge of two thousand pieces of artillery, ten square miles of people repeated the order for silence, in loud and reiterated shouts—and at last silence obeyed the order, and there was silence. The chief Brahmin rose, and having delivered an extemporaneous prayer, suitable to the solemnity and importance of the occasion, he proceeded to read the will of the late king—he then descanted upon the Molean controversy, and how it was now an article of the Souffrarian faith, which it was ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... illustrations, as well as by picturesque allusions and eloquent phrases. He {254} could, when the subject called for it, break suddenly into thrilling invective. [Sidenote: 1725—Pulteney] But he had some of the defects of the extemporaneous orator. His eloquence, his wit, his epigrams often carried him away from his better judgment. He frequently committed himself to some opinion which was not really his, and was led far from his proper ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... forward other instances of virtual misrepresentation. If Mr. Motley could have talked his conversation over again, he would very probably have changed some expressions. But he felt bound to repeat the interview exactly as it occurred, with all the errors to which its extemporaneous character exposed it. When a case was to be made out against him, the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... rule and he made a first-class lecturer; but when I found that he was taking to 'dropping into poetry' and delivering his descriptions of the freaks in verse, I began to get leary about the condition of the contents of his head. The poetry was always extemporaneous and was pretty bad, but it amused the crowd when it ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... yourself; never imitate.[249] Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. No man yet knows what it is, nor can, till that person has exhibited it. Where is the master who could have taught Shakespeare?[250] ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... tall, lank-haired man, looking more like an undertaker than a divine of any denomination, read straight through, without a syllable of preface, the fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, and then, kneeling down, began a rambling, extemporaneous prayer, the main object of which seemed to be, to address the Deity by as many periphrastic adjurations as possible. The orator besought "that these melancholy circumstances might be blessed to us, the survivors;" and rehearsed several platitudes on the uncertainty of life; but, ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... Vain were the auspicious breeze unless it blew upon thy opening sails; and what were the sheet-anchor, but for that cable of thine which connects it with the ship. Vegetable iron! incomparable hemp! Extemporaneous memory can scarcely follow thy services. Talk of the battering-ram—but what propelled it forward? The shot, whizzing in the teeth of adverse winds, carries thy coil to snatch the sailor from the rock where he stands helpless ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... Onion the winter of the blue snow" or "at Shot Gunderson's camp on the Tadpole the year of the sourdough drive." They elaborated on the old themes and new stories were born in lying contests where the heights of extemporaneous invention were reached. ...
— The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan • W.B. Laughead
... an easy and extemporaneous liar, but, alas, a clumsy one. He lacked the Bald-faced Kid's finesse; lacked also his tireless energy, his insatiable curiosity, and the thin vein of pure metal which lay underneath the base. There was nothing about Squeaking Henry ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... My address to the Almighty was prepared and part of the game is to make believe that it is purely extemporaneous. Every move, intonation and gesture is noted and has its bearing on the final result. I was saying to the ecclesiastical jury: "Look here, you dumb-heads, wake up; I'm the thing you need here!" Sermon time came ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... stronger faith, and a brighter realization of heavenly truths. And there are mediums, too, from whose lips distil a lofty eloquence and a remarkable wisdom upon any or all subjects proposed, with a flow of extemporaneous poetry or of heavenly music which has never been equaled under such ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various
... minister said to Gurley, "A sermon which I heard from Lott Gary, shortly before he sailed for Africa, was the best extemporaneous sermon I ever heard. It contained more original and impressive thoughts, some of which are distinct in my memory, and never can be forgotten."[57] Elder John Bryce, assistant pastor of the First Baptist Church, afterwards confessed ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... already said that Mr. Pierpont had no aptitude for extemporaneous speaking; and what was even worse, he had no hope of being able to overcome the difficulty. Once, and once only, did I ever hear him try his hand in that way, until many years after he had entered upon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... Whydah, named Bernisco, and a hundred servants. At every halting place the natives capered before them and tabored a welcome, while at Kama, where Gelele was staying, they not only played, but burst out with an extemporaneous ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... uses in public worship. At about the same time the fruitful discussions of the Mercersburg controversy were in progress in the German Reformed Church. "Mercersburg found fault with the common style of extemporaneous public prayer, and advocated a revival of the liturgical church service of the Reformation period, but so modified and reproduced as to be adapted to the existing wants of Protestant congregations."[388:1] Each of these discussions was followed by a proposed book of worship. ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... stared at me with expectant eyes as if they would say, "See, the General is about to speak; his words are sure to be full of wisdom." I endeavoured to display great coolness, and I do not think I failed very markedly as an extemporaneous orator. I was helped very considerably in the speechmaking part of the programme by my good friends the Rev. Neethling and Mr. W. Barter, of Lydenburg. I have not now the slightest idea of what I spoke about except that ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... as a brief. In this way a debater has his ideas well in hand, and, without being tied down to any particular manner of expression or obliged to follow any set order of procedure, he can use his material as opportunity requires. His language should be at least partially extemporaneous; he may have a fairly clear conception of how he is to frame his sentences, but he should have nothing learned word for word. Thus his speech may have an element of spontaneity that will give it a tone of ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... 1688 the breaches which had long divided the great body of English Protestants had seemed to be almost closed. Disputes about Bishops and Synods, written prayers and extemporaneous prayers, white gowns and black gowns, sprinkling and dipping, kneeling and sitting, had been for a short space intermitted. The serried array which was then drawn up against Popery measured the whole of the vast interval which separated Sancroft ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Charnelycot and the Reverend Mr. Solsgrace, upon the tender subject of lay-preaching and lay-ministering; nor did he think it altogether prudent or decent to indulge the wishes of some of the warmer enthusiasts of the party, who felt disposed to make the rest partakers of their gifts in extemporaneous prayer and exposition. These were absurdities that belonged to the time, which, however, the Major had sense enough to perceive were unfitted, whether the offspring of hypocrisy or enthusiasm, for the present time ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... himself calls the Holy books. It is well known how widely he differs from the scriptural accounts. Some have said of Cicero, that there is no connexion, and to adopt their own figures, no blood and nerves, in what his admirers so warmly extol. Cold in his extemporaneous effusions, artificial in his exordiums, trifling in his strained raillery, and tiresome in his digressions. This is saying a ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... pleasure, and a help too, to read the good books of good men; but there are many good men who write good books, and he is among the few who cannot. He has suffered from ill health, particularly difficulties in the head; and though his gift of extemporaneous speech is remarkable, he cannot compose for printing without labor of the brain which is injurious to him. In this he also resembles Dr. Follen, of whom he reminds me, who ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... was all about she didn't know, so the story by rounds hasn't been told. The next thing she knew though, they'd hustled her into the Bend and bottled her up in that back room, but not before she'd done a little extemporaneous carvin' on her own account. I gathered that three or four of the Malabistos needed some plain sewin' done on 'em after the bell rang, and that the rest wasn't so anxious for her society as at first. She'd been cooped up for two days when she managed to get hold of a Dago woman ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... consented to this, he put his oxen under the care of a small boy, and collecting in Aunt Patsy's room the five colored women and girls who were in attendance upon her, he conducted "prars," making an extemporaneous petition which comprehended all the probable contingencies of the journey, even to the accident of the right wheel of the cart coming off, which the old man very reverently asserted that he would have lynched with a ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... biographers in recording every trifling incident that falls in their way. He has not the slightest suspicion that any of his very juvenile performances are in existence. I have several of the originals by me. They are all extemporaneous productions, nor has any one a single alteration. There was one amongst them 'On Bonaparte'—remarkably beautiful—and had I not seen it in his own handwriting I never would have believed it to have been the production of a child. It is destroyed. ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... great reputation as a speaker; but when the youth had through years practiced extemporaneous speech in the cornfields of Kentucky, he went on to train himself in language, in thought, in posture, in gesture, until his hand could wield the scepter, or beckon in sweet persuasion, until his eye could look upon his enemies and pierce them, or beam upon his friends and call down upon them ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... were written out with great care, but when it came to delivering them, although he had the manuscript on his little reading-desk, he seldom referred to it. The man was most conscientious and had a beautiful contempt for the so-called extemporaneous speaker. His lyceum lectures were shavings from his workshop, as most lectures are. But preparing one new address, and giving on an average four lectures a week, with much travel, made sad inroads on his vitality. Every phase of man's relationship to man was vital ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... repeated to similar classes at the University of California, and finally delivered to a larger and general audience. They are printed, the preface states, from a verbatim report, with only verbal alterations and corrections of some redundancies consequent upon extemporaneous delivery. They are not, we find, lectures on science under a religious aspect, but discourses upon Christian theology and its foundations from a scientific layman's point of view, with illustrations from his own lines of study. As the headings ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... arguments for a form of prayer which he has introduced into his Journey. I am myself fully convinced that a form of prayer for publick worship is in general most decent and edifying. Solennia verba have a kind of prescriptive sanctity, and make a deeper impression on the mind than extemporaneous effusions, in which, as we know not what they are to be, we cannot readily acquiesce. Yet I would allow also of a certain portion of extempore address, as occasion may require. This is the practice of the French Protestant ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... punish an offender the people did not always make a new law, they simply used what they found already made. They inquired into the fact, the deed done, the law, and applied the general law to the special fact, made their decree and executed it. Thus extemporaneous Making of law for the particular case, gradually passed away, and was succeeded by the extemporaneous Declaration of the law previously made, and its Application to the matter ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... excommunicate, excoriate, excruciate, execrable, exegesis, exemplary, exhalation, exhilarate, exigency, exodus, exonerate, exorbitant, exotic, expectorate, expeditious, explicable, explicit, expunge, extant, extemporaneous, extrinsic. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... silence above was shattered suddenly by the simultaneous banging of seven doors. Seven full-lunged voices burst forth into a howling song, while twice as many feet thumped and tapped and pranced and pounded in the mazes of an extemporaneous jig. ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... held a spirited and successful convention.[167] Julia Smith gave an extemporaneous talk to the great delight of the audience, who applauded continually; Mrs. Crane, a fine elocutionist, gave a reading from Carlyle; Mrs. Hooker closed with a brief resume of the work the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... a fine manly person and clear, musical voice gives to an orator. He spoke but rarely and never without great preparation. He was by no means a ready debater, and prized too much his reputation to hazard anything in an impromptu, extemporaneous address. He listened, for weeks, to King, Otis, and others who debated the question, and came at last prepared in one great effort to answer and demolish the arguments of these men. Those who listened ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... recent books are valuable additions to our literature, had, it may be presumed, a paper to read on the "Experiences of an Ornithologist in Mexico," though he did not read it. He made, on the contrary, what seemed to be an extemporaneous talk, exceedingly entertaining and sufficiently instructive to warrant a permanent place for it in the Auk, of which he is associate editor. We had the pleasure of examining the advance sheets of a new book from his ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [December, 1897], Vol 2. No 6. • Various
... he continues, "Mr. Duche, unexpectedly to everybody, struck out into an extemporaneous prayer, which filled the bosom of every man present. I never heard a better prayer, or one so well pronounced. Dr. Cooper himself never prayed with such fervor, ardor, earnestness, and pathos, and in language so eloquent and sublime, for America, for the ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... generating a quantity of carbonic acid gas. This very useful substance cannot always be procured conveniently from malt liquor for baking and brewing: the following method will be found useful for its extemporaneous preparation. Mix two quarts of soft water with wheat flour, to the consistence of thick gruel; boil it gently for half an hour, and when almost cold, stir into it half a pound of sugar and four spoonfuls of good yeast. Put ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... become of our churches? And what is he to do? It relieves me very much to hear that Gannett's case is no worse. My love and sympathy to him when you see him. Is he not one of our noblest and most disinterested, as well as ablest men,—nay, as an extemporaneous speaker, unrivalled among us? ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... plaudits, for he had devoted his life to a really great purpose; his inspiration had been the love of the common people, his faith, his sympathy had all been expended in an effort to brighten the life of the too frequently neglected masses. Page's address on this occasion was entirely extemporaneous; no record of it was ever made, but those who heard it still carry the memory of an eloquent and fiery outburst that placed Knapp's work in its proper relation to American history and gave an unforgettable picture of a patient, idealistic, ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... he distinguished himself by his proficiency in arithmetic and mathematics. Music he studied early, as a science as well as an art. He invented a species of lyre for himself, and sung his own poetical compositions to his own music, both being frequently extemporaneous. But his favorite pursuit was the art of design in all its branches; he modelled in clay or wax, or attempted to draw every object which struck his fancy. His father sent him to study under Andrea Verrocchio, famous as a sculptor, chaser in metal, and painter. Andrea, who was an excellent and correct ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... and verbose was the sermon that day, for not only was the preacher aware that bright eyes looked upon his deeds, but he saw his enemies in the front of the battle. Surely all extemporaneous speakers, in court, pulpit, or senate, must be accessible to such external influences. It ought not to be so, of course, but I fancy it is. Would John Knox have been so fiery in denunciation if those ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. No man yet knows what it is, nor can, till that person has exhibited it. Where is the master who could have taught Shakspeare? ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... degree), declare that they have sometimes felt quite astonished at the fluency with which they were able to express their thoughts, and at the freshness and fulness with which thoughts crowded upon them, while actually addressing a great assemblage of people. Of course, such extemporaneous speaking is an uncertain thing. It is a hit or a miss. A little physical or mental derangement, and the extempore speaker gets on lamely enough; he flounders, stammers, perhaps breaks down entirely. ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... looked in upon them from the garden, but retreated unobserved. It was Sir Charles Pomander, who had slipped away, with the heartless and malicious intention of exposing the husband to the wife, and profiting by her indignation and despair. Seeing Triplet, he made an extemporaneous calculation that so infernal a chatterbox could not be ten minutes in her company without telling her everything, and this would serve his turn very well. He therefore postponed his purpose, and strolled away to ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... of qualifications for it; though I could not deny that my talent was less respectable, and might be less profitable, than the meanest of theirs. My design, in short, was to imitate the storytellers of whom Oriental travellers have told us, and become an itinerant novelist, reciting my own extemporaneous fictions to such ...
— The Seven Vagabonds (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the process to which he is subjected, is, confessedly, an extemporaneous one, it appears from the Duke of Cornwall's statement, that it was only the form which was wanting to make it legal. ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... tune-books, and the captain gave out "The Life-Boat." Books were passed to the strangers, and the commander led off in the singing. Lord Tremlyn and Dr. Ferrolan joined in with vigorous bass voices. Captain Ringgold then followed with an extemporaneous prayer, in which he poured forth his thanks to the God who rules the sea and the land for the mercy that had spared their brothers from other lands from the mighty power of the raging billows. Instead of reading a printed ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... the failure of the old man's attempts to read this written statement. He had his own address in his pocket, but an extemporaneous speech would have ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... lords, that I shall not be charged with want of candour, in supposing the motion not to be an extemporaneous composition, but to be drawn up with art and deliberation. It is well known, that the address is often concerted at the same time that the speech is composed; and that it is not uncommon to take advantage of the superiority which long acquaintance with the question gives those who defend ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... were shaken, and they all shouted and returned back to their places. They have no step, but shuffle along the ground; nor does the music appear to be any thing more than a confusion of noises, distinguished only by hard or gentle blows upon the buffaloe skin: the song is perfectly extemporaneous. In the pauses of the dance, any man of the company comes forward and recites, in a sort of low guttural tone, some little story or incident, which is either martial or ludicrous; or, as was the case this ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... a land thousands of miles hence, I was stretched upon a bed of sickness. In pursuance of the humane duties of his calling, the minister of the Episcopal Church called upon me, and after a short conversation, proposed addressing the throne of grace. This he did in a few eloquent extemporaneous phrases, closing with the Lord's prayer. Now, from the outset, I felt an uncontrollable inclination to laugh; but for a time succeeded in restraining it. But when, in close succession upon the minister's words, there arose from the next room (separated from us by a thin board partition) ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... not worth a single potato." Peregrine was astonished at this surprising perversion of the words and meaning of a Latin line, which, at first, he could not help thinking was a premeditated joke; but, upon second thoughts, he saw no reason to doubt that it was the extemporaneous effect of sheer pertness and ignorance, at which he broke out into an immoderate fit of laughter. Pallet, believing that the gentleman's mirth was occasioned by his arch animadversion upon the work of Sangpree, underwent the same emotion in a much louder strain, and endeavoured ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... the Asturias. I now mounted the factious mare, whilst Antonio followed on my own horse. Martin led the way, exchanging jests with every person whom he met on the road, and occasionally enlivening the way with an extemporaneous song. ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... was hailed by a round of plaudits; and the sonnet itself was excellent and spirited. Excellent I mean in its general effect, as an improvvisazione:—how it would stand the test of cool criticism I cannot tell; nor is that any thing to the purpose: these extemporaneous effusions ought to be judged merely as what they are,—not as finished or correct poems, but as wonderful exercises of tenacious memory, ready wit, and that quickness of imagination ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... who knows anything about Spiritualism has heard of Cora Hatch, who traveled extensively, and manifested her powers as an extemporaneous lecturer before astonished multitudes. One of her husbands, Dr. Hatch, renounced Spiritualism, and the following is from the testimony he bore ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... Roosevelt to speak on the spur of the moment, trusting to the occasion to furnish him with both his ideas and his inspiration. Nothing could be more contrary to the facts. It is true that in his European journey he developed a facility in extemporaneous after-dinner speaking or occasional addresses, that was a surprise even to his intimate friends. At such times, what he said was full of apt allusions, witty comment (sometimes at his own expense), and bubbling good humor. The address to the undergraduates at the Cambridge Union, and his remarks ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... those Representatives assembled at the mairie of the Tenth Arrondissement, and what did they do there? Every shade of opinion was represented in this extemporaneous Assembly. But four-fifths of its members belonged to the different conservative parties which had constituted the majority. This Assembly was presided over by two of its Vice-Presidents, M. Vitet and M. Benoist d'Azy. M. Daru was arrested in his own house; the Fourth ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... a good extemporaneous solution for testing alkaloids, and perhaps a snake poison antidote, may be made by adding a few drops of ferric chloride to solution of potassium of iodide; this is a very convenient test agent which I used in my laboratory ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... of Thucydides and Homer, Horace and Livy; he may be versed in the philosophy of history, and yet lack in the essential elements of his art. He must possess native talent, a clear insight of human character, agreeable address, extemporaneous powers of speech. He must be a clear-thinking, conscientious, practical man; and it will be impossible for him to fail in his undertaking. Such a teacher will win the respect and esteem of his pupils: they will imitate his ...
— Reflections on the Operation of the Present System of Education, 1853 • Christopher C. Andrews
... the clergyman, in the manner of an extemporaneous preacher who strives to catch in a net of decorations some illustration which presents itself,—"the boat tosses on from wave to wave, for dories will sail before the wind. Soon we are miles from shore, and throw the anchor. What auspicious expansion of soul and body! How we ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Sundays they assemble in the house of London, Mr. ——'s head cooper, an excellent and pious man, who, Heaven alone knows how, has obtained some little knowledge of reading, and who reads prayers and the Bible to his fellow slaves, and addresses them with extemporaneous exhortations. I have the greatest desire to attend one of these religious meetings, but fear to put the people under any, the slightest restraint. However, I shall see, by and by, how they feel ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... evening of the convention gave a fair statement of the hostile feelings of women toward the amendments; we give the main part of it. Of all the other speeches, which were extemporaneous, only meagre and unsatisfactory reports can ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... neglect which they experienced; while Henry's well-informed good sense not only availed to cheer the sad Maria, but made every rock a point of interest, and showed every little flower a miracle of wisdom. There were hundreds of extemporaneous "lover's seats," where they had "rested, to be thankful" for the past, joyful for the present, and hopeful for the future; and every ramble that they took might deservedly take the name, style, and ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... craned their necks to catch his words. I never saw anything so magical. I know how you would have enjoyed it. Its effect was a hot surprise. The revelers all worn; the people ready to go home; the waiters impatient; the speech wholly extemporaneous. It was a triumph that did honor to American oratory at its best. The applause was decisive and deafening. I never heard of anything better ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... are fixed in the receding angle of their junction; so that the voice flies forth to the right and left immediately as it escapes the preacher. After a very long, and a very tediously sung psalm, M. Rollin commenced his discourse. He is an extemporaneous preacher. His voice is sweet and clear, rather than sonorous and impressive; and he is perhaps, occasionally, too metaphorical in his composition. For the first time I heard the words "Oh Dieu!" pronounced with great effect: but the sermon was made up of better ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... she was the widow of an English gentleman; she had recently come to America, and had but few acquaintances, and still fewer friends; she felt the loneliness of her situation, and admitted that she much desired a friend to counsel and protect her; the adroit adventuress concluded her extemporaneous romance by adroitly insinuating that her income was scarcely adequate to her ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... Nan-peh Chao, 116 Weihien, in Shantung, destined to become a railway centre, 30 Weihwei-fu, city on the border of Chihli and Honan, 41 Wensiang, success of Prince Kung's administration largely due to him, 277 contests with Tungsuin in extemporaneous verse, 277 Wen-ti, "patron of letters," a ruler of the house of Han, 107 Wen-wang, the real founder of the Chou dynasty, 84 encourages letters, 84 known as a commentator in the Yih-king, 84 Whales, the river near Hang-chow a trap for, 23 Wheat, produced ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... addresses are state papers, read to Congress, and were carefully composed. Others, delivered in various places, appear to have been more or less extemporaneous. All are full of their author's political philosophy, and many of them contain expressions of his opinions on general subjects, such ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... door put an end to this extemporaneous address. George stood like a statue; he knew not which course to take,—whether to go up to his friend's room, or go down to the street. He soon determined, and sent word that he wished to speak to James. In a ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... and green among the vegetables which they exhibited in the market or carried to their homes. Nay more, the loyalty of a loyal man may in certain circumstances be more emphatically expressed by a rude, extemporaneous symbol, hastily constructed of intractable materials, than by the most elaborate and leisurely products of the needle or the loom. In such cases, the will of the man is everything; the wealth of ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... rhapsody, philippic, invective, rant; soliloquy, monologue; dialogue; colloquy; trialogue; interlocution; improvisation; toast; equivocation, prevarication, quibbling; ambages, pseudology, amphibology, amphiboly, dilogy. Associated Words: extempore, extemporaneous, extemporize, extemporization, impromptu, improvise, improvisation, brogue, aphasia, amnesia, oratory, elocution, rhetoric, oratorical, rhetorical, rhetorician, elocutionary, peroration, voluble, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... selected his text early in the week. He studied its exegesis, made the plan of the sermon, and then began to choose his illustrations and fill in. On Sunday he would rise in his pulpit, a man six feet two and a half inches, and in a rich, clear, deliberate voice commence an extemporaneous discourse. His presence was majestic. With a massive head, much like that of John Adams, a strong brown eye that flashed as he moved on in his discourse, a voice sweet and well modulated, but at times rising to tones of thunder, graceful, ornate, forcible, and dramatic, he was the ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... largely diluted, forms an excellent refrigerant beverage and antalkali. It enters into the composition of extemporaneous soda and ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... him permission to continue under her roof till morning. Having performed this humane action, she summoned her female companions to their spinning, which occupied the chief part of the night, while their labour was beguiled by a variety of songs—one of which was observed by Mr. Park to be an extemporaneous effusion, created by his own adventure. The air was remarkably sweet and plaintive, and the words were ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... more amusement to Lord Monmouth even than Montem. Lucian Gay, however, when the affair was getting troublesome, came forward as a diversion. He sang an extemporaneous song on the ceremony of the day, and introduced the names of all the guests at the dinner, and of a great many other persons besides. This was capital! The boys were in raptures, but when the singer threw forth a verse about Dr. Keate, the ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... as extemporaneous composition was familiar to him, he failed not to comply with the King's hints, and was perhaps not displeased to show with how much ease he could new-model a poem, even while in the ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... lack of verse suggesting that extemporaneous composition is most poetical, [Footnote: See Scott's accounts of his minstrels' composition. See also, Bayard Taylor, Ad Amicos, and Proem Dedicatory; Edward Dowden, The Singer's Plea; Richard Gilder, How ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... proved himself to be. He was a round, short, tub-shaped man, with a button nose, and a double chin that ran all the way round and lapped over at the back. But, though his appearance was deceiving, anybody could tell with half an eye that he excelled in extemporaneous conversation. Right off he began shadow-boxing and sparring about, waiting for an opening. In ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... there was silence in the meeting-house. Then the voice of another preacher rose in the universal prayer, "Our Father, which art in heaven." Every extemporaneous prayer in the Church of the Brethren is complemented by the model prayer the Master taught ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... sous,—impossible; no, no, let them slink back again and sell the cross." And the child whispers courage; bids him look again along the rows; those faces seem very kind. He again lifts his eyes, glances round, and with an extemporaneous tact that completed the illusion to which the audience were already gently lending themselves, made sundry complimentary comments on the different faces actually before him, selected most felicitously. The audience, taken by surprise, as some fair female, or kindly burgess, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... establishment for their supplies. "The confidence in his good judgment," he adds, "was such that he was often consulted in preference to the physician, by those who were suffering from minor ails; and many were the extemporaneous doses which he administered for the weal ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... also heard many extemporaneous verses relating his adventures among the denizens of the deep after he ...
— The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties • Richard Runciman Terry
... the other Patriot, fire in his eye, snatches barrow and mattock, and himself begins indignantly wheeling. Whom scores and then hundreds follow; and soon a volunteer Fifteen Thousand are shovelling and trundling; with the heart of giants; and all in right order, with that extemporaneous adroitness of theirs: whereby such a lift has been given, worth three mercenary ones;—which may end when the late twilight thickens, in triumph shouts, heard or heard of ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... the hours of rest and excessive toil, it is remarkable, that she should have presided over the Convention, in the easy manner she is said to have done, and should have given so graceful and appropriate an extemporaneous speech, on taking the chair. Maria L. Giddings, daughter of Joshua R. Giddings, who represented Ohio many years in Congress, presented a very able digest on the common law. Betsey M. Cowles gave a report equally good on "Labor," and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... singular, that all the eminent English orators—with the exception of Mr. Burke and Mr. Windham—should have been so little anxious for the correct transmission of their eloquence to posterity. Had not Cicero taken more care of even his extemporaneous effusions, we should have lost that masterly burst of the moment, to which the clemency of Caesar towards Marcellus gave birth. The beautiful fragments we have of Lord Chatham are rather traditional than recorded;—there are but two, I believe, of the speeches of Mr. Pitt ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... ruinous enough. Old —— is a trifle uglier than when I first arrived. He has periodical parties, at which there are a great many flowerpots and a few ices—no other refreshments. He goes about, constantly charged with extemporaneous poetry, and is always ready, like tavern dinners, on the shortest notice and the most reasonable terms. He keeps a gigantic harp in his bedroom, together with pen, ink, and paper, for fixing his ideas as they flow, a kind of profane King David, but truly good-natured ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... from the Sakais' mouths, because real songs they have none. They are accustomed, however, to improvise something of the sort in which they always allude to facts of the day but as there is nobody to collect these fragments of extemporaneous ballads they disappear from the world of memories as quickly as ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... kind of superiority is more flattering or alluring than that which is conferred by the powers of conversation, by extemporaneous sprightliness of fancy, copiousness of language, and fertility of sentiment. In other exertions of genius, the greater part of the praise is unknown and unenjoyed; the writer, indeed, spreads his reputation to a wider ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... please, if Peter Fiddle ain't home yet and has gone off and got drunk, won't you please send young Peter with Daddy. And please send them in a hurry." He paused, but felt he must end in a more becoming way. It was his first extemporaneous prayer of any length, and he scarcely knew how to close. Then he remembered how Dr. Leslie, in the church where he went every Sabbath with his father, was wont to bring his morning petition to a close, so he added, "Only please, please, don't ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... neglect the reputation which may be acquired by speaking on a sudden occasion; and if we believe Eratosthenes, Demetrius the Phalerean, and the comic poets, there was a greater spirit and boldness in his unpremeditated orations than in those he had committed to writing. Eratosthenes says that in his extemporaneous harangues he often spoke as from a supernatural impulse; and Demetrius tells us that in an address to the people, like a man inspired, he once uttered this oath ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various |
