"Improvised" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the improvised tray when it was brought to him and went out with it, returning in ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... yielded his improvised speaker's stand to Dr. Howard Bernais, the project technical director. Dr. Bernais was administrative and technical head of the entire project. Presumably he met with the section chiefs fairly often, but he had an office near John Gordon in the main ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... net gown, sat on Lord Redford's right hand at the hastily improvised dinner party that evening. Berenice, more subtly and more magnificently dressed, was opposite, by Mannering's side. The conversation seemed mostly to circle ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Prosper Panne. He began by picking up Mrs. Torrence's brown leather motor glove with its huge gauntlet, and examining it with the deliciously foolish bewilderment of the accomplished clown. After one or two failures, brilliantly improvised, he fixed it firmly on his head. The huge gauntlet, with its limp five fingers dangling over his left ear, became a rakish kepi with a five-pointed flap. Max—I mean Prosper Panne—wore it with an "air impayable." Out of his round, soft, putty-coloured face he made fifteen other faces ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... 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 as he was inclined, it did not make any substantial ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... was beside her and she was engaged in tying a knot, with the fingers of her left hand aided by her teeth, in a roughly-improvised bandage ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... staying to tie on glass balls and apples,—had given himself a deep and dangerous wound with the point of the unlucky knife, and had lost a great deal of blood before the hemorrhage could be controlled. Just before I entered, the stick tourniquet which Morton had improvised had slipped in poor Mary's unpractised hand, at the moment he was about to secure the bleeding artery, and the blood followed in such a gush as compelled him to give his whole attention to stopping its flow. He only knew my entrance by the "Ah, Mr. Ingham," of the frightened ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... be ready for a great holiday on the thirtieth of July, Mrs. Poyser," said Captain Donnithorne, when he had sufficiently admired the dairy and given several improvised opinions on Swede turnips and shorthorns. "You know what is to happen then, and I shall expect you to be one of the guests who come earliest and leave latest. Will you promise me your hand for two dances, Miss Hetty? If I don't get your promise now, I know I shall ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... horse riding through the fields and attacking us from behind. So speedily was the scheme conceived and carried out, that within a very few minutes of the first alarm we found ourselves protected front and rear by a lofty barricade, while within this improvised fortress was a garrison of ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was experiencing a decline in employment and output. Today that recession is fading into history, and this without gigantic, hastily-improvised public works projects or untimely tax reductions. A healthy and vigorous recovery has been under way since last May. New homes are being built at the highest rate in several years. Retail sales are at peak levels. Personal income is ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower
... jail. Behind the iron bars, and tugging frantically at them, 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. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... As elsewhere stated, the improvised carbon dioxid bath, to stimulate the skin so as to reduce the blood pressure, is not satisfactory. Other methods of reducing blood pressure, when it is too high, ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.
... several attempts, he succeeded in dropping one end into a crotch of the oak, thus connecting the edge of the roof with the tree by means of the narrow plank. After this, at first sight of the girls in his end of the garden, he fled to the roof, ran across the improvised bridge, "shinned" down the tree and, hidden by the hedge, ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... these splendid streets was turned into day, every window was filled with lamps, dim torches were tossing in the crowd, ... for Guizot has late this night given in his resignation, and this was an improvised illumination. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... five feet of its length. This in turn he brought to the shelter. He stopped short here, frozen with amazement. The girl was raving in her delirium, and to soothe her, McTee was singing to her horrible sailor chanteys, pieced out with improvised ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... an occasion when it is my privilege to have the opportunity of clearing philosophy of the aspersions cast upon her by the uninstructed and of proving my own innocence. Nevertheless these false charges are on the face of them serious enough, and the suddenness with which they have been improvised makes them the more difficult to refute. For you will remember that it is only four or five days since his advocates of malice prepense attacked me with slanderous accusations, and began to charge me with practice of the black art and with the murder of my step-son Pontianus. I was at the moment ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... the evening, was held in the Carnadine Mining Company's ore-shed, electric-lighted for the occasion. When the hour came the big shed was packed with an enthusiastic audience, and there were prolonged cheers and hand-clappings when the railroad advocate took his seat on the improvised platform as the ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... shook hands and Captain Eri, with a troubled look at his friend, went out. After he had gone, Captain Jerry got up and danced three steps of an improvised jig, his face one broad grin. Then, with an effort, he sobered down, assumed an air of ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... after the manner of hunts, full of sympathy, having, as to one man, contributed a silver cigarette case, with which another, a resourceful medical student, had improvised a splint, but feeling, not without relief, that they could do nothing more; feeling also, with depression, that the Lord only knew where the devils had run to by this time, but that that couldn't be ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... late that afternoon did a rescue train limp cautiously along an improvised track to set the interrupted travelers on their way. Gardner went on it, leaving an address and an invitation to "keep in touch." Mr. Vanney took his departure with a few benign and well-chosen words of farewell, accompanied ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the idea of making a wading pool, with the aid of the hose. Some vague lesson won from previous experience made him ask permission of his mother and this given, the three children spent an ecstatic, though muddy, day in the improvised pond. ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... her dining-room table to her kitchen, as most of Old Trail Town did in Winter, Mary had moved her cooking stove into the dining room, had improvised a calico-curtained cupboard for the utensils, and there she lived and sewed. The ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale
... unwonted excitement. Practically all the able-bodied men of the place were either on duty as Volunteers or were willing workers in the landing of the arms. The women stood at their doors and gave encouraging greeting to the drivers; many of them ran improvised canteens, which supplied the workers with welcome refreshments during ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... the first things he did after settling in Sandusky was to organize an amateur theatrical company, composed entirely of people of German birth or descent. The performances were given in the Turner Hall, in the German tongue, on a makeshift stage with improvised scenery. Frohman became the directing force in the production of Schiller's and other classic German plays, ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... the house a group of men appeared, as though they had come up from the ground. They waded waist-deep in the grass, in a compact body, bearing an improvised stretcher in their midst. Instantly, in the emptiness of the landscape, a cry arose whose shrillness pierced the still air like a sharp arrow flying straight to the very heart of the land; and, as if by enchantment, ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... citizens of that territory, who were now in an unquestioned majority through the large emigration from the north during the spring of 1857. The doctrine of popular sovereignty could not, therefore, be relied upon to establish slavery in Kansas, and it was abandoned. New theories had to be improvised and new agencies called ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... Court of Orleans is distant, slow: the blood of the Twelve hundred Patriots, whatever become of other blood, shall be inquired after. Tremble, ye Criminals and Conspirators; the Minister of Justice is Danton! Robespierre too, after the victory, sits in the New Municipality; insurrectionary 'improvised Municipality,' which calls itself ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... between the 1st and 4th Battalions in a field near Fouquieres-les-Bethune, where they spent the day together. This momentary gathering of so many brothers, relatives and friends on active service gave the greatest pleasure to all. In the improvised sports which ensued the men of the 1st Battalion beat the 4th at a tug-of-war, while in the officers' tug the result was reversed. The 1st Battalion were at this time commanded by Captain Bird, as their late C.O., Major Hill, had ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... river. At Westland Row Station a crowd of people pressed to the carriage doors; but the porters moved them back, saying that it was a special train for the bazaar. I remained alone in the bare carriage. In a few minutes the train drew up beside an improvised wooden platform. I passed out on to the road and saw by the lighted dial of a clock that it was ten minutes to ten. In front of me was a large building which ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... and some one of the working gang, seeing the danger, should, with the quickness and sureness of a mountain-goat, spring straight for the stone, clutching the end of the guy and bounding off again, twisting the bight round some improvised snubbing-post thus checking its mad career, you would not have had to ask ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... carefully to the center of the improvised ring, their guards up, while Astro stood off the edge of the mat and watched the sweeping second hand of ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... corps is possible only when the battle fleet is able to prevent attack from the sea. In the event of defeat on land, reembarkation is not absolutely impossible, for if good order is maintained the improvised defenses of the landing sites, with the help of the fleet, will sufficiently delay the pursuers. If the reembarking must take place from some other point, preparations for its defense must be made in advance. When the reembarkation is done with the aim in view of attacking ...
— Operations Upon the Sea - A Study • Franz Edelsheim
... take precautions, even two or three miles behind the main firing line. A series of trenches zigzags in and out among the trees, and barbed wire is interlaced with the undergrowth. In the farthermost corner lies an improvised cemetery. Some of the inscriptions on the little wooden crosses are only three days old. Merely to read a few of these touches the imagination and stirs the blood. Here you may see the names of ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... I was 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... had she suffered herself to be carried away by her own vehemence, her inward glowing rage. With secret pleasure Count Orloff read in her features that this was no comedy which she thus improvised, ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... was made magnificent and kingly by a superb velvet mantle and turbaned crown—the latter not perfect, but improvised for the occasion. For a sceptre he held out a long wooden ruler this time; but Preston promised a better one should be provided. The wooden ruler was certainly not quite in keeping with the king's ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... clucking peacefully in their corner of Uncle Ebeneezer's dooryard, and the newly acquired bossy cow mooed unhappily in her improvised stable. Harlan had christened the cow "Maud" because she insisted upon going into the garden, and though Dorothy had vigorously protested against putting Tennyson to such base uses, the name still held, out of ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... 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 ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... Around this improvised gallows a group of women sat, or rather squatted, in the mud; their ragged shifts and kirtles, soaked through with the drizzling rain, hung dankly on their emaciated forms; their hair, in some cases grey, and in others dark or straw-coloured, clung matted round their ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... the centre of that sea of blackness, like the plummet of an engineer, like the lead of a storm-tossed sailor, shot a drop of rain. Down it came with unerring swiftness, right through one of the spectacled gentleman's improvised "sky-lights" in the roof, and splashed in the Cuban's face. Half-dreaming still, he sleepily rolled over out of range; he had been awakened before in that way, ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... be observed that military power cannot be improvised in the present political world, even though all the elements for it ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... forest which lay just beyond the camp. The "doctor" obeyed, and the dogs sneaked after him, still growling, but keeping a respectful distance. A moment later he found himself in a sequestered spot where there was an improvised stable; and a dozen or more horses glancing up from their ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... are unknown among the Eskimos, but the way in which Cheenbuk improvised and organised an Arctic brigade might have roused the envy even ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... point where the Swiss Guard and their prisoners were assembled, he found Captain Morrel superintending the placing of an aged bandit upon an improvised stretcher. ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... such a point that it was difficult to avoid war with Great Britain. The West had been cheated by the cry for "the whole of Oregon," and the men who had got up that cry were afraid to face the people whom they had deceived by the light of common day; and so we had the Mexican War improvised, to distract public attention from the lame and impotent manner in which we had settled the Oregon question. Having kissed the Briton's boot, it became necessary to soothe our exasperated feelings by applying our own boot to the person of the Aztec. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... had ordered; alarm guns were fired; drummers woke the echoes of the streets and of the squares, and presently the deed of supreme audacity and of supreme horror began to come into being. Crowds collected about the prisons. Groups forced a way in. More or less improvised committees took possession, ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... from untimely ruin and herself from the clutch of Master Gregory. Two of her emissaries had encountered a farmer in Chancery Lane. They spoke with him first at Smithfield, and knew that his pocket was well lined with bank-notes. An improvised quarrel at a tavern-door threw the farmer off his guard, and though he defended the money, his watch was snatched from his fob and duly carried to Moll. The next day the victim, anxious to repurchase his watch, ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... and bread stood upon this little improvised side-board. If they had been the greatest luxuries imaginable, he could not have swallowed a morsel. The sunlight had faded away; his dream of retribution was over; he seemed to be touching the utmost verge of human wretchedness. Was it possible to kill himself? ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... a deep latrine is dug of the following dimensions: 2 feet wide, 6 feet deep by 15 feet long. Two posts with crotches, driven at the ends of this trench, supporting a substantial pole to make a seat * * * for convenience a hand rail placed in front of this improvised seat will add to the ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... him up the narrow stairway to a great loft, the bareness of which had been tempered by draped American flags. From the trusses of the roof hung improvised electric lights, and the children were already seated at the four long tables, where half a dozen ladies were supplying them with enamelled bowls filled with steaming soup. They attacked it ravenously, and the absence of the talk and laughter that ordinarily accompany ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... glittering tinsel, and robed in a glowing and diaphanous stuff, which only half revealed the white satin and spangles of the dress below it. Then a number of chubby-cheeked little boys in semi-ecclesiastical costume, improvised—no doubt under clerical supervision—by careful hands at home. Each little boy carried a fuming censer, and it was not difficult to see that they were well pleased with themselves and their office. After them came the doyen in full ecclesiastical costume, a little tawdry perhaps, for the village ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... there was a level bed for the injured man to lie on, they ran down about two miles to a side canyon coming in from the north. By means of this Stanton climbed out, walked thirty-five miles to Lee's Ferry, and brought a waggon back to the edge. Nims was placed on an improvised stretcher, and carried up the cliffs, four miles in distance and seventeen hundred feet in altitude. At half-past three in the afternoon the surface was reached. Twice the stretcher had to be swung along by ropes where there was no footing, and twice had to be perpendicularly lifted ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... moreover I wasn't in ignorance of her mother's interdict. At bottom I was troubled by the disparity of the two accounts; but after a little I felt Corvick's to be the one I least doubted. This simply reduced me to asking myself if the girl had on the spot improvised an engagement—vamped up an old one or dashed off a new—in order to arrive at the satisfaction she desired. She must have had resources of which I was destitute, but she made her case slightly more intelligible by returning presently: "What the state of things has been is that we felt ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... 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 supports ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... wonderful man that English society in those days went out for to see. Seeing would have been enough, but for a certain number there was hearing too, with the report of it for all; and it is not surprising that fame of the marvellous discourser should, in mere virtue of his extraordinary power of improvised speech, his limitless and untiring mastery of articulate words, have risen to a height to which writers whose only voice is in their pens can ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... 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 ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... 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
... refreshed, not lost, by a romp. Who has not seen 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 some of their own official business, or arranging a match ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... wagon-bed was taken off the running-gear, and the tarpaulin cover so adjusted as to make it water-tight. Rafter was a skillful carpenter, having once done honest work in a Maine shipyard, so that the improvised boat was soon ready for transportation. Working all night, in shifts, it was ready for its voyage down the river the next morning, and just about the time our lads were eating breakfast, the desperadoes, with the professor and Pete lying tightly bound in the bottom of ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... encouraged Andrew. "This time!" and with a tremendous effort the stone gave way, and Jamie was pulled clear, his leg a crushed mass of pulpy blood and shattered bones. They dragged him back clear of any further falls, and improvised a stretcher on which to carry ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... repressed the groan that came into my throat. I half-expected a bullet to bring me to the ground in a hurry, for I was not over-trustful of the good faith of Mother Borton's friend. But I got to the ground in safety, and was relieved when Fitzhugh stood beside me, and the improvised ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... accessible, we beached our whale-boat and prepared for our first bivouac in the open air. Beating down the high wet grass, Viushin pitched our little cotton tent, carpeted it with warm, dry bearskins, improvised a table and a cloth out of an empty candle-box and a clean towel, built a fire, boiled tea, and in twenty minutes set before us a hot supper which would not have done discredit to the culinary skill of Soyer himself. ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... l'Encuerado took from an aloe-fibre bag a needle and bodkin, and set to work to mend Lucien's breeches, torn a day or two before. Two squirrels' skins were scarcely sufficient for the would-be tailor, who lined the knees also with this improvised cloth. Lucien was delighted at this patching, and wanted to try on his mended garment at once. He waddled about, ran, and stooped in every posture, quite fascinated with the rustling noise produced by the dry skins. Gringalet, who had been asleep, suddenly ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... working the quick fire of cannel which Macauley had started into a glowing bed of hot coals. He improvised from the andirons a rack for his broiler, and set the steak to cooking. While he heated plates, sliced bread, and brought knives, forks, and napkins, he kept an experienced eye upon his broiler, and saw that it was continually turned and shifted, in order to get the best results. And ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... sitting down again to her instrument, improvised for an hour. Next to her New Testament, this was her greatest comfort. She sung and prayed both in one then, and nobody but God heard any thing but the piano. Nor did it impede the flow of her best thoughts, that in a chair beside ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... of the needle to the wants of mankind proves it to have been among the first of man's inventions. When Eve sewed fig leaves she probably improvised some implement for the process, and every daughter of Eve, from Eden to the present time, has been indebted to that little implement for expression of herself in love and duty and art. For this we must thank the man who, the Bible relates, was "the father of all ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... but on the 2d of August he disappeared. Perry at once hurried forward every thing; and on the 4th, at 2 P.M., one brig, the Lawrence, was towed to that point of the bar where the water was deepest. Her guns were whipped out and landed on the beach, and the brig got over the bar by a hastily improvised "camel." ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... 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 ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... the loss to him forever of his friend, least was to be expected in the strait wherein we were; yet it was from Pablo that our rescue came. With a quick apprehension of the needs of the case, he rove a running-knot in the end of one of the pack-ropes, and with a dexterous cast of this improvised lasso set the loop of it about El Sabio's neck as that unfortunate animal for a moment ceased his strugglings and hung still. And then we all strained on the rope together, and in a minute had El Sabio safely with us again; ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... kind of withered arm, distorted leg, and unsightly stump. They glare at you out of horrible eyes, that look like cranberries. You are requested to look at horrors, all without a name, and too terrible to be seen. All their accomplishments are also brought out. They fall into improvised fits; they shake with sudden palsies; and all the while keep up a chorus, half whine, half scream, which suffers you to listen to nothing else. It is hopeless to attempt to buy them all off, for they are legion in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... for a moment contemplating his patient with deep satisfaction. Then he rose to his feet. Some shelter must be improvised to protect the sleeping man from the sun, but in the raffle around there did not seem enough tent cloth to make ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... happy and contented trio who took the train the following day on their way back to New York City after bidding Bridge good-bye in the improvised hospital and exacting his promise that he would visit them in New York ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... mortar and piles of brick half filled the roadway, and the posts of a kind of rough plank canopy, which formed a shelter for pedestrians, rose flush with the curbstone. Far above this improvised shelter bricklayers were adding the courses of a new story or two to the walls of a shabby and smoke-stained old structure, and immediately below it the march of traffic and the hubbub of trade proceeded upon the broad flag sidewalk as fully as contractors and their underlings would permit. ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... one of his letters he speaks of a polonaise being ready in his head. These facts indicate that he composed mentally, although, no doubt, during the improvisations, many themes occurred to him which he remembered and utilized. When he improvised he did not watch the key-board, but generally looked at the ceiling. Already as a youth he used to be so absorbed that he forgot his meals; and, in the street, he was often so absent-minded that he very narrowly escaped being run ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... professional armies became nothing more than armed militia, and from the moment that it became apparent that a soldier might be improvised from a countryman with ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... spend hours reading together such authors as Spenser, Ariosto, and Boiardo.[73] He remembered the poems so well that weeks or months afterwards he could repeat whole pages that had particularly impressed him. Somewhat later the two boys improvised similar stories to recite to each other, Scott being the one who proposed the plan and the more successful in carrying it out. With this same friend he studied Italian and began to read the Italian poets in the original. In his autobiography he says:[74] "I had previously ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... impulse, sudden thought; impromptu, improvisation; inspiration, flash, spurt. improvisatore[obs3]; creature of impulse. V. flash on the mind. say what comes uppermost; improvise, extemporize. Adj. extemporaneous, impulsive, indeliberate[obs3]; snap; improvised, improvisate[obs3], improvisatory[obs3]; unpremeditated, unmeditated; improvise; unprompted, unguided; natural, unguarded; spontaneous &c. (voluntary) 600; instinctive &c. 601. Adv. extempore, extemporaneously; offhand, impromptu, a limproviste[Fr]; improviso[obs3]; on the spur of the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... was not even remotely suggestive of the man who had attempted to frustrate the seizure of the child in the park. In her ecstatic welcome of the pony Edith hardly gave Archie a glance. A riding costume had been improvised for her out of a boy scout's suit, and with her curls flying under her broad hat she was a spirited and appealing figure. The woman followed them down the lane to the road, where she indicated the bounds to be observed during ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... stick was brought and, using great care, with his rubber gloves on that he used in autopsies, Doctor Warren fastened the needle to the wand. Then Colonel Ashley thrust the improvised spear through the wires of the cage and lightly punctured the rat, ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... dog-days, gardening without any headgear is dangerous, especially in view of the constant stooping. For the protection of the medulla nothing is better than the admirable hat recently placed on the market by the benevolent enterprise of a great newspaper. But an effective substitute can be improvised out of a square yard of linoleum lined with cabbage-leaves and fastened with a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... guests in the Moorish Hall. The blessing of the Neva is a religious festival, with the accompaniment of tapers, incense, and chanting choirs, and we could only see that the Emperor performed his part uncloaked and bare-headed in the freezing air, finishing by descending the steps of an improvised chapel and well, (the building answered both purposes,) and drinking the water from a hole in the ice. Far and wide over the frozen surface similar holes were cut, where, during the remainder of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... herself unreservedly in the hands of Mrs. Newberry, who introduced her to the best dressmaker of the town, a woman of much experience in such affairs, who improvised during the afternoon a gown suited to the occasion. Mrs. Marshall had made more than a dozen ball dresses during the preceding month; being a wise woman and understanding her business thoroughly, she had made each one of them so that with a few additional touches it might serve for ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... toward the car tracks. The end had to come sometime; his father in his night-clothes at the top of the stairs, explanations that did not explain, hastily improvised fictions that were forever tripping him up, his upstairs room and its horrible yellow wallpaper, the creaking bureau with the greasy plush collar-box, and over his painted wooden bed the pictures of George Washington and John Calvin, ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... 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 would ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... the Zu-Vendi officer Kara clambered over our improvised wall in his quiet, determined sort of way, and took his stand by the Zulu, unsheathing his sword ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... first conversation I had ever had with a monarch. I made a rapid review of the situation, and found myself much in the same position as an actor of the improvised comedy of the Italians, who is greeted by the hisses of the gods if he stops short a moment. I therefore replied with all the airs of a doctor of finance that I could say something about the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Beulah's 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
... at the office, I asked Meurtrier how he had employed the previous evening, and he instantly improvised, without a moment's hesitation, an account of a sharp encounter on the boulevard at two in the morning, when he had knocked down with a single blow of his fist, having passed his thumb through the ring of his keys, a terrible street rough. I listened, smiling ironically, and thinking to confound ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... in lieu of table-cloths. People came thither from a distance. Hucheloup, one fine morning, had seen fit to notify passers-by of this "specialty"; he had dipped a brush in a pot of black paint, and as he was an orthographer on his own account, as well as a cook after his own fashion, he had improvised on his wall this ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... skill in composition, however, soon turned the old teacher's fears into joy. Such a pupil he had never had before! And he did not reason it out that no one else had ever had, either. The child, like Chopin, read music before he read print, and improvised, merging one tune with another, bringing harmony out of hopeless chaos. Zelter followed, fearing success would turn the boy's head—berating, scolding, chiding, encouraging—and all the time admiring and loving. The pretty boy was not much ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... 25, 1915, and with the cooperation of the French on their right, this rapidly improvised force moved forward, making unobstructed progress on their wings by the canal and the road. For some reason their center was delayed and held back. When they did finally arrive and pressed forward with a rush to ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... Saar, to thrust forward against the Crown 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 had not ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... impartial officer who is the Emperor and stands in the center on a raised base (box, jumping board, or other improvised platform). The balance of the players are divided into two equal teams, consisting each of a captain, two center players, or fielders, and a number of basemen and base guards. The two fielders may go anywhere on the field, but their main duty is to prevent the ball ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... 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, not to say noisy. Bumpings and bursts of ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... carried an improvised white flag of truce—at their head, Pearse in full uniform, with sword across one arm in regular surrender fashion. For a moment the young British officer in command seemed perplexed at the solemnity of ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... key in her hand, and looking about the room while he watched her. The woman's enormous power of deception showed itself in the spontaneous facility with which she went through a complicated little scene, quite improvised, in order to mislead her husband. She knew that he himself would suggest some place for ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... we worked, and by the evening the dining-room was transformed: blue cloths and lace runners on the deal side-table and improvised pigeon-holes; nicknacks here and there on tables and shelves and brackets; pictures on the walls; "kent" faces in photograph frames among the nicknacks; a folding carpet-seated armchair in a position of honour; cretonne curtains in the doorway between ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... had found the Roosevelt on my return from "farthest west." A new rudder was improvised, and the crippled and almost helpless ship floated around into Lincoln Bay, whence she finally limped home to ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... one above the other. The detail for guard duty was required to stay in the guard-house; those who wished to sleep going up-stairs, while others just relieved or about to go on duty clustered around the fire in the lower room. One night, when the upper floor was covered with sleeping men, an improvised infantryman who had been relieved from duty walked in, and, preparatory to taking his stand at the fire, threw his musket carelessly in the corner. A loud report and angry exclamations immediately followed. The sergeant of the guard, ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... much for a wink and a hint the night as I'll get for me day's work termorrow. Bust me if I don't thry him, if he'll fust promise me to say it any one axes him that he niver saw Pat M'Cabe in his loife," and the suddenly improvised reporter climbed the long stairways to where the night editor sat ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... themselves on one side of the shaman, the women on the other. Close by the shaman's seat a hole is dug, into which he or his assistants may spit, after having drunk or eaten hikuli, so that nothing may be lost. After this improvised cuspidor has been used, it is always carefully covered ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... stand and look. Skiffs, canoes, hastily improvised rafts, were moving in every direction, carrying the unsightly chattels of the poor out of their overflowed cottages to higher ground. Barrels, boxes, planks, hen-coops, bridge lumber, piles of straw that waltzed solemnly as they went, cord-wood, old shingles, ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... slow. They made the attack at daylight, and though much fired at were never struck. They seem to have taken the Yankees by surprise, and to have created great alarm; but at that time the blockading squadron consisted entirely of improvised men-of-war. Since this exploit, the frigate Ironsides, and the sloop of war Powhattan, have been added ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... 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
... the question of methods and tactics, which differentiates utopian socialism from scientific socialism; the former fancied it possible to alter the economic organization of society from top to bottom by the improvised miracle of a popular insurrection; the latter, on the contrary, declares that the law of evolution is supreme and that, therefore, the social revolution can be nothing but the final phase of a preliminary evolution, which will consist—through ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... one of the wooden pillars and firmly grasped his own legs above the knee. Moore climbed on the improvised ladder, and was just able to seize the edge of the roof, as it seemed to be, ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... girls were tucked away snugly in their blankets and sheltered from the rain, Helen remained awake after Bo had fallen asleep. The big blaze made the improvised tent as bright as day. She could see the smoke, the trunk of the big pine towering aloft, and a blank space of sky. The stream hummed a song, seemingly musical at times, and then discordant and dull, now low, ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... his hands moving about her again, but she was too spent to open her eyes. He bathed her face with a care equal to any woman's, smoothed back her hair, and improvised a pillow for ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... aisle between the table and the ends of the benches, leading from the door to the improvised altar at the farther end of the room, was carpeted with blankets from the bunk-house, and suspended from the ceiling immediately in front of the altar swung the massive horseshoe, fresh and ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... St. Clair," he said, "and I'm a sort of improvised secretary for our leaders who are ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... clump of bamboo, two long stout stalks of which were quickly cut down, and, without waiting to strip them of their leaves, converted into a light ladder by lashing cross-pieces of bamboo to them. Then, with this improvised ladder carried by two men, the party resumed its way, arriving about a quarter of an hour later beneath the frowning walls of the castle, which, like the battery below, was found to be in total darkness, at least so far as ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... the spot where a steel cable dangled from an almost invisibly thin beam high above. There was a strictly improvised cage to ascend in—planks and a handrail forming an insecure platform that might hold four people. He got into it, and Dr. Chuka got in beside him. Chuka waved his hand. The ...
— Sand Doom • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... what his companion meant by the last words, obeyed the injunction; and stretching forward over the rim of the improvised tank, once more placed his lips to the water, and drank copiously. Ben did the same for himself, passing several pints of the fluid ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... down the valley. On emerging from the hills Trebon told his improvised army that they could return to their village, as he had no further need of their services, and, delighted at having escaped without damage or injury, they at ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... so far from their leader, joined him at the armory, minus their losses. Already he was driven to take refuge with his diminished force in the engine-house, a low, strong brick building in the armory yard, where they barricaded doors and improvised loop-holes, and into which they took with them ten selected prisoners as hostages. But the expedient was one of desperation. By this movement Brown literally shut himself up in his own prison, from which ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... his grand country seat. There is something in Castelli so open and honorable, mingled with such good-natured humor, that one must like him: he appears to me the picture of a thorough Viennese. Under his portrait, which he gave me, he wrote the following little improvised verse in the style so peculiarly ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... to London?" she warbled in a sort of improvised recitative. "Will I take two or two and a half lessons of Georg Henschel? Will I grace platforms in the English provinces? Will I take my two hundred dollars out of the bank and risk it royally? Perhaps the bystanders will glance in at my windows and observe ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... means, and any which can be improvised are to be employed to protect (men) against the sun, and measures must be taken to meet cases in which ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... evening, thanks to the industry and skill of our guide, the raft was made. It was ten feet by five; the planks of surturbrand, braced strongly together with cords, presented an even surface, and when launched this improvised vessel floated easily upon the waves of ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... said Arithelli. She rose slowly, took up the parcel and retired into seclusion behind the curtains, with which she had screened off the alcove and so made herself an improvised dressing room. The rest of the apartment she had altered to look as much like a sitting room as possible, with the exception of the obtrusive four-poster, which could not be hidden and which upon entering appeared the most salient ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... recovered some of his spirits after his narrow escape from death in the fireworks factory blaze. He greeted Tom and Ned with a smile as they entered the improvised laboratory he had been able to set up in what had once been a factory for the making of wooden ware, an industry that, for some reason, did ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... were growing to understand each other. It gave the girl a thrill of wonder and delight to have him do this simple little thing for her, and the smile that passed between them was beautiful to see. Long Bill turned away his head and looked out of the window with an improvised sneeze to excuse the sudden mist that came into ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... girl there," said Byrne feebly from the improvised litter on which he was being carried to the coast by a squad ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... 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 fought. But when Marta ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... intermingled, went on and on like the restaurants that lined each side of the long avenue. Around primitive tables family parties clinked foaming glasses and hailed with demonstrative hospitality any stray cousin who chanced that way. In one of the last of these improvised Trinkhallen we came upon a young man and maiden who had the place quite to themselves. Her brown parasol kept the sun off them both, and it was of no sort of consequence that they had nothing more interesting than the back of a shed to look at. Future prospects ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... 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 ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... ground, she asked her nurse, "What is the name of that youth I showed thee?"; and the good woman answered, "His name is Uns al-Wujud;" whereat Rose-in-Hood shook her head and lay down on her couch, with thoughts a-fire for love. Then, sighing deeply, she improvised these couplets, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... more talk of this kind over the hastily improvised meal, and small wonder for it. In a town of less than a thousand inhabitants, nearly thirteen hundred troops, with their inevitable camp followers, were forcibly quartered, filling every house and every barn, to the dire discomfort of the people. As if this in itself were not ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... with water-proof covering. For the most part their only protection from the wet was a thin covering of sheeting tacked upon improvised tent-poles. Through this the water poured as through a sieve, wetting the bedding and soaking the ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... cork, smelt at the contents with caution. It contained a curious sort of liquor, apparently home made, which saved their lives that morning. Then the Doctor, after many amusing efforts to clean himself in a bucket, went off to the improvised hospital that had been set ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... assert, he had to create the French language. Her most striking expressions are her own—newly coined, not taken from the vocabulary in usage. Her style cannot be duplicated, and for this reason she has few imitators. Her letters show that they were improvised—her pen doing, alone, the work over which she seemed to have no control when communicating with her daughter; to the latter she said: "I write prose with a facility ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... Matilda, with their two doll visitors, sat gravely round the table, in the laps of their little mistresses; and Katy, putting on an apron and an improvised cap, and speaking Irish very fast, served them with a repast of rolls and cocoa, raspberry jam, and delicious little almond cakes. The fun waxed fast and furious; and Lieutenant Worthington, coming in with his hands full of parcels for the Christmas-tree, was just in time to hear Katy remark in ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... nicely; but no sooner had the first green leaves expanded than myriads of little flea-like beetles devoured them. A timely article in my horticultural paper explained that if little chickens were allowed to run in the garden they would soon destroy these and other insects. Therefore I improvised a coop by laying down a barrel near the radishes and driving stakes in front of it to confine the hen, which otherwise, with the best intentions, would have scratched up all my sprouting seeds. Hither we brought ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... did not start back. He stopped and looked down with a smile at the steel barrier the soldiers had improvised for him, then drew himself a little up, carried his hand carelessly to his cap, which was nearly in two, and gave the name of an officer in the ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... 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 ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... any glance at the huddle that lay on an improvised sofa-bed, she said: "It can't live, ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... Sunday, as it were, a papier-mache pergola of green lattice-work and more cotton-back May blossoms had sprung up as if the great god Wotan had built it with a word. Cascades of summer linens, the apple green and the butter yellow, flowed from counters and improvised tables. Sadie Barnet's own mid-aisle bin had blossomed into a sacrificial sale of lawn remnants, and toward the close of the day her stock lay ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... and pathetic; but the intervening action is of a kind which too often aims at the tragic and hits the burlesque. The incessant inconstancy of passion which hurries the fantastic heroine through such a miscellaneous multitude of improvised intrigues is rather a comic than a tragic motive for the conduct of a play; and the farcical rapidity with which the puppets revolve makes it impossible for the most susceptible credulity to take any real interest ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... 4, I left Bloemfontein with Lord Roberts's army, and shortly after joined the IX. Division, with which I journeyed until the commencement of June, seeing a good deal of scattered work in the field and Field hospitals, and in the small temporary improvised hospitals in the towns of Winberg, Lindley, and Heilbron. Early in June I left Heilbron with Lord Methuen's division, and spent the next four weeks with this division in the field. Thence I journeyed to Pretoria and ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... copper wire among the spokes of the wheel, in fastening the emery cloth over the fairly sharp rim so that it stayed in place when he started his power and in about two revolutions it cut a piece of wire with which he tested the power of his improvised ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... with a kind wish to console Madelon, she became so encouraging, so certain he would be well again in a few weeks—in a few weeks did she say?—in a few days—with this clever English doctor, who, as she improvised for the occasion, everyone knew was one of the first doctors in London—with all this Madame so encouraged and cheered our Madelon, that she came upstairs again at the end of an hour looking quite bright, and almost expecting to see some wonderful change for the better in her father. M. ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... had improvised staff-quarters at the Grand Hotel, and the nomination of Admiral Saisset, together with M. Schoelcher and Langlois, had strengthened the enmity of the two parties. The Central Committee, seeing the danger which threatened, announced that ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... the early colonists and many of the later settlers against forms of worship imposed by political authority was violent. Seeking for a logical basis, it planted itself on the assumption that no form (unless an improvised form) is permitted in public worship, except such as are sanctioned by express word of Scripture. In their sturdy resolution to throw off and break up the yoke, which neither they nor their fathers had been able to bear, of ordinances and traditions complicated with not ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... 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 was temporarily in ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... luck attendant of the coincidence of his course with the moment at which the proceeding hither and yon to the tune of almost any "happy thought," and in the interest of almost any branch of culture or invocation of response that might be more easily improvised than not, could positively strike the observer as excessive, as in fact absurd, for the formation of taste or the enrichment of genius, unless the principle of these values had in a particular connection been subjected ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... words. The first part of it, of which the poor murdered Samson had been the eloquent witness, needed no further telling. He had done his brave best—poor fellow—but Tobias had had six men with him, and it was soon over. Her they had gagged and bound and carried in a sort of improvised sedan-chair; Tobias had done the thing with a certain style and—she had ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... costly thing, and a troublesome thing when appliances and means have to be improvised. It was, in part, the understanding she had gained of this side of the life of poverty that made Amy shrink in dread from the still narrower lodgings to which Reardon invited her. She knew how subtly one's self-respect can be undermined by sordid conditions. The difference between ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... 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, ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... number of the things I had counted on procuring at the posts were not to be had—the stores being almost empty of supplies. However, M. Duclos and Mr. Cotter of the Hudson's Bay Company cheerfully raided their own domiciles to supply my lack; substitutes were improvised, and shortly after noon on Tuesday the outfit was completed and loaded into the canoes. To my great satisfaction they were found to carry the load easily, riding well ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... ones go away chuckling secretly over something they never gave. It is a confused and unintelligible waste of time. It will be enough to paint, to talk, to sip tea, to wander about proselyting in behalf of improvised Gods. I will divert myself, making love to women out of range of their bedrooms. I will engage them conversationally and ravish them with erect and quivering adjectives. It is not necessary to undress a woman to know her. She reveals herself almost ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... full daylight and wood had been carried from the trees to build fires. Mary, one of the volunteer cooks, was asking two men to carry her some water when he approached. The smaller man picked up one of the clumsy containers, hastily improvised from canvas, and started toward the creek. The other, a big, thick-chested man, ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... idle noon periods, the crew lay about on gunny sacks under improvised awnings, with a man posted on ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... agreed that we would do something to astonish the natives, so we ordered an open barouche, which we saw in the yard, with four horses. We got out our flags, and improvised another for Spellman; these we secured to sticks, which we cut from the roadside. Toby trumpeting like a young elephant, we waving our flags and shouting at the top of our voices, up we dashed in gallant style to the hall door, and I believe did ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... are—Crene's dark eyes seen it tilting up into a baggage-crate and trundling off towards the Green Mountains, but too late. Of course there was a formidable hitch in the programme. A court of justice was improvised on the car-steps. I was the plaintiff, Crene chief evidence, baggage-master both defendant and examining-counsel. The case did not admit of a doubt. There was the little insurmountable check whose brazen lips could ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... Commencements I was bold enough to invite the Rev. E. Winchester Donald, D.D., rector of Trinity Church, Boston, to preach the Commencement sermon. As we then had no room large enough to accommodate all who would be present, the place of meeting was under a large improvised arbour, built partly of brush and partly of rough boards. Soon after Dr. Donald had begun speaking, the rain came down in torrents, and he had to stop, while someone held an ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington |
