"Extemporary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... work was ended, and of these, of course, there was a wide choice, subordinate to the magnificent masquing of kings and queens. On the last midsummer evening, while their majesties were taking leave of one another, a company of strolling players were exhibiting in an extemporary theatre, and here Hal incited both the youths to obtain seats. The drama was on one of the ordinary and frequent topics of that, as of all other times, and the dumb show and gestures were far more effective than the words, so that even those who did not understand ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... disturb him in the Church when he read prayers, pretending to advise him how God was to be served most acceptably: which he not approving, but continuing to observe order and decent behaviour in reading the Church-service, they forced his book from him, and tore it, expecting extemporary prayers. ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... determined upon, he imitated the example of magnanimity lately set him by Nathan, stripped off and converted his venerable wrap-rascal into extemporary halters, and so made sure of half a dozen more of the best horses; with which, and the four first selected, not doubting that the remainder of the herd would readily follow at their heels, he crept from the fold, to make his way up the valley, and round among the hills, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... By these canons, the most nakedly despotic of innovations, the preachers could not use their sword of excommunication without the assent of the Bishops. James VI. had ever regarded with horror and dread the licence of "conceived prayers," spoken by the minister, and believed to be extemporary or directly inspired. There is an old story that one minister prayed that James might break his leg: certainly prayers for "sanctified plagues" on that prince were publicly offered, at the will of the minister. Even a very firm Presbyterian, ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... where every one sang a little song or stanza, of which the burden was, "Bannissons la melancolie;" when it came to his turn to sing, after the performance of a young lady that sat next him, he produced these extemporary lines: ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... poem; compare it either in the succession of the images or of the sentences; I am reminded of the sublime prayer and hymn of praise, which MILTON, in opposition to an established liturgy, presents as a fair specimen of common extemporary devotion, and such as we might expect to hear from every self-inspired minister of a conventicle! And I reflect with delight, how little a mere theory, though of his own workmanship, interferes with the ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... to this method, that from a habit of saving time and paper, which they acquired at the University, they write in so diminutive a manner, with such frequent blots and interlineations, that they are hardly able to go on without perpetual hesitations or extemporary expletives: And I desire to know what can be more inexcusable, than to see a divine and a scholar, at a loss in reading his own compositions, which it is supposed he has been preparing with much pains and thought for the instruction of his people? ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... In Laura's case, no kindly Atropos snipped the thread of her aspirations: these, large, vague, extemporary, one and all achieved fulfilment; then withered off to make room for more. But this, the future still securely hid from her. She went out from school with the uncomfortable sense of being a square peg, which fitted into none of the round holes of her world; the wisdom she had got, the experience ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... where they find seldom more than a calm delight, such as, though greater than all others, its certainty and its duration being reckoned with its power of gratification, is yet easily quitted for some extemporary joy, which the present moment offers, and another, perhaps, will put out ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... reserve Nora for him. But the whirl in his brain soon deprived him of all power of resistance, and, looking round the room hurriedly to assure himself he was not watched, he fell on his knees and burst into extemporary prayer: 'O my God, whatever punishment there is to be borne, let me bear it. She sinned, no doubt, and her sins must be atoned for. Let me bear the punishment that thou, in thine infinite wisdom, must adjudge to her, poor ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... issue concern him less than what he shall say about it so as not to ruin his own chance of reelection, or that of some fourth cousin to a tidewaitership. Few men have any great amount of gathered wisdom, still fewer of extemporary, while there are unhappily many who have a large stock of accumulated phrases, and hold their parts of speech subject to immediate draft. In a country where the party newspapers and speakers have done ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... his pocketbook, and wrote four lines extempore, which he gave to this amiable person to read. His friends begged they might see them; but modesty, or rather a well-regulated self love, would not allow him to grant their request. He knew that extemporary verses are never approved of by any but by the person in whose honor they are written. He therefore tore in two the leaf on which he had wrote them, and threw both the pieces into a thicket of rosebushes, where the rest of the company ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... restored under King William by Act of Parliament. He was a man a little untoward in his temper, and much inclined to Eloquence. He made many speeches in Parliament, which are all printed, but was not very dexterous in making extemporary replies. He was, however, a very Honest Man, and meant well in everything he said and did, except in cases where his humour, passion, or prejudices were suffered to get the better ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... grass and ferns with which the surface of the plateau was covered in the open, like the partridge does amongst the turnips in England. Fritz shot a couple of the little things, and the brothers plucked and roasted them over an extemporary fire which Eric lit with the box of matches he invariably "carried in his pocket—as a sort of badge of his culinary office," Fritz said. The birds were found to be very palatable for lunch, along with the biscuit and cheese which the ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... "Anne Domine Reverendissime facis adhuc sacrificium?" But the friar did not understand her, and waxing angry, anathematized her for a witch, and bade her begone. She was, however, not to be disconcerted, and commenced singing, in extemporary Castilian verse, the praises of friars and religious houses in general. On departing I gave her a peseta, upon which she burst into tears, and intreated that I would write to her if ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow |
