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More "Impromptu" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... plumes, moccasins, and all—gives us complimentary seats, and eats the better half of our dinner. This incident is a source of pride to ourself beyond any thing experienced by any urchin besides. We boast of it frequently, and, being disliked therefor, commit several impromptu scalpings ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... words were enunciated with immense importance, as he stopped his impromptu dance before the chair where his sober cousin Fanny was patiently working at her crochet; but she did not look so much affected by the announcement as the boy seemed to demand, so he again exclaimed, "And then, Miss Fanny, I ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... soldiers. They were promptly overpowered, disarmed, and their muskets used in disarming their friends who were panic stricken by the vigorous onslaught, and soon succumbed to Jack's bellicose persuasiveness. It then became an easy task to carry out the impromptu plan of campaign of putting each soldier into his sentry-box and casting both him and the box into the running stream. The call for help was unavailing; none came, and soon no voices were heard, but the following day the funeral knell was sounded by the roar of the cannon from the gunboats, ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... of guests arrived from the hall below, and went into the great drawing-room, where the audience was to sit. "After all," says I, "this is just his lordship's bit of fun—he's giving one of those impromptu parties we've heard so much about, and this play-acting is the surprise of it." You shall see presently ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... at one of his impromptu tea parties. We all took it for granted that his wife knew we were coming, and that her preparations were already made. Surrounded by half a dozen children, she was performing the last act in the opera of Lullaby, wholly unconscious of the invasion downstairs. But Mr. Garrison was equal ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... continued speaking. From now on he knew only Germans, he said, no differences of party, creed, religion or social position, and he requested the party leaders to give him their hands as a pledge that they all would stand by him "in Not und Tod"—in death and distress. This scene was entirely impromptu, and thus so much more impressive and touching. And it was hardly over when the Reichstag—an unheard of proceeding in such surroundings—began to sing the German national hymn, "Heil Dir im Siegerkranz." ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... moralising never deduct a grain! Vaudemont felt this as he saw her glide towards the beggar; but when she came bounding back to him, she had forgotten his dislike to her songs, and was chaunting, in the glee of the heart that a kind act had made glad, one of her own impromptu melodies. ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hour preceding dinner, which was, of course, a serious function. But ours was a valiant company, and supper was a seventh meal achieved by many. The orchestra seemed never far away; games were numerous (here again I had hopelessly neglected my education), and at night there were concerts, impromptu dances, and balls that ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... earthenware jug of water served the whole party. Yet this man was the owner of several square miles of land, of which nearly every acre would produce corn, and, with a little trouble, all the common vegetables. The evening was spent in smoking, with a little impromptu singing, accompanied by the guitar. The signoritas all sat together in one corner of the room, and did not sup with ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... without some contribution, while the male frolicked about the trees in his brilliant orange and black, whistling his warm rich notes, and seeming like a dash of southern sunshine amidst the blossoms. Sometimes he stopped in his frolic to find a bit of string, over which he raised an impromptu jubilate, or to fly with his mate to the nest, uttering that soft rich twitter of his in a mixture of blarney and congratulation whenever she found some particularly choice material. But his chief part seemed to be to furnish the celebration, while ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... and old-country ballads. Of church music there was nothing worth speaking of or listening to in the Methodist conventicles of those days, so that he brought an absolutely open mind to a consideration of Miss Clairville's voice and method when he first heard her sing. That had been one evening in an impromptu and carelessly inadequate manner in company with Miss Cordova—whom, with her bleached hair, green eyes accentuated by badly-drawn, purplish-black eyebrows, and a shrill American accent, he was learning to dislike and avoid as much as possible; but now a better ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... sail from shore to shore are like giant theaters. Every trip is an impromptu drama where comedy, farce, and often startling tragedy offer large speaking parts. The revelation of human nature in the original package is funny and pathetic. Amusement is always on tap and life stories ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... them; garlands of flowers, transparencies, flags, and the other insignia of rejoicing, were everywhere in preparation, and, at the end of Sackville-street, a considerable erection, very much resembling an impromptu gallows, was being built, for the purpose, as I afterwards learnt, of giving the worshipful the lord mayor the opportunity of opening the city gates to royalty; creating the obstacle where none existed; being a very ingenious ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... arm across Hawthorne's broad shoulders when they reappeared. There is one pleasure, indeed, which young people cannot know, and that is, the meeting of old friends. Mrs. Hawthorne was favorably impressed with Franklin Pierce's personality; while Horatio Bridge danced about and acted an impromptu pantomime, making up faces like an owl. They assured Hawthorne that something should be done to relieve his financial ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... to regard the rebellion of 1837 in Lower Canada as no less a fiasco than its counterpart in Upper Canada. There is no doubt that it was hopeless from the outset. {102} It was an impromptu movement, based upon a sudden resolution rather than on a well-reasoned plan of action. Most of the leaders—Wolfred Nelson, Thomas Storrow Brown, Robert Bouchette, and Amury Girod—were strangers to the men under their ...
— The 'Patriotes' of '37 - A Chronicle of the Lower Canada Rebellion • Alfred D. Decelles
... Players gives us good reason to believe that Shakspere must have been an excellent trainer, however modest may have been his own native gifts as an actor. Moliere, like Shakspere in so many ways, was like him in being author and actor and manager; and in the 'Impromptu de Versailles' he has left us a most instructive record of his own methods of rehearsing his ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... meditatively, "if I hadn't better rig up something evening-like for the dance to-night. If you could let me borrow a white muslin curtain, I could easily rig it up into an impromptu dance frock." ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... beforehand. Conversation is, as the name implies, the principal occupation for the time, and where literary people are gathered together, or those engrossed in scientific matters, the sole one. For parties of young people, however, the conversazione admits of music and impromptu dances. ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... Piccadilly and Bermondsey, in Blackwall and Oxford Street, were gathered bundles of hilarity, lingering near the scenes of their recent splendours. A thousand sounds, now of revelry, now of complaint, disturbed the brooding calm of the sky. A thousand impromptu concerts were given, and a thousand insults grew precociously to blows. A thousand old friendships were shattered, and a thousand new vows of eternal comradeship and blood-brotherhood were registered. A thousand wives were waiting, sullen ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... to Mr. Meighen for the cordiality with which he greeted me, as the inventive Canadian press had added impromptu reflections of their own to what I had said of him. I sat next to Mr. MacKenzie King, but as we had no opportunity of private conversation, he invited me to go to his house ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... histrions had, to please their audience, retorts, funny answers, witticisms, merry tales, which they acted rather than told, for gestures accompanied the delivery. This part of the amusement, which came nearest the drama, sharp repartees, impromptu dialogues, is the one we know least about. Voices have long been silent, and the great halls which heard them are now but ivy-clad ruins, yielding no echo. Some idea, however, can be formed ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... as gaily as if she had known them both all her life, she introduced them to Pa. Pa, whose youngest daughter was just now in high favour, was mildly pleased with the invasion. This impromptu hospitality smacked of prosperity, of worldliness. He went stiffly into the study with John, to bore the poet with an old volume about California: "From ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... command of the Bounty. The language attributed to Bligh reads like a translation into the vernacular, but if Christian kept his designs to himself, it is strange that they were immediately understood and acted upon by a body of impromptu conspirators. Testimony, whether written or spoken, with regard to the succession of events "in moments like to these," is worth very little; but it is pretty evident that Christian was a gentleman, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... several times adverted to the subject of epigrams. A clever impromptu of this class has been recorded as given by a judge's lady in reply to one made by the witty Henry Erskine at a dinner party at Lord Armadale's. When a bottle of claret was called for, port was brought in by mistake. A ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... 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 sermon as usual, he gave an impromptu address relating to the event of the early morning. Its bearing was very religious, and it was as eloquent as it was ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... grim joy parlor; rough old floor, bristly with splinters, few windows, no plank walk, no stage, no partitions, no lighting. We hung tin reflectored lanterns on a few of the posts,—thicker near the stage end,—and opened the season with an impromptu opera of the Brontes'." To Professor Charlotte F. Roberts, Wellesley '80, the Barn Swallows ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... enough for the editor of the "Friendship's Offering" if he could gather for his Christmas bouquet a little pastoral story, suppose, by Miss Mitford, a dramatic sketch by the Rev. George Croly, a few sonnets or impromptu stanzas to music by the gentlest lovers and maidens of his acquaintance, and a legend of the Apennines or romance of the Pyrenees by some adventurous traveler who had penetrated into the recesses of their mountains, and would modify ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... is an interim in the life of man when he passes away from safety pins, and, for a season, knows them not—save as mere convenience in case of breakdown. He thinks of them, in his antic bachelor years, as merely the wrecking train of the sartorial system, a casual conjunction for pyjamas, or an impromptu hoist for small clothes. Ah! with humility and gratitude he greets them again later, seeing them at their true worth, the symbol of integration for the whole social fabric. Women, with their intuitive wisdom, are more subtle ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... Arthur moved a few steps forward and waited for the gendarmes, who came clattering along, followed by a shivering crowd of servants in various impromptu costumes. As the soldiers surrounded Arthur, the master and mistress of the house brought up the rear of this strange procession; he in dressing gown and slippers, she in a long peignoir, with her hair ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... please her distinguished guests speedily displayed itself in a very plentiful, if not very dainty repast. To the duckling, peas, and other delicacies, intended for Mr. Kneebone's special consumption, she added a few impromptu dishes, tossed off in her best style; such as lamb chops, broiled kidneys, fried ham and eggs, and toasted cheese. Side by side with the cheese (its never-failing accompaniment, in all seasons, at the ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... I guess I always have an everlasting grin on. Had to live up to my name, you see, in spite of my naturally cantankerous disposition; But come this way, ma'am, I can see the hunger sticking out of those youngsters' eyes. We'll have a sort of impromptu picnic here and now, I'll tell my housekeeper to send ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Cockney, and English provincialisms—was awful and wonderful. Nothing was better than to get our uncle on his 'genteel behaviour,' which, of course, meant exactly the opposite, and brought forth inimitable stories, scraps of old songs and impromptu conversations, the choicest of which were between children, Irishwomen, or cockneys. He was the only man, I believe, who ever knew by heart the famous Irish Court Scenes—naughtiest and most humorous of ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... looks! He is the life and soul of every party, and his impromptu singing after supper will make you die of laughing. He is meditating an impromptu now, and at the same time thinking about a bill that is coming due ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... crowd had gathered about an impromptu speaker in the Ringstrasse, not far from the Hotel Bristol, in Vienna, one pleasant August evening in 1914. His theme was the military prowess of Austria-Hungary ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... you much—the thing Is hardly novel to your life; And, sans the feast and marriage ring, You make a good impromptu wife. ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... travelled man of fastidious tastes and with ample means to gratify them, proved a delightful host. In his earlier days he had been a constant diner-out; he understood the ordering of impromptu meals, and he had that decision and air which inspires respect even in a head-waiter. He marshalled his little party to the table reserved for them, waved away the table d'hote card, and ordered his dishes and wine ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... returned the little maiden, and going to the piano she dashed off a wild, impassioned, mixed-up impromptu, resembling now the soft notes of the lute or the plaintive sob of the winter wind, and then swelling into a full, rich, harmonious melody, which made the blood chill in Edith's veins, and caused both Richard and Arthur ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... before one the visible symbol of life, where every little variegated tag has a meaning that goes to the heart of the universe. For each of these insignificant little things of life stretches far beyond itself—like a certain Impromptu of Schubert's, which begins as though it might be a cradle song in a nursery and ends like the music of the starry sphere which carries the world ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... prophet, upon whom the Spirit of the Lord had come, "the Golden Shoemaker" turned and preached, from the living text of his besotted friend, a telling impromptu Temperance sermon to the motley crowd. The whole incident was quite unpremeditated. He had never dreamt that he would do such a thing as he was doing now. But that by no means lessened the effect of his burning words, which went home to the hearts, and even to the consciences of not a few of ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... This lively little impromptu sketch had the desired effect. Melted by the woes of Belinda, or Sophia, or Amelia, or Lavinia Paget, Mrs. Sheldon was moved to relate a sad event in her husband's family; and encouraged by the almost tearful sympathy of the Captain, she again repeated every detail of Susan ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... reached its conclusion, and we all returned together, on the foreign plan, to coffee and cigars in the drawing-room. The women smoked, and drank liqueurs as well as coffee, with the men. One of them went to the piano, and a little impromptu ball followed, the ladies dancing with their cigarettes in their mouths. Keeping my eyes and ears on the alert, I saw an innocent-looking table, with a surface of rosewood, suddenly develop a substance of green ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... pleasure to get your last letter, for these little impromptu effusions are the genuine letters. I rejoice that man and nature seem harmonious to you, and that the heart beats in unison with the voices of Spring. May all that is manly, sincere, and pure, in your wishes, be realized! Obliged to live myself without the sanctuary of the central ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... possibly there were any the least foundation for Mrs. Barclay's scruples and fears. But it was no longer in his power. The Caruthers family had altered their plans; and instead of going abroad in the spring, had taken their departure with the first of December, after an impromptu wedding of Julia to her betrothed. Mr. Dillwyn did not seriously believe that there was anything his plan had to fear from this side; nevertheless he preferred not to move in the dark; and he waited. Besides, he must allow time for the work he had sent Mrs. Barclay to do; to hurry matters ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... 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]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the joint caucus he escorted Madeleine to the council-chamber, where the new Governor was holding his impromptu reception. There were no shadows on the faces which pressed closely around him. All the politicians of the State were there, eager to be the first to congratulate him. Their fears had been somewhat allayed. In political circles it was well ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... rallying she had provoked, she talked incessantly about going back to St. Ebbe's, where, however, she was not yet due. A longer leave of absence had been granted to her, in consideration of the fact that her holiday had been mainly spent in hard work in the impromptu hospital at Redcross. She would not have accepted the additional grant apart from the circumstance that Harry Ironside was in London. Annie admitted to herself, in the secret recesses of her heart, that now it had come to this, she would fain have passed these last precious ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... here, as everywhere else, appear to prefer associating with their own countrymen to frequenting the houses of their Spanish friends, even although quite sure of a cordial reception there. The time for visiting is in the evening, when there are numbers of impromptu conversaziones—or tertulias, as they are called—of which the Dons are very fond, and in which very many ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... stop to consider what to say or do, her refuge was always in the impromptu, and she was far more bent on forcing Mr. Prendergast to smile, and distracting herself from her one aching desire that the Irish journey had never been, than of forming any plan of action. In walking to the ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wise things, the world's opinion, as usual, veered completely round, and John Todhunter was esteemed a shrewd, sensible man—only not brilliant; that he was brilliant could not be said of him. In fact, the man could hardly talk, and it was a fortunate provision that no impromptu deliveries were required of him in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... coldness even has grown up between us, especially when we are alone.) But to-day I turn to her with a smile, and wave my hand for her to continue. "Go on, it amuses me to listen to your quaint little impromptu." It is singular that the music of this essentially merry people should be so plaintive. But undoubtedly that which Chrysantheme is playing at this moment is worth listening to. Whence can it have come to her? What unutterable dreams, forever hidden from me, fly ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... the literary soiree, the most profound silence has been maintained concerning it, neither of the wits there assembled having seen fit to celebrate it in rhyme, and Florio having actually torn up an impromptu for the occasion, that he had been ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... said Mrs. Rose, as she tucked up the impromptu beds. "It is Heavenly to sleep out here, but we older people dare not risk rheumatism. You'll love it, Dolly. Perhaps you'll hear an owl or two hooting you ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... few minutes after midnight when the party at Roselawn retired to their rooms. There had been an impromptu dance, following some spirited bridge, and there was more than the usual chaffing and laughter as the guests dispersed to the ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... by a sheet of verses which have been sold and resold, doubtless in perfect good faith, as being those to which the writer alludes. But Miss Browning has recognized them as her father's own impromptu epigrams, well remembered in the family, together with the occasion on which they were written. The substitution may, from ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... this auspicious moment, Mr. Guppy presents his friend under the impromptu name of Mr. Weevle and states the object of their visit. Krook, with his bottle under his arm (he never gets beyond a certain point of either drunkenness or sobriety), takes time to survey his proposed lodger and seems to approve of him. ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... several voices exclaimed that it certainly would; the young girls adding that they could crowd a little closer together without feeling it any inconvenience, and the captain saying laughingly that impromptu beds would have to be provided in the saloon for Chester and Frank, and he would join them there, so leaving a vacant place for her with his wife; and with a little more persuasion Annis accepted the invitation, knowing that she could be well spared for a time from the large circle of brothers and ...
— Elsie at the World's Fair • Martha Finley
... a little man, but he sits firmly in his stirrups," returned Harald Hardrada; and then, to cheer his men in their desperate case, he chanted aloud one of his impromptu war-songs: ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... HIM.—When the first stone of a new theatre in Cranbourne Street was laid the other day by some Magnates of the Theatrical Profession—beg pardon, "the Profession," we should have said—Mrs. BANCROFT made a telling impromptu speech, and then Mr. YARDLEY, ancient Cricketer and Modern Dramatist, was hit on the head—accidentally, of course—by the bottle which is in use on these occasions. "Very YARDLEY treated," observed Sir DRURIOLANUS, in his happiest vein. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 14th, 1891 • Various
... doors closed, leaving Cleek alone in the stable; and the last Logan and Sir Henry saw of him until he came out and rejoined them he was standing in the middle of the floor, with his hands on both hips, staring fixedly at the impromptu bed in ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... will admit, I trust," he added, with that peculiar smile at the corner of his lips, "that I have not in any way tried to come the heavy father? I can even command a certain amount of respect, Margaret, for a young man who is able to inaugurate his engagement by an impromptu meal of such perfection. I wish you both good morning. Any invitation which Margaret extends, Ledsam, please ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sounds had come from the interior of the to-hol-woh. But now the fat boy half rolled out, gasping for breath. Ned, having picked up a paddle that lay near this impromptu Turkish bath, administered a resounding slap on Stacy's anatomy, while Tad and Walter threw him ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... charming voice, his clever caricatures—for he had talent with his pencil—and his brilliant conversation, rather than to apply himself to routine work. His comrades used to lock him into a room to make him work, and even then he would outwit them by dashing off a witty parody or a bit of impromptu verse. Among his literary jeux d'esprit was an examination paper on 'Pickwick,' prepared as a Christmas joke in exact imitation of a genuine "exam." The prizes, two first editions of Pickwick, were won by W. W. Skeat, now famous as a philologist, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... a blighting effect these multitudinous preparations and ceremonies have upon the pleasures they profess to subserve. Who, on calling to mind the occasions of his highest social enjoyments, does not find them to have been wholly informal, perhaps impromptu? How delightful a picnic of friends, who forget all observances save those dictated by good nature! How pleasant the little unpretended gatherings of book-societies, and the like; or those purely accidental meetings of a few people well known to each other! Then, indeed, we may see that "a man sharpeneth ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... still rang with the plaudits of a delighted people; before Fern Fenwick could move towards her seat, George and Gertrude Gerrish and Fillmore Flagg all hastened to her side, to offer congratulations on the eloquence and excellence of her impromptu address. To the observer, it was plainly evident that the effect of such a stirring speech on the assembled co-operators was unusually impressive. They seemed to be inspired with a deeper reverence and a more perfect loyalty of devotion for this ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... back his composure he did a wise thing; for he followed Joan's advice: he made no more attempts at sham impromptu oratory, but read his speech straight from his "book." In the speech he compressed the Twelve Articles into six, and made these ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... before his face as he talked, and he would certainly have to use language much less lurid than he occasionally employed. William Clowes might have to abandon his practice of repeating a sentence over and over again in animated crescendo. Henry Higginson might be instructed not to lapse into impromptu rhyme in his Camp Meeting addresses. Joseph Spoor might be informed that if he wanted gymnastic exercises he must take them in private, and never by way of standing with one foot on the pulpit seat and the other on the book-board the while he illustrated, by means of a roll of ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... waif he had picked up as soon as possible in the care of a mother, even such an extraordinary, incredible mother as Mrs. "Bal" MacDonald: a good plan for the girl's sake, and for everybody's sake, because it was arranged to start for Scotland the day after to-morrow. Still, Barrie's impromptu ode to the heather moon had for a moment irradiated his mind with a light such as had not shone for Somerled on land or sea since he had become rich enough to afford the most expensive lighting. Then as quickly it had died down. He saw himself spinning agreeably through Scottish ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... accepting the invitation, for both the lady and the lion. They would arrive that afternoon, as little preparation was needed for this impromptu journey, the novelty of which was its chief ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... guest at a good many dinners in the course of his experience, dinners of all sorts and of varying degrees of formality. Club dinners, college-class dinners, "stag" dinners at imposing hotels and cafes, impromptu dinners hurriedly arranged by three or four fellows in for a good time, dinners at which women were present, more at which they were not—these were everyday affairs with him. But, strange to say, the one sort of dinner with which he was not familiar was that of the family type—the ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... to hanker for the rumble and grumble of the busy mill, and the solemn murmur of the millstones and the machinery are music to me. More so than the solemn murmur of the proprietor used to be when he came in at an inopportune moment, and in that impromptu and extemporaneous manner of his, and found me admiring the wild and beautiful scenery. He may have been a good miller, but he had no love for the beautiful. Perhaps that is why he was always so cold and cruel toward me. My slender, willowy grace and mellow, bird-like voice never ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... thought it was tracts! An' yet some'ow I didn't." Mr. Pyecroft nodded his head wonderingly. "Our old man was quite right—so was 'Op—so was I. 'Ere, Glass!" He kicked the Marine. "Here's our Antonio 'as written a impromptu book! He ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... independent of the author, buys his merriest stories, his most up-to-the-instant jests, ready-made from the writer who works like a marionette's master pulling the strings. The two-act, which sometimes seems like a funny impromptu fight, is the result of the writer's careful thinking. The flirtatious couple who stroll out on the stage to make everyone in the audience envious, woo Cupid through the brain of their author. And the musical comedy, with its strong combination of nearly everything; is but the embodied ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... houses, moodily frowning at the other houses over the way. The sleepiest and shabbiest of soldiery go wandering about, with the double curse of laziness and poverty, uncouthly wrinkling their misfitting regimentals; the dirtiest of children play with their impromptu toys (pigs and mud) in the feeblest of gutters; and the gauntest of dogs trot in and out of the dullest of archways, in perpetual search of something to eat, which they never seem to find. A mysterious and ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... you think of these verses, my friends? Is that piece an impromptu? said my landlady's daughter. (Aet. 19. Tender-eyed blonde. Long ringlets. Cameo pin. Gold pencil-case on a chain. Locket. Bracelet. Album. Autograph book. Accordeon. Reads Byron, Tupper, and Sylvanus Cobb, junior, while her mother makes the puddings. Says, "Yes?" when ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... the end," he said with a creditable impromptu. "The wife said—'No, you're mistaken. Your Festival's only beginning. You get no supper. It's the commencement of ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... line to Sydney. Song and story helped to cheer the long and somewhat tiring journey. During a sort of lull in the proceedings Claud looked up and said: "Here, Bill, can't you recite us some of that impromptu sort of doggerel that you get into the Sydney weeklies now ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... this impromptu trip to the Centennial proved to be one of the most timely acts of his life. On the following Sunday after-noon the judges were to make a special tour of inspection, and Mr. Hubbard, after much trouble, had obtained a promise that ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... He was out for a short time at the station and returned with the luggage which he had left there. While he was away I stole into my room and took a good look at my new treasure; he still slept peacefully and calmly on. We were deep in impromptu carpentering and contrivances for use and comfort, when it occurred to me to ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... Olive had drawn The Landing of the Pilgrims on the largest of the blackboards, and Nancy had written a merry little story that caused great laughter and applause in the youthful audience. Gilbert had taken part in a debate and covered himself with glory, and Kathleen closed the impromptu ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... where the grievance is so plain that virtually without leadership the same reaction takes place in many people. But even in these rudimentary cases there are persons who know what they want to do more quickly than the rest, and who become impromptu ringleaders. Where they do not appear a crowd will mill about aimlessly beset by all its private aims, or stand by fatalistically, as did a crowd of fifty persons the other day, and watch a ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... for suddenly the slant of the deck was reversed, and they came coasting down to an impromptu seat on a bench. ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... best—false shame, indeed!—that ruined English society and English talk. Let everybody take a lesson from the French! After which the lists were opened, so to speak, and Lady Dunstable, Meadows, the Dean, and about half the young people produced elegant pieces of translation, astounding copies of impromptu verse, essays in all the leading styles of the day, and riddles by the score. The Home Secretary, who had been lassoed by his hostess, escaped towards the middle of the ordeal, and wandered sadly into a further room ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... cannot however conceive a more interesting piece of work, if not yet done, than the collection of sifted earliest fragments known of rymed song in European languages. Of Eastern I know nothing; but, this side Hellespont, the substance of the matter is all given in King Canute's impromptu ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... In this amazing, impromptu, new, and hurried machine civilization which we have been piling up around us for a hundred years we have made machines out of everything, and our one consummate and glaring failure in the machines we have made is the machine we have ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... tumbled to William as well, for he increased the revolutions to one hundred and forty per minute and broke into a shrill lullaby of his own impromptu composition:— ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... on the sofa beside you, make her give you an account of Francis's play, Catiline, which he and Fanny, and Harriet and Sophy, and James Moilliet and Pakenham got up without our being in the secret, and acted the night before last, as it were impromptu, to our inexpressible surprise and pleasure. Francis, during his holidays with us in London, used to be often scribbling something; but I never inquired or guessed what it was. Fanny and Harriet, in the midst of ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... A melody occurs to the composer, which he certainly connects with no act of the reason, which he is probably unconscious of connecting with any movement of his feeling, but which nevertheless is the form in sound of an emotional mood. When he reflects upon the melody secreted thus impromptu, he is aware, as we learn from his own lips, that this work has correspondence with emotion. Beethoven calls one symphony Heroic, another Pastoral; of the opening of another he says, 'Fate knocks at the door.' Mozart sets comic words to the mass-music of a friend, in order to mark ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... Kwann can hang a lot of rags, bones and old iron onto himself, go through some impromptu mummery, and set up as shoonoo? Well, he can't. The shoonoon are a hereditary caste. A shoonoo father will begin teaching his son as soon as he can walk and talk, and he keeps on teaching him till he's the age-equivalent of a graduate M.D. ...
— Oomphel in the Sky • Henry Beam Piper
... the cheery surroundings of the half-settled, half-nomadic life of our military people in the East. There were the 'coffee house' after the morning ride, the gathering round the bandstand in the evening, the impromptu dance, and the burra khana occasionally in the larger houses. A racecourse had been laid out, and there were 'sky' races and more formal meetings. And so 'as in the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... institution for colored young men, and formerly a missionary of the American Board in South Africa. It was a clear, thoughtful, and in every way admirable presentation of the qualifications of "The Man for the Age." Brief impromptu addresses were made by Rev. S. P. Smith, American Missionary Association pastor in Jackson, Mr. W. H. Lanier, of '81, Major Millsaps, one of the leading bankers of the State, Rev. S. C. Mounger, presiding elder of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, residing at Jackson, and Col. J. L. ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 48, No. 7, July, 1894 • Various
... decided to hold a calm, cool and collected council with himself. It was plain to his one-sided judgment that he was called upon to act, and to act immediately. But this was easier said than done. It is simple enough for a fellow to strike splendid chords on the piano, merely by ear, or in a moment of impromptu genius he may construct some wonderful little piece of mechanism; Guy felt that he could achieve countless feats such as these, but he'd be blessed if he could master a double-locked window, or door, through any innate talent, on a dark night, when every one is just ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... perhaps the squeaky voice of Little Jim, shouting "hooray, Bloater, go in an' win," may have aroused his sense of the ludicrous, which was very strong, and helped to check him. At all events, instead of bringing his broom down on the head of Mr Sparks, Bloater performed an impromptu war-dance round him and flourished his weapon with a rapidity that was only surpassed by the ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... our population living in a furnace, it happens now that when you rebel on being forced to take an impromptu Turkish bath at a theatre, the usher answers your complaint with “It can’t be as warm as you think, for a lady over there has just told me she felt chilly ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... beginning to fear the worst, and to look frightfully nervous and uncomfortable, a wonderful and beautiful expression came into her face, and her eyes lighted, and seemed to grow larger and darker all at the same time. And if there were any present who had regarded the impromptu wedding as something of a joke, these now had their minds changed for them in the quickest kind of a jiffy. And if there were any present who doubted of the beauty and dignity of love, these had their minds changed for them, too. And they knew that they were witnesses, not to a silly elopement, ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... the meaning of a thing at a glance, and it was soon perceived that, in addition to her extraordinary and very remarkable beauty, she was also a genius, or almost that, for she had a natural talent for all sorts of things: for music, which she could already play impromptu, bringing out wild melodies on the piano to which her hearers felt they could go on listening for ever. Of course, the mistresses were supposed not to approve of this sort of playing, and tried to tie Irene down to the usual exercises and the different ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... Now let us go to lunch. Quite impromptu, you know, billy and pannikins," she added, with a light laugh, as ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... to the guard of the Emperor Alexander. At the end of this exceedingly gay and fraternal banquet, each French soldier exchanged uniforms with a Russian, and promenaded thus before the eyes of the Emperors, who were much amused by this impromptu disguise. ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... a slate; and silence prevailed till the church clock struck the half-hour, when Clement got up, and taking the slate, where he had been solacing himself with imitating Edgar's caricatures, he was about to make it an impromptu dust-pan, and went down on his knees to sweep up Fulbert's malicious litter, but was rewarded with a vicious kick on the cheek. It was under the table, out of sight; and Clement, like a true son of his mother, made no sign, but went off ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that Mr. Dallas looked very wise on a certain occasion, his Lordship is said to have broke out into the following impromptu."—Life, Writings, Times, and Opinions of Lord ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... you his request was refused, that his regiment was even then embarking to cross the Delaware, and that therefore he could not return, whatever his wish. The Twenty-sixth is under orders to follow at daybreak to-morrow, and so we plan an impromptu farewell supper this evening at my quarters. Will you forgive such brief notice and help to cheer our sorrow with ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... The time when we didn't prepare our impromptu effects beforehand and copyright our remarks about ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... dancing, except at Buckingham Palace under proper supervision. And then she got up on the piano and gave them an organ monkey; I gather she went in for realism rather than a Maeterlinckian treatment of the subject. Finally, she fell into the piano and said she was a parrot in a cage, and for an impromptu performance I believe she was very word-perfect; no one had heard anything like it, except Baroness Boobelstein who has attended sittings of the Austrian Reichsrath. Agatha is trying the Rest-cure ...
— Reginald • Saki
... at one end of the room is the crowd of American students singing in a chorus. The table is full now, for many have come from dinners at other cafes to join them. At one end, and acting as interlocutor for this impromptu minstrel show, presides one of the best fellows in the world. He rises solemnly, his genial round face wreathed in a subtle smile, and announces that he will sing, by earnest request, that popular ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... pearls on the water, sailed down the swift eddies and then vanished in the next whirlpool. A couple of orioles in brand-new yellow uniforms, with black epaulets on their shoulders, were busy in the tree over our heads, but stopped now and then in their work to refresh themselves with a little impromptu duet. ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... a good reception; but Asker who well knew his majesty's passion for poetry, and particularly of that kind which sings the royal praises, had long since foreseen the event, and had provided himself with an impromptu, which he had composed even when he was living an exile among the Turcomans. This he repeated at the proper moment; and thus the tide of the king's favour, which was running full against him, he entirely turned, ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... carry outside and pile neatly at the blind end of the building all the boards, boxes and other debris littering up the room, swept it, and selected two packing cases and nailed them up into a convenient impromptu desk, manufactured a bench seat out of some loose boards, set his pen, ink and paper in order, and ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... fashion, a woman who consented after much pressing to sing a ballad learned by heart in a month of hard practice. Incapable though he was of any feeling for poetry, he would boldly ask permission to retire for ten minutes to compose an impromptu, and return with a quatrain, flat as a pancake, wherein rhyme did duty for reason. M. du Chatelet had besides a very pretty talent for filling in the ground of the Princess' worsted work after the flowers had been begun; he held her skeins of silk with infinite grace, entertained ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... threatened, he would soon find himself standing alone. She promised the gentleman that she would repeat to her husband what he had said, and as soon as he had gone seized her pencil and wrote the following impromptu, which serves well to illustrate her firm persistence in any course she believes right, as well as ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... been the object of Lanstron's attention now became the object of theirs. It was good to see a woman, a woman of the Browns, after their period of separation from feminine society. She found herself holding an impromptu reception. She heard some other self answering their polite questions; while a fear, a new kind of fear, was taking hold of her real self; a fear inexplicable, insidiously growing. Lanstron was still in the officers' minds after his strange appearance and stranger ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... had had its share of troubles of fist and gun, most of them were entirely impromptu affairs. Here was a fight in the offing for which the stage was set, the actors set in full view of a conveniently posted audience, and all the suspense of a curtain rising. The waiting bore in upon Andy Lewis. Without a doubt he intended to kill his ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... be dispensed with, in a meeting so unexpected and so eventful. When the pleasant impromptu meal was over, even the Senora had eaten and drunk with enjoyment. Then Luis set the table behind them, and they drew closer to the fire, Luis holding Isabel's hand, and Antonia her mother's. The Senora took a cigarette from Luis, and Isabel sometimes ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... reminiscently. "I suppose I do," she admitted. "Ever since I can remember, I've looked upon life as a big impromptu stunt. I got ready for a year abroad once in half an hour, and I gave the American ambassador to Italy what he said was the nicest party he'd ever been to on three hours' notice, one night when mother was ill and father ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... enough expressive of our pleasure. But our manners both are a little too much on this side of too-much-cordiality. We want presence of mind and presence of heart. What we feel comes too late, like an after thought impromptu. But perhaps you observed nothing of that which we have been painfully conscious of, and are, every day, in our intercourse with those we stand affected to through all the degrees of love. Robinson is on the Circuit. Our Panegyrist ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... quietly; to look, in spite of her coster costume, the picture of suburban innocence, and pink and white propriety; to stand facing her audience for a second of time, motionless and in perfect gravity—it was a trick that, though Poppy never varied it, had a more killing effect than the most ingenious impromptu. ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... Theophile to be burnt with his book, Le Parnasse des Poetes Satyriques, but the author escaped with his burning in effigy, and with imprisonment in a dungeon. I am tempted to quote Theophile's impromptu reply to a man who asserted that all ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... party for the next Saturday was made up in this impromptu fashion, without one of the members realizing what an important occasion ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... morning, early, he was up at his mine, with Chatwourth's gun slung low on his leg; and while he remained there, to defend it against all comers, he held an impromptu reception. There was a rush of miners, to look at the mine and inspect the specimens of copper; and then shoestring promoters began to arrive, with proposals to stock the property. The Professor came up, his eyes staring and resentful; and old Bunker, overflowing ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... was a very poor affair, and consisted of several short scenes acted in the style of charades, with impromptu conversations, which mostly consisted of coarse jests and innuendoes; but the loud laughter of the spectators assured Alison that this style of thing was quite up to their level. She felt rather sickened at ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... some of the manuscripts he sent to the press—notably Mr. Sludge, the Medium —is proof positive that he did not work at each one of his poems at his highest level of patient industry. He was however in general a fastidious artist; much more so than is commonly supposed. He was one of our greatest impromptu poets, like Shakespeare, writing hot from the brain; he was not a polisher and reviser, like Chaucer and Tennyson. But he studied with care the sound of his words. Many years ago, Mrs. Le Moyne, who has done ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... particularly what Chopin played. He mentions three mazurkas in A flat major, B major, and A minor; three studies in A flat major, F minor, and C minor; the Ballade in A flat major; four nocturnes, one of which was that in F sharp minor; a prelude in D flat; and an impromptu in G (G flat major?). Maurice Bourges's account is not altogether free from strictures. He finds Chopin's ornamentations always novel, but sometimes mannered (manierees). He says: "Trop de recherche fine et minutieuse ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... trees twinkled pleasantly in the clear sunlight, the air was fresh and bracing and the snow mountains looked down upon the city like a visible realization of ideals." The presence of the visitors soon became known and an impromptu reception was held in the large waiting room of the station, which was beautified ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... prejudice and bigotry to his purpose, exceptionally unscrupulous in appealing to those baser motives that turn a meeting of citizens into a mob of barbarians, he should yet have won his case before a jury of the people. Mr. Lincoln was as far as possible from an impromptu politician. His wisdom was made up of a knowledge of things as well as of men; his sagacity resulted from a clear perception and honest acknowledgment of difficulties, which enabled him to see that the only durable triumph of political opinion is based, not on any abstract right, ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... were almost specifically named as the reason for this honor,—and Eads had not by any means lacked even earlier appreciation in England. Three years before, at a meeting of the British Association, he had been urged, nay pressed, to deliver an impromptu address on his works, both completed and projected. Nevertheless, it was not until after the Mersey report that the Albert Medal was conferred upon him. This medal, founded in 1862 in memory of the Prince Consort, is awarded annually by the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... Jessie sustained the character of The Queen of Hearts. The next morning's investigation disclosed that Miss Yelverton had smuggled the dresses into the school, and had amused herself by giving an impromptu fancy ball to her companions, in imitation of an entertainment of the same kind at which she had figured in a "court-card" quadrille at her aunt's ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... Their impromptu guide explained that this was the outgrowth of Australian politics. "Every town in Australia," said he, "is desirous of having some of the public money spent within its limits. It wants a courthouse, jail, or some other public edifice, and in order to secure ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... McKinley was nominated I moved that the nomination be made unanimous. The convention called for speech and platform so insistently that their call had to be obeyed. The following is an account from a newspaper of that date of my impromptu speech. The story which is mentioned in the speech was told to me as I was ascending the platform ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... Fielding's mind was not the clever, calculating thing that, at fifteen, he thought it. Her one simple idea was to be happy and, as a means to that end, to have people happy about her. His father, or Anne's father, could have told him that all her ideas were simple as feelings and impromptu. Impulse moved her, one moment, to seize on the faithful, defiant little heart of Anne, the next, to get up out of the sun. Anne's tears spoiled her bright world; but not for long. Coolness was now the important thing, not Anne and not Anne's mother. As for Eliot's ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... without demur, being very much alive to the fact that, as far as that contest is concerned, their destinies are in his hands, and that any bad behaviour in the ring will lose them the victory. But in an impromptu turn-up like this one, the combatants show a tendency to ignore the rules so carefully mapped out by the present Marquess of Queensberry's grandfather, and revert to the conditions of warfare under which Cribb and Spring won their battles. Kennedy and Walton, ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... kind of costuming and stage-setting. These can well be made in the school as a part of the manual training and sewing work. In giving the play, it will generally be better not to have pupils memorize the exact words of the book, but to depend upon the impromptu rendering of their parts. This method will contribute more largely to ...
— Children's Classics in Dramatic Form - Book Two • Augusta Stevenson
... those projected, that the orator of the evening, when his turn came, found the night too far advanced for his ordered speech, which would in other respects have been beside the mark. He accordingly, impromptu, delivered quite another speech, probably better than the one laboriously prepared in the seclusion of the closet. In the hurry and excitement of the moment he forgot to warn the Sheffield editor, with the consequence that the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... patched at elbows with gray; lumberman's boots, flat-footed, shapeless, with loose leather legs strapped just below the knee, and wrinkled like the hide of an ancient rhinoceros; and a soft brown hat with several holes in the crown, as if it had done duty, at some time in its history, as an impromptu target in a shooting-match. A red woollen scarf twisted about his loins gave a touch of ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... in the dressing tent then, being out in the big one doing their acts. Joe knew his way to Helen's room, having been there many times, for there would often be little impromptu gatherings in it to talk over ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... centre of an admiring group, tested the impromptu platform. He accepted a short riding whip handed up to him by Alf Warren with a truly professional flourish. Andy stood easy and erect, one hand on his hip. All that seemed lacking was the sawdust ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... Gilmer's. Indeed no other so widely recalls to me those whole years of disaster and chaos; the daily shock of their news, crashing in upon the brain like a shell into a roof; wail and huzza, camp-fire, litter and grave; battlefield stench; fiddle and flame; and ever in the midst these impromptu merrymakings to keep us from going stark mad, one and all,—as ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... giant battering-ram stove at the door and the middle bolt crashed. The flimsy impromptu barricade toppled, then swayed back into place and a shuddering sigh went up from the handful of white-faced men. One more drive, and the end ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... know of Robert Louis Stevenson I have learned from his books, and from one unexpected impromptu letter which he wrote to me years ago in friendly recognition of my own work. I add the testimonies of friends who may have been of less actual service to him than Mr Henley, but who surely loved him better and more lastingly. These do not represent him as the victim ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... not, however, very fond of any kind of impromptu excursion or picnic, and took part in them rather as grown-up people take part in children's games, with an air of kindly, but rather wearied, friendliness. He took interest in everything else, however. He discussed with Darya Mihailovna her plans for the estate, the education of her children, ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... route, recognized him; immediately, he was riding shoulder high. His bearers broke for the sidewalk, and down Market Street he went, a blue-and-gold serpentine dancing behind him. There was his first Jinks at the Bohemian club—an impromptu affair, thrown in between the revelling Christmas Jinks in the clubhouse and the formally artistic Midsummer High Jinks in the Russian River Grove. The Sire, noting his smile and figure, impressed him into service for a small part. This brought a ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... and he entered unobserved. The street before the hall was full of arguing, gesticulating men. Inside were other loudly talking knots, sweltering in the closeness of the place. In corners, small impromptu meetings were listening to harangues not on the evening's program. Already half the seats were taken by the less emotional, more stolid men, who were content to wait in silence for the real business of the meeting. There was an air of suspense, ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... most graceful and pleasing Rosalind. She acted with an earnestness worthy of a better cause, and afforded not a trace of the amateur. Of Miss VIOLET ARMBRUSTER as Hymen, I might say, with a friend who spent several hours in knocking off the impromptu— ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... house (puff); that's Puddingpote Bower (wheeze),' replied Crowdey slowly and pompously, adding an 'e' to the syllable, to make it sound better, the haddocks, hashed mutton, and all the horrors of impromptu hospitality ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... how the railroad has been pushed through this unwatered wilderness and haunt of savage tribes; how at each stage of the construction roaring, impromptu cities, full of gold and lust and death, sprang up and then died away again, and are now but wayside stations in the desert; how in these uncouth places Chinese pirates worked side by side with border ruffians and broken men from Europe, gambling, drinking, quarreling, ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... into a small room on the right of the hall—a room in which the remains of a cold, evidently impromptu supper lay on a table lighted by a shaded lamp. Two men had been partaking of that supper, but Levendale was alone. He gave his visitor another queer smile, and pointed, first to a chair and then ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... to these we find here and there impromptu lines which have no connexion with any song. Perhaps the best known are those which 'my lady Bowley' quotes in The Chimes, and which she had 'set to music on the ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... a day stand up, in the privacy of your room, and make an impromptu speech of two or three minutes. Select any subject which interests you. Aim at fluency of style rather than ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser
... make a man at home on a desert island. He had hardly returned from the marquee with the prize in his hand, when it began to be understood that Wiry Ben proposed to amuse the company, before the gentry went to dinner, with an impromptu and gratuitous performance—namely, a hornpipe, the main idea of which was doubtless borrowed; but this was to be developed by the dancer in so peculiar and complex a manner that no one could deny him the praise of originality. Wiry Ben's pride in his dancing—an accomplishment ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... vision. She saw herself begin a slow, sinuous dance: and stop suddenly in the middle of a figure, conscious that the dance was not impromptu, her own, but native—the same dance she had quitted but a few minutes gone. She had fallen into it naturally, the only expression of the dance she had ever seen or known, and that a stolen sweet. That was odd: when young people were joyous, they had to express ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... would be well now if instead of some of the provisions that are sent, cooking utensils should arrive. Fifty stoves arrived from Pittsburgh this morning, and it is said more are coming. At both the depots where the supplies are received and stored a big rope line encloses them in an impromptu yard so as to give room to those having the supplies in charge to walk around and see what they have got. On the inside of this line, too, stalk back and forth the soldiers with their rifles on their shoulders, and by the side of the lines pressing against the ropes ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... impulse. In the excitement of the moment he forgot danger, and the dastardly nature of the crimes gave him more than his usual amount of courage. He rushed at the chimney, and, regardless of soot and darkness, began an impromptu ascent. ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... comes rain! The sky grows dark, —Was that the roll of thunder? Hark! The shop affords a safe retreat, A chair extends its welcome seat, The tradesman has a civil look (I've paid, impromptu, for my book), The clouds portend a sudden shower, I'll read ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... short work of his impromptu meal. He seemed anxious to put an end to his housekeeper's affectionate interest in himself and his health, and to get her out of the room. She had nursed him nearly thirty years before, and the recollection that she had been very familiar with him when ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... have made so much difference in your eyes, though it makes all the difference between man and man in the eyes of the stupid vulgar. My genius has broken through the clouds of misfortune of late. A few happy impromptu verses I made on the Count de Flora's fall from his horse attracted attention. The count patronizes me. I am here now to learn the fate of an ode I have just composed for his lady's birthday. My ode was to have been set to music, and to ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... violence of speech or act, the impromptu meeting broke up. I was slow in falling asleep that night. My rage against the Mormon had left my brain in such a tingle that I was still awake when my father crawled into the wagon after a last round of the night-watch. They thought I slept, but I heard mother ask him if he ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... the common herd of London street musicians. With what an air of the drawing-room did he of the velvet coat help the singer into the cart, and with what elegant abandon and ultra-dilettantism did he light a cigarette, reseat himself at the piano, and weave Scots ballads into a charming impromptu! I confess I wrapped my shilling in a bit of paper and dropped it over the balcony with the wish that I knew the tragedy ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... place to the white radiance of the moon slowly climbing the warm heights of heaven. It was so quiet that the sound of waves and insects seemed like the softest whispers of nature. Rose and Edward had rowed down the bay for Helene, who usually accompanied them on their impromptu excursions by lake and wood. Seen in the pale brilliance of sky and water her loveliness had an almost unearthly quality, perfectly akin to the night, but giving her a strange effect of soft remoteness from her friends. The light from a brazier, fitted into a stanchion ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... "An impromptu plunge, I should call it," answered Harriet smiling. Then she glanced sharply out through the rear door of the cabin. Her eyes narrowed as she gazed. She rose from her cot and walked to the door, looking over ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... Well, say, I couldn't name it, or say whether it was a stew, fry or an omelet, but for an impromptu sample of fancy grub it was a little the tastiest article ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... the P. D.'s are the mainstay of the Boston Architectural Club and have accomplished considerable in other directions, having done very notable work in several of the Beaux-Arts Society's competitions. Their motto and seal shown in the other illustration is a remarkable example of impromptu decoration. ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Volume 01, No. 08, August 1895 - Fragments of Greek Detail • Various
... much amusement with an impromptu sleight- of-hand exhibition. The black audience clustered around Jim Pink in his pinstripe trousers and blue-serge coat. They exhibited not the least curiosity as to the mechanics of the tricks, but asked for more and still more, with the naive delight of children ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... thousand to listen to Social Democrats, Socialist Revolutionaries, Anarchists, anybody, whatever they had to say, as long as they would talk! For months in Petrograd, and all over Russia, every street-corner was a public tribune. In railway trains, street-cars, always the spurting up of impromptu debate, everywhere.... ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... very difficult guess," she observed to Nance. "If you had lived in the country and were subject to unexpected arrivals, you'd know just how to go about getting up an impromptu meal for a lot ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... centre of the Cyclades to illustrate the range of Greek civilization as it spread over the shores of Asia and Europe. And as in writing a book he was careful first to plan out the scheme of it and the balance of the parts, so, however much his public addresses gave the impression of being largely impromptu, he had always thought out carefully every word he meant to say. "There is," he said, "no greater danger than the so-called inspiration of the moment, which leads you to say something which is not exactly true, or which you ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... head yesterday to get up an impromptu dinner on this auspicious occasion—only my own folks, Leigh Hunt, Ainsworth, and Forster. I know you can't dine here in consequence of the tempestuous weather on the Covent Garden shores, but if you will come in when you have done Trinculizing, you will delight me greatly, and ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... organize an impromptu card-party, but that, also, was a failure; and, although, as a rule, they had a little music after dinner, on this particular evening each one seemed indisposed ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... should have cultivated in his younger days. He rode every morning; he practised every day at tennis and croquet; every evening he bowled; and every time some one sat at the piano and played dance music and the young people fell into impromptu waltzes and two-steps on the porch, he joined them and danced religiously with whomsoever he found to hand; usually ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... on poetry by citing from another group of verses—also pictorial, in a certain sense, but chiefly remarkable for ingenuity—two curiosities of impromptu. The first is old, and is attributed to the famous poetess Chiyo. Having been challenged to make a poem of seventeen syllables referring to a square, a triangle, and a circle, she is ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... often covered with soil, and are not infrequently rendered attractive with blooming heather and little blue and pink blossoms planted by Nature's hand,—the hieroglyphics in which she writes her impromptu poetry. In the meadows between the hills are sprinkled harebells, as blue as the azure veins on a delicate face; while here and there patches of large red clover-heads are seen nodding heavily with their wealth ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... symbolic syncopation that indicated the Lion Dance was a very ancient and conventional ceremony. These dancers gave way to a chorus of singers. For interminable hours, so it seemed, they chanted a high, shrill recitative, carried in fugue by deeper voices. The burden of the song was evidently an impromptu. Occasionally some peculiarly apt or pleasing phrase was caught up for endless repetition. And in the background, against the farther background of the undistinguished masses, those who had formerly carried on their performances in ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... "Impromptu, you know; but they expressed my feelings. That is one of the best things the war has done for us. It has permitted us to express our emotions more openly. I thought it a beautiful sight to see the noble tears coursing down your father's furrowed cheeks. Those few words of yours have won all our ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... awakened next morning by a Norwegian mucker who was organizing a strike over the incident of the tainted pork. Five minutes later, every man in the shed was around the stove in an impromptu indignation meeting. It was agreed that Max, the German boy, should go in first; if the steward put him out, we were all to leave with him and refuse to work. He was allowed to take breakfast but was refused a dinner pail. We dropped ours and marched ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... confidence; the unspeakable loveliness and grandeur of the prospect; the thousand varied incidents of the too-brief journey; the short, sharp excitement of the landing; the awe and curiosity of the impromptu crowd invariably on the ground before the balloon, and reluctantly leaving it only when the last whiff of gas is rolled out of it and the last rope thrown into the wagon; the moonlight ride to the station with the gas-bag for a pillow and the brain too busy with the strangeness of the day for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... The debates of that day will never be forgotten, notably when the Lylians wrested the laurel wreath from the Goldeys at Clarendon Hall, and that other one, when Dr. Hopper suddenly appeared at a meeting and after an impromptu debate "showing every evidence of being well prepared," as he said, some consciences were ...
— The Kirk on Rutgers Farm • Frederick Bruckbauer
... impromptu, new, and hurried machine civilization which we have been piling up around us for a hundred years we have made machines out of everything, and our one consummate and glaring failure in the machines we have made is the machine we have ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... delayed. Taciturn periods fell upon them. Frank Merrill showed only a slight seriousness. Billy Fairfax, however, wore a look permanently sobered. Pete Murphy became subject at regular intervals to wild rhapsodical seizures when he raved, almost in impromptu verse, about the beauty of sea and sky. These were followed by periods of an intense, bitter, black, Celtic melancholy. Ralph Addington degenerated into what Honey described as "the human sourball." He spoke as seldom as possible and then only to ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... discomfiting, not to say indecent. And in this, far from being a romantic idealist, she was entirely right and realistic. This explains why her taste inclined more resolutely to the adventurous idea of love, to the impromptu element, to the wild ardour of first embraces that must perforce flee from the sight of fellow creatures, than to the kind of graduated passion which begins with conversation, proceeds to a public engagement with staring people all about you, ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... sort of triumphal procession. First went Iguma and her supporters, then followed four of my attendants, then I came with two on either hand, the rest bringing up the rear, all shouting and singing impromptu verses in praise of me, for I could tell by certain words that such was the case. The ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... the rug over her knees, and took the seat beside her. She thanked me, laid her cheek upon the impromptu pillow, and closed her eyes. The train sped on, the carriage swaying as we rounded the curves, the jolting increasing as we neared the great tunnel. Settling myself in my seat, I drew my traveling-cap well down so that its shadow from the overhead light would conceal my ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... rough laughter of the guests. From one room the shoji were pushed open; and drunken men could be seen with kimonos thrown back from their shoulders showing a body reddened with sake. They had taken the geishas' instruments from them, and were performing an impromptu song and dance, while the girls clapped their hands and writhed with laughter. Beyond the tea-house, the din of the festival was hushed. Only from the distance came the echo of the song, the rasp of the forced merriment, ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... sound silly and incomprehensible, like an impromptu lecture on the sins of strong drink. His eyes wandered over her, resting on one white arm ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick
... within the smallest possible limits. Furthermore, Lincoln was not a reader speaker and rarely did himself justice without careful preparation. Writers on Lincoln have failed to note the severe criticisms upon Lincoln's impromptu remarks that appeared in the opposition press and in the English newspapers. Even as late as 1863 newspaper writers not opposed to him did not hesitate to refer to the plainness ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... the suddenest," said Simon Orts. "But I have known these impromptu marriages to turn out very happily—very happily, indeed." he repeated, rubbing his hands together, and smiling horribly. "I gather that Mr. Heleigh will not grace the ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... his face still tied up like a mummy, still looking the Image of Misery, as if he and repose had known nothing of each other since we had parted from him. He was, however, very anxious for our welfare, and hoped we had slept well on our impromptu couches. ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... set for some impromptu meal at which a knife will not be used, the fork takes the place of the knife at the right-hand side, and the teaspoon ...
— Prepare and Serve a Meal and Interior Decoration • Lillian B. Lansdown
... conversation that the sayings can scarce be quoted with their full effect beyond the circle of common friends. To have their proper weight they should appear in a biography, and with the portrait of the speaker. Good talk is dramatic; it is like an impromptu piece of acting where each should represent himself to the greatest advantage; and that is the best kind of talk where each speaker is most fully and candidly himself, and where, if you were to shift the speeches round from one to another, there would ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... examiner at Osgoode ever offered him such a chance to say the right thing wrongly or the wrong thing first. It was a fascinating topic. Other Premiers had done such things off-hand, almost impromptu as it seemed, and inspired by merely patriotic sentiment. This was a notice that the Premier of Canada could speak his mind in advance, or if he so preferred, wait till the Conference of Premiers opened and spring a surprise. Meighen lost no time in deciding to prepare for the N.L.C. ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... main dish, hot and steaming, into his haversack and quietly sauntered away. When the cook discovered his loss the other fellow was gone. These rascals said it was the best dish of ham and eggs they ever ate. Many houses had fine pianos and other musical instruments, and in some instances impromptu dances were on whilst Confederate shells whanged through the house above their heads. It is safe to say that there was little left of valuable bric-a-brac to greet the fugitive people on their return. And it is highly probable that pianos and handsome furniture needed considerable repairing ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... scion of aristocracy. He wore a cowboy rig and had a scrubby beard of a week's growth. But he was very jolly and played the violin beautifully. After tea—and a lovely tea it was, although, as Kate remarked to me later, there was no ham—we had an impromptu concert. Mr. Lonsdale played the violin; Mrs. Hopkins, who sang, was a graduate of a musical conservatory; Mr. Hopkins gave a comic recitation and did a Cree war-dance; Kate gave a spirited account of our ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Art. For months Schlesinger sent me with this object all sorts of novelties, among which, however, I could not find anything that seemed to me deserving of praise, until at last, when I was at the Lake of Como, Schumann's "Impromptu" in C major (properly variations), the "Etudes symphoniques," and the "Concert sans orchestre" [Concerto without orchestra] (published later, in the second edition, under the more suitable title Sonata in F minor) ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... billiard-playing, varied by luncheon and a fair allowance of liquids, and at half-past seven we sat down to dinner. It did not occur to me at the time that, although Darvel's invitation had the appearance of an impromptu, he did not warn his servant of expected guests, or return home till within an hour of dinner-time. Nevertheless, all was in readiness; not the promised fowl and leg of mutton, but an exquisite repast, redolent ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... shape of Mr. Leary with a close and curious ring of themselves, and the combined volume of their glad, amazed outbursts might be heard for a distance of furlongs. On prankish impulse then they locked hands and with skippings and prancings and impromptu jig steps they circled about him; and he, had he sought to speak, could not well have been heard; and, anyway, he was for the moment past speech, because of being entirely engaged in giving vent to one vehement sneeze after another. And next, above the chorus of joyous ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... professors, and some dozen of Russia's celebrated musicians and writers. The meal over, Anton Rubinstein, originator of the plan, and Zaremba, his able co-adjutor, made brief speeches. There were one or two impromptu replies; a little discreet cheering; the customary toasts to the Czar and the persons and the subject in hand; and then Ivan, carried out of his usual shyness, proposed the health of the sister Conservatoire of St. Petersburg, which was loyally drank. Afterwards, the same young ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... soiree, the most profound silence has been maintained concerning it, neither of the wits there assembled having seen fit to celebrate it in rhyme, and Florio having actually torn up an impromptu for the occasion, that he had been all the ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... tame. In the whole hour and a-half there was not so much savage fighting, not so much damage done, as a couple of earnest, but unscientific men, who have no time to waste, will frequently crowd into an impromptu affair not exceeding five minutes ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... great pleasure to get your last letter, for these little impromptu effusions are the genuine letters. I rejoice that man and nature seem harmonious to you, and that the heart beats in unison with the voices of Spring. May all that is manly, sincere, and pure, in your wishes, be realized! ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Council Bill he must have met and been seen by a hundred times more of his adherents than in any similar period of his leadership. People all over Ireland heard him not only on the public platform but in small addresses to deputations, in impromptu speeches at semi-public dinners, and all of this strengthened him where an Irish leader most needs to be strengthened—in the hearts of the people. The hold which he gained then stood to him during the years which followed and up to the outbreak of the war. But it could have been ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... He at once saw what would be the effect of the new departure. And so promptly and energetically did he denounce the "arch-apostate Egerton, alias Arnold, Ryerson" as a deserter, that he secured with little difficulty an impromptu verdict from the public against him. This he the more readily accomplished, by the aid of at least half a dozen editors of newspapers in various parts of the province, while Dr. Ryerson was single-handed. Not only did these editors join with great vigour in the hue and cry against ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... aunt; they had been too busy with each other before to look about. They stood silently by, Oscar grinning and Edmund frowning, while she apologized for their conduct. Then she turned to them and led them to an impromptu court of justice behind the wheel-house. The proceedings were brief. Oscar told his story. As usual, he related a perfectly plain, uncolored tale, making ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... English provincialisms—was awful and wonderful. Nothing was better than to get our uncle on his 'genteel behaviour,' which, of course, meant exactly the opposite, and brought forth inimitable stories, scraps of old songs and impromptu conversations, the choicest of which were between children, Irishwomen, or cockneys. He was the only man, I believe, who ever knew by heart the famous Irish Court Scenes—naughtiest and most humorous of tales—unpublished, of course, ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... maid, their backs to the logs, and watched the shifting groups of warriors. He told her of the arrival of the Big Throat, and of the confusion that resulted. Then for a time they were silent, waiting for the impromptu council to reach a conclusion. The warriors finally began to drift away, though the younger and more curious ones still hung about. A group of braves came ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... has ceased to be the property of a small group and become the convention of a large majority. A study of magazines and newspapers would confirm this rather broad generalization. It would show, I believe, how the whole quality of our most impromptu thinking is being influenced by ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... Additional illustrations, which will repay study are the following: the Allegretto of Beethoven's Sixth Sonata; the Schubert Impromptu, op. 90, No. 4; Brahms's Intermezzo, op. 117, No. 1 and the Ballade in G minor, op. 118, No. 3, and for orchestra—in extended treatment—Debussy's Prelude a l'apres-midi ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... on a grassy bank, and ate the food Bart had purchased. Mr. Hardman seemed to be thinking of many things, for he hardly spoke during the impromptu meal, and, when he had eaten a couple of sandwiches he arose from the bank and wandered off a little way into the woods. When he came ...
— Frank Roscoe's Secret • Allen Chapman
... over the little iron table in the corner of the saloon hiccoughed, and lifted a crimson, puffy face, with bleary eyes in it that were startlingly blue. He drew back the great arms that had been hanging over the edge of his impromptu pillow, and heaved up his massive stooping shoulders, and got slowly upon his feet. Then, lurching in his walk, but not stumbling, he moved across the little space of saw-dusted, hard-beaten earth that divided him ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... negative wise things, the world's opinion, as usual, veered completely round, and John Todhunter was esteemed a shrewd, sensible man—only not brilliant; that he was brilliant could not be said of him. In fact, the man could hardly talk, and it was a fortunate provision that no impromptu deliveries were required of him ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... by far to pay, to save one wretched little black imp from being devoured by a crocodile, he told himself. The road to wealth did not lie that way; and the cruel sneer that drooped his lips as he lowered his weapon was not good to behold, as he stood up to witness the end of this impromptu hunt, whose ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... all in a very happy frame of mind. Goethe's charming impromptu had kindled wit and humor upon every lip. He himself was the happiest of all, for Charlotte was by his side, gazing upon him with her large, thoughtful eyes, and permitting him to be her ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... call upon Mother two days after our impromptu picnic at Seabury's Pond. I heard all about it when I came home that afternoon. It appeared that she had brought more flowers and a fresh supply of books. She had remained even longer than on her first visit and she and Mother had talked about almost ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... is only getting up from his seat. How wonderful he is! I never heard anything more impressive in my life. After all, unpremeditated art is the greatest art. Such an effect as that could never have been produced except impromptu." ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... grandest mediaeval conception of the Communion of Saints, a figure of Christ surmounting a crowd of all ages and stations, among whom were not only Dante, Petrarca, Giotto, etc., etc., but Plato, Cicero, and best of all, Arius. I said to the guide, in a tone of expostulation, "Heretico!" (a word of impromptu manufacture). Whereupon he nodded, smiled and was positively radiant with the latitudinarianism of the old Italian painter. It was interesting for it was a fresh proof that even the early Church united had a period of thought and ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... there should happen to be an impromptu luncheon or drinking party at your house, or a dinner party, perhaps— the ordinary thing at resorts like yours—where would my place ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... village hollowed out under the ground on the borders of a lake. A vine, however, struck its roots so deeply in the earth as to reach their habitations, and some of them ascended to the surface by the aid of this impromptu ladder. The descriptions given by them on their return of the vast hunting-grounds, rich in game and fruit, which they had seen, led the rest of the tribe to resolve to reach so favoured a land. Half of them had ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... the influence of the fire our impromptu links cast an adequate light. The sheets of rain became suddenly visible as they entered the circle of illumination. By careful scrutiny of the footing I gained the entrance to our cave without mishap. I looked back. Here and there irregularly gleamed and spluttered my companions' ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... exchanged for the impromptu motor-truck, automobiles of the French staff, and as "Jimmie" Hare and I were alone in one of them we could stop where we liked. So we halted where an English battery was going into action. It had dug itself into the side of a hill and covered ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... held the nun's hand in one of his, pointed persuasively with the other towards an elaborately caparisoned war-horse, trembling beneath the joint weight of a yeomanry saddle and a side-saddle attached behind it, which considerably overlapped the charger's impromptu fur boa tail. ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... scene, this impromptu gathering at the foot of the flag-staff while anxiously awaiting further tidings from the agency. Over among the quarters the humid eyes of frightened women peered from many a door-way, watching with fluttering hearts for sign of ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... him, en masse, he seized a chair, and swung it flail-like about his head. For a few moments, there was a crashing of glass and china, and a clatter of furniture and a chaos of struggle. At its center, he stood wielding his impromptu weapon, and, when two of his assailants had fallen under its sweeping blows, and Farbish stood weakly supporting himself against the table and gasping for the breath which had been choked out of him, the mountaineer hurled aside his chair, and plunged for the sole remaining man. ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... the music-stool, and with one of Gracie's fingers began to pick out an impromptu tune that somehow had a ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... pieces played were, Les Cloches, Chasse Neige, Eclogue, Cloches de Geneva, Eroica, Feux Follets and Mazeppa. Also the big Polonaise in E, the two Etudes, Waldesrauschen and Gnomenreigen; the Mazourka, Valse Impromptu, and the first Etude, of which last he remarked: "You can all play this; thirty years have passed since it was composed and people are only just finding out how fine it is. Such is the case with many of Liszt's works. We wonder how they ever could ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... can be had also from impromptu pantomimes, where the performers enact some story which every one knows, such as "Aladdin" or "Red Riding Hood" or "Cinderella"; or a scene from history proper, or from village or family history. The contrast ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... The more ill-humored Mrs. Fotheringham grew, the more Lady Niton enjoyed the evening and her own "Nitonisms." It was she who after dinner suggested the clearing of the hall and an impromptu dance—on the ground that "girls must waltz for their living." And when Diana proved to be one of those in whom dancing is a natural and shining gift, so that even the gilded youths of the party, who were perhaps inclined to fight shy of ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... perhaps, my dear," he admitted; "but it is so difficult to know what to say when one has to speak impromptu." ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... rushes, sometimes in silence, and sometimes firing as we ran. The order to fire at will was seldom given, the men waiting patiently for the officers' signal, and then answering in volleys. Some of the men who were twice Day's age begged him to let them take the enemy's impromptu fort on the run, but he answered them tolerantly like spoiled children, and held them down until there was a lull in the enemy's fire, when he would lead them forward, always taking the advance himself. By the way they made these rushes, it was ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... were entertained on board the galleon to an impromptu luncheon, which, as it was prepared by the Spanish cook, released from the limbo of below for the occasion, and as the viands and wines were drawn from the ship's stores, was done ample justice to. Then George, accompanied by Basset, went ashore with the Governor and his followers, to be present ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... Mr. Dundas, late President of the Court of Session in Scotland, having after his death been converted into a blacksmith's shop, a gentleman wrote upon its door the following impromptu:— ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... clouds of dust were rising on every trail leading to the Y.D. The old ranchers and their wives drove in buckboards, and one or two in automobiles; the younger generation, of both sexes, came on horseback, with many an exciting impromptu race by the way. Y.D. received them all in the yard, commenting on the horses and the weather, and how the steers were wintering, and revealing, at the proper moments, the location of a well-filled stone jug. The faithful Linder was on hand to assist in caring ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... strong men of this period, while Harlan, his colleague, possessed a vigor and grasp of mind which I think the public never fully accorded him. Lane of Indiana was full of patriotic ardor, and like Baker of Oregon, had the rare gift of eloquent impromptu speech. Henry Wilson earned the gratitude of his country by his unswerving loyalty to freedom, and his great labors and invaluable services as chairman of the Military Committee. Howard ranked among the first lawyers and most faithful men in the body, and no man had a ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... manufactured our clothes-boiler, down in the laundry, did not design it as a toy bass-drum for the children to bang on on the morning of the Fourth of July. I would make a solemn affidavit to the fact that the maker of a baby-carriage never dreamed of its possible use as an impromptu toboggan for a couple of small boys to coast downhill on in midsummer. Yet these things have been used for these various purposes in our own household experience. A megaphone can be used as a beehive, and ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... ascertain if he means it or not!" thought Nattie, and seizing a pair of scissors, the only adaptable instrument handy, she drummed out, slowly, on account of the imperfectness of her impromptu key—pretending all the while to be ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... perhaps have been realized It was just after one of these unlucky Carnivals—almost before the strict fast-days were past, when a certain Nicolo Musso opened a theatre outside the Porta del Popolo, where he stated his intention of putting nothing but light impromptu comic sketches on the boards. The advertisement was drawn up in an ingenious and witty style, and consequently the Romans formed a favourable preconception of Musso's enterprise; but independently of this they would in their longing to still their dramatic hunger have ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... were not impossible) the taciturn Englishman who accompanies me; and Huysmans, without looking up, and without taking the trouble to speak very distinctly, picks up the phrase, transforms it, more likely transpierces it, in a perfectly turned sentence, a phrase of impromptu elaboration. Perhaps it is only a stupid book that some one has mentioned, or a stupid woman; as he speaks, the book looms up before one, becomes monstrous in its dulness, a masterpiece and miracle of imbecility; the unimportant little woman grows into a slow horror before your eyes. It ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... as suddenly the Black Growler darted forward almost as if she was a thing alive. The Varmint II started at the same moment and an impromptu race was on. ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay
... very poor affair, and consisted of several short scenes acted in the style of charades, with impromptu conversations, which mostly consisted of coarse jests and innuendoes; but the loud laughter of the spectators assured Alison that this style of thing was quite up to their level. She felt rather sickened at Jim's taking part in anything so commonplace; but her love for him, which grew daily, ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... statement Squire Paine listened attentively, fully believing it to be an impromptu fabrication, as ...
— Brave and Bold • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... themselves, their music of triangle and cymbal, gave him quite a new pleasure. In some of them poetry seemed to approach the nearest possible to bird-song—to unconscious seeming through most conscious art, imitating the carelessness and impromptu of warblings as old as the existence of birds, and as new as every fresh individual joy; for each new generation grows its own feathers, and sings its own song, yet always the feathers of its kind, and ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... preserved of the bitter and unwise words he used in country coteries; how he proposed Washington's health as an amendment to Pitt's, gave as a toast "the last verse of the last chapter of Kings," and celebrated Dumouriez in a doggrel impromptu full of ridicule and hate. Now his sympathies would inspire him with SCOTS, WHA HAE; now involve him in a drunken broil with a loyal officer, and consequent apologies and explanations, hard to offer for a man of Burns's stomach. Nor was this the front of his offending. On February ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... refused, that his regiment was even then embarking to cross the Delaware, and that therefore he could not return, whatever his wish. The Twenty-sixth is under orders to follow at daybreak to-morrow, and so we plan an impromptu farewell supper this evening at my quarters. Will you forgive such brief notice and help to cheer our sorrow ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... same fervid abundance, that links the Spanish tradition to ours of the present day is the strangely impromptu character of much Spanish art production. The slightly ridiculous proverb that genius consists of an infinite capacity for taking pains is well controverted. The creative flow of Spanish artists has always been so strong, so full of vitality, that there has been ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... her breath as years prevail At this sad wicked world to rail, To slander all her sex impromptu, And wonder what the times ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... downstairs started the four Rover boys were up in their adjoining bedrooms partly undressed and in the midst of a couple of impromptu boxing matches, one taking place between Andy and Jack and the ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... the drawing-room, which had been transformed into an impromptu ball-room by taking up the rugs and moving the piano to one end of it, introductions ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... and she therefore determined that, as it was St. John's eve, the maid-servants of Pepita should be to-night released from all their occupations, and should go to amuse themselves at the farm-house, where, in union with the rustic laborers, they might get up impromptu amusements, to consist of fandangos, the recitation of pretty verses, playing the castanets, ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... because it was mere play to her. Sometimes she let him think he was making rapid progress, and then, as if surprised at the sentiment she was feeling, she showed a sudden coolness which charmed him, and served to increase imperceptibly his impromptu passion. She was like a fisherman who lifts his line from time to time to see if the fish is biting. The poor count allowed himself to be deceived by the innocent air with which she accepted two or three neatly turned compliments. Emigration, ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... lights were out all over the ground floor with the exception of the hall. One of the circuits had given out completely, as sometimes happens with the electric light. Bell leapt on a table and turned the hall light out. A second later and he was dragging the long spare flex from the impromptu operating-room to the swinging cord over the hall lamp. With a knife he cut the cord loose, he stripped the copper wires beneath, and rapidly joined ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... staff of the Courier had an impromptu meeting in the library. Max had come in to ask Algernon for notes, and Catherine and Hannah were waiting for Frieda and Alice to join them to go to a tea ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... admire his intellectual powers, even before I knew him; they were so varied, so supple, so many-sided; but now I am devoted to him body and soul. I have heard him pleading in the Courts, always keen and empassioned, and his addresses are as polished and graceful when they are impromptu as when they have been carefully prepared. He has a never-failing flow of apt sentiment; his style is weighty and dignified, his language is of the sonorous, classical school. All these qualities charm me immensely when they ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... a small impromptu theatre, packed to suffocation by a most wonderfully sympathetic audience, but as the play was very representative, we give a slight sketch ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... career, he had started the store. He had also meant to do general repair work in the backroom shop. But in recent years it had degenerated into an impromptu club hall, funk hole, griping-arguing-and-planning pit, extracurricular study lab and project site for an indefinite horde of interplanetary enthusiasts who were thought of in Jarviston as either young adults of the most resourceful kind—for whom the ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... poem he had just dashed off written with pencil, "To my Saxon Blonde." I was surprised and somewhat flattered, regarding it as a complimentary impromptu. But, on looking up his poetry in the library, I found the ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... divested Arthur of his coat, stripped his arm, and while I went in search of an impromptu lancet, Adele ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... picnic party a fair chance of success, it must be almost impromptu: projected at twelve o'clock at night at the earliest, executed at twelve o'clock on the following day at the latest; and even then the odds are fearfully against it. The climate of England is not ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... was no hurry. All appeared to have time to spare. The streets, walks, and lawns were wiggling with little parties, one or two families in each. The men had brought bedding and blankets and they made impromptu shelters to keep ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... came to these receptions, which finished with a supper, and it was understood that the free expression of opinion should be the rule; consequently several repressed members of both Houses delivered impromptu speeches, in the guise of toasts, before that select audience; much to the amusement of Senator North and the Speaker of the House. Burleigh's was really impassioned and brilliant; and Armstrong's, if woolly in its ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... led his gallant band of shouters in an impromptu war-dance back of the grandstand, their frenzied shouts of joy at the splendid play sounding loud ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... at ease," Farquharson observed from the depths of the deck chair when he had his cigar comfortably aglow. "I trust it isn't this little impromptu call of mine that's disturbing you. After all, life has its unusual moments, and this, I think, is one of them." He sniffed the bouquet of his wine and drank. "It is rare moments like this—bizarre, incredible, what you like—that compensate for ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... indeed a marked peculiarity, and innumerable stories are told of his dancing pirouettes, singing impromptu songs, and rhyming a whole company to their infinite amusement. Each one of his personal friends, in talking of him, says, "But if you could only have heard him" at such a time; but of course no one can repeat such ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... a wistful and pathetic interest; a minority of nineteen couples gazed at it tenderly, lovingly, proprietarily, and the male half of this minority kept saying over to themselves the moving little impromptu speeches of thankfulness for the audience's applause and congratulations which they were presently going to get up and deliver. Every now and then one of these got a piece of paper out of his vest pocket and privately glanced at it ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain
... associating with their own countrymen to frequenting the houses of their Spanish friends, even although quite sure of a cordial reception there. The time for visiting is in the evening, when there are numbers of impromptu conversaziones—or tertulias, as they are called—of which the Dons are very fond, and in which very many of their ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... search." I consented, and he soon went, and was gone for at least two hours before he returned loaded with his findings, having taken his shirt off and tied the sleeves and collar up, and then filled his impromptu sack quite full. He had evidently carried his burden no small distance, for on his return the perspiration was running down as big as peas. "Tare an' 'ounds," poor Paddy said, for he was an Irishman, "I've got a fine lot of flour, but am as tired as a dog, and ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... from Arlequin Empereur dans la Lune, which was played in Paris by Guiseppe-Domenico Biancolelli, a famous Harlequin and the leading member of the Italian theatre there from 1660 to 1688. The original Italian scenes from which the French farce is taken belonged to that impromptu Comedy, 'Commedia dell' Arte all' Improviso,' which so far from being printed was but rarely even committed to writing. 'The development of the intrigue by dialogue and action was left to the native wit of the several players,' writes J.A. Symonds in his excellent and most scholarly ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... tree, it would be difficult for it to remain unobserved, owing to its superior size and remarkable black colour. A very large old tree with a considerable cavernlike hole at the bottom should always be carefully examined, as bears are particularly fond of these impromptu dwellings. I knew a man who was thus surprised whilst cutting wood from a large tree, unconscious of the fact that a bear was concealed within the hollow trunk. The blows of the axe disturbed the occupant, which immediately bolted from the hollow, ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... we were up with the first streak of dawn. It was with some curiosity that I looked round at our impromptu dwelling and its surroundings, upon which we had descended in total obscurity the night before. The position of our camping-place was not badly chosen; we were just within the girdle of forest above which ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... and The Hall, The Fly, Dipsas, and perhaps Demosthenes, suggest (4). A common form of exhibition was for a sophist to appear before an audience and let them propose subjects, of which he must choose one and deliver an impromptu oration upon it. ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... his crew were kind to him; for men still have compassion upon one another, and give succor according to the need of the moment,—not to the balance of good and evil in the sufferer. The wind freshened, an impromptu, bowsprit was rigged, and the "Resurrection" limped towards New York. Manetho's partial stupor was relieved by hot grog and the cook's stove. He gave no further account of himself than that he had ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... garret on some Saturday afternoon while our century was not far advanced in its second score of years, he might have found three boys in cloaks and doublets and plumed hats, heroes and bandits, enacting more or less impromptu melodramas. In one of the boys he would have seen the embryo dramatist of a nation's life history, John Lothrop Motley; in the second, a famous talker and wit who has spilled more good things on the ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the phrases I had used then—"there is no reason why I should not tell a ghost story. True, I had never done so before, but the literary attainments which have enabled me to perfect my recent treatise upon the 'Disuse of the Comma' are quite equal to impromptu experimentation in the field of psychic phenomena." I was aware that the young people themselves hardly expected serious acquiescence, and that, too, stimulated me. I cleared my throat in a prefatory manner, ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... Scott, Miss Percival, the Cure, and Jean were seated round the little vicarage table; then, thanks partly to the impromptu and original nature of the entertainment, partly to the good-humor and perhaps slightly audacious gayety of Bettina, the conversation took a turn of the frankest and most ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... always on hand when there's any singing or dancing. We must not let them see us, or they will stop singing." "Who makes their songs for them?" inquired the young man. "Oh, they make them up as they sing them; they are all impromptu songs." By this time they were near enough to hear distinctly every word; and, true enough, Sam's voice was heard above all others. At the conclusion of each song they all joined in a hearty laugh, with an expression of "Dats de song ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... probably, not only on account of the irregular mounds of moss-covered stones that occupied its intervening spaces, but also, by reason of the masses of wild flowers (great clumps of which were springing up in the crevices of this impromptu wall) that lent to it an appearance half negligent, but wholly and entrancingly picturesque. Here, undoubtedly, was art. That did not astonish the young man. All avenues, in the ordinary sense, are works of art; and the mere excess of art he ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... toilet was speedily made. My dress consisted of a white-cambric gown, I remember, over which Mrs. Austin bound, with some fantastic notion of impromptu mourning, a little scarf of black crepe, passing over one shoulder and below the other, like those worn by the pall-bearers; and, so attired, she took me by the hand and led me, dumb with amazement and grief, through the crowd that surged ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... to that glib impromptu of which the scenario gave no indication—had recovered from ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... our duty to-night to decide upon the means by which the plan we have been considering may be carried into execution, or abandoned," states the chairman of this impromptu meeting in a perfunctory tone. "If there is any preliminary matter to be discussed, I am ready ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... Parisian, Irish, Cockney, and English provincialisms—was awful and wonderful. Nothing was better than to get our uncle on his 'genteel behaviour,' which, of course, meant exactly the opposite, and brought forth inimitable stories, scraps of old songs and impromptu conversations, the choicest of which were between children, Irishwomen, or cockneys. He was the only man, I believe, who ever knew by heart the famous Irish Court Scenes—naughtiest and most humorous of tales—unpublished, ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the party had cried until their faces were swollen out of shape. The crowd outside wept and wailed; some clasped their hands over their heads with an upward look to heaven, some pressed them on their hearts, some rocked and moaned, some prayed aloud—not set prayers, but impromptu utterances wrung out by grief. The agony was so infectious that before I knew what I was about ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... not, but the laws of hospitality held good in the woods as in the house, and they were welcomed civilly at least. Once or twice, when particular friends of his came on sap-boiling days, Davie ventured on an impromptu sugaring-off on his own responsibility. He made use of a small kettle for the purpose, so that the important matter of boiling down the sap need not be interfered with. He told himself that he was not ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... but a few little bachelor contrivances! the sort of impromptu arrangements that might have suggested themselves to Philip Quarll or Robinson Crusoe, that's all. What do you say? ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... things, the world's opinion, as usual, veered completely round, and John Todhunter was esteemed a shrewd, sensible man—only not brilliant; that he was brilliant could not be said of him. In fact, the man could hardly talk, and it was a fortunate provision that no impromptu deliveries were required of him ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... lying on all sides—and we ourselves pushed and passed about from the arms of one black-bearded fellow into those of another. There was something thoroughly exotic, completely South American and tropical, in this impromptu. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... sleeping mats for us to wrap ourselves in at night, with a small kettle for boiling our tea, and a pot for cooking our meat or soup. When resting at night we quickly formed an impromptu hut of boughs. I could not help wishing that my sister and Grace had been with us, to admire the beautiful forests and magnificent birds we saw. Rising in the morning, we witnessed another dance of the birds of paradise in some trees close to us, and our native hunters ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... the press-agent, who had cornered a producer of motion-picture plays, "I've got a grand idea for a film-drama. Listen to the impromptu scenario: Scene one, exterior of a Broadway theater, with the ticket-speculators getting the coin in ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... library, all told, did not count a hundred volumes, most of which, too, were Miss Lydia's, and were as weak and wishy-washy as that poor little woman herself. And she did not care for sewing, though she made nearly all her own clothes, besides attending at any number of impromptu Dorcas meetings, where the needy were the unskilled rich instead of the helpless poor, so that of course her labor did not count at all as a virtue, since it was not doing good, but only obliging a friend. And she did not care for parties, though she generally went and was always asked, being ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... costuming and stage-setting. These can well be made in the school as a part of the manual training and sewing work. In giving the play, it will generally be better not to have pupils memorize the exact words of the book, but to depend upon the impromptu rendering of their parts. This method will contribute more largely to the training ...
— Children's Classics in Dramatic Form - Book Two • Augusta Stevenson
... Arthur of his coat, stripped his arm, and while I went in search of an impromptu lancet, Adele ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of the Gods Sonnet Sleeping in the Snow With the Rain Ode, on the Death of a Friend Lines: to a Young Lady who had jilted her Lover Vicarious Martyrs: to a Hen-pecked Schoolmaster Stanzas: on seeing Lady Noel Byron To Louisa The Orator and the Cask The Maid of the War Impromptu: on being asked by a Lady to write a Verse in her Album Mary: a Monody On the Marriage of Miss Nicholl Carne Impromptu: on the Death of Mr. Thomas Kneath, a well-known Teacher of Navigation, at Swansea EXTRACTS FROM UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPT: Humility Oppressed Upward Strivings Truthfulness ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... were in the dressing tent then, being out in the big one doing their acts. Joe knew his way to Helen's room, having been there many times, for there would often be little impromptu gatherings in it to talk over circus ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... every place of amusement was shut up; lectures, religious concerts, even the social meetings of the Young Men's Christian Association, were rigorously put a stop to. There was, of course, great popular indignation and uproar, and the impromptu performances got up in the streets, while the police looked on sympathetically, are said to have been far more outrageous than any entertainment indoors ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... appearing before the examiners in public. He had always suffered from shyness: in class he would blush and choke when he had to speak: at first he could hardly do more than answer his name. And it was much more easy for him to reply impromptu than when he knew that he was going to be questioned: the thought of it made him ill: his mind rushed ahead picturing every detail of the ordeal as it would happen: and the longer he had to wait, the more he was obsessed by it. It might ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... amazing, impromptu, new, and hurried machine civilization which we have been piling up around us for a hundred years we have made machines out of everything, and our one consummate and glaring failure in the machines we have made is the machine we have ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... nineteenth century. As yet, I have not had the honor of his acquaintance, but when I do meet him I shall say something jocose. I know I shall. I have it. My plan will be to inveigle him into going over a ferry to "see a man." As we pass up the slip on the other side, I shall draw out my flask, impromptu-like, with the invitation, "Mark, my dear fellow, won't you take something?" He will decline, of course, or else he isn't the humorist I take him for. I shall then consider it my duty to urge him. Fixing my eye steadily ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... the Court Two motionless, yellow faces, grinning at them from the Lathrop steps, showed that Laura and Harold had come out to meet them. On the lawn they broke into an impromptu game of tag which the jack-o'-lanterns seemed to enjoy as much as the children: certainly, they whizzed from place to place as quickly and, ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... to give him his full entitles, is a very sagacious old person, in the fifteenth year of his disillusionment, and of excellent family. If our humble Gissing is to have a three-barrelled name, it can only be Haphazard Gissing I, for his ancestry is plainly miscellaneous and impromptu. He is, we like to say, a synthetic dog. He is young: six months; we fear that some of the errors now frequently urged against the rising generation are plainly discernible in him. And Mike, who is grizzled and grown somewhat ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... ran. The order to fire at will was seldom given, the men waiting patiently for the officers' signal, and then answering in volleys. Some of the men who were twice Day's age begged him to let them take the enemy's impromptu fort on the run, but he answered them tolerantly like spoiled children, and held them down until there was a lull in the enemy's fire, when he would lead them forward, always taking the advance himself. By the way they made these rushes, it was easy to tell ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... did not design it as a toy bass-drum for the children to bang on on the morning of the Fourth of July. I would make a solemn affidavit to the fact that the maker of a baby-carriage never dreamed of its possible use as an impromptu toboggan for a couple of small boys to coast downhill on in midsummer. Yet these things have been used for these various purposes in our own household experience. A megaphone can be used as a beehive, ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... be doubted that Florence possessed the cold-blooded capacities with which this impromptu in diplomacy seemed to invest her: probably she would never have gone so far. But the words sufficed; and Herbert was so perfectly intimidated that he was even unresentful. "Well, you can have your ole two dollars and a half, whether you got a right to it or not," he said. "But ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... coming to New York, and, as soon as greetings had been exchanged, they all drifted into a general conversation, which had no point to it whatever, but was, for the most part, the small-talk of such impromptu social gatherings. The subject of the supposed clandestine marriage-ceremony between Duncan and Beatrice was not mentioned again, and fifteen minutes later Miss Houston and her sister arose to take their departure. Farnham, also, got upon his feet, and, stepping ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... Ruth. "I'm afraid our ice box doesn't contain much in the way of refreshments for an impromptu banquet, though, and I positively won't go out after—after what happened. At least ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... all the days and all the men amounted to very little more than living wages was quite lost to sight. At first the methods were very crude. One man held a coarse screen of willow branches which he shook continuously above an ordinary cooking pot, while his partner slowly shovelled earth over this impromptu sieve. When the pots were filled with siftings, they were carried to the river, where they were carefully submerged, and the contents were stirred about with sticks. The light earth was thus flowed over the rims of ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... reached the top of the swell when they perceived me and my victim. Of course, I and my two friends were well received in the wigwam, though the chief was absent upon an expedition, and when he returned a few days after, a great feast was given, during which some of the young men sang a little impromptu poem, on the subject of ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... Maj. John Andr['e], met him near Stony Point on the night of the 21st of Sept. In the meantime, the man-of-war, "Vulture," upon which Andr['e] had arrived, was forced to move farther downstream to avoid an impromptu bombardment by American patriots. As a result Andr['e] had to start back to N.Y. by land. He bore a pass issued by Arnold, but he made the fatal mistake of changing to civilian clothes. Technically, therefore, he was a ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... health improved. His tour was a triumphal progress. 'All parties,' he writes, 'uniting in addresses in every place, full of confidence in my government, and of a determination to forget their former disputes.' He adds a little pen-picture, which shows that the Canadian pioneer had a knack of impromptu pageantry which his descendants have lost. 'Escorts of two and three hundred farmers on horseback at every place from township to township, with all the etceteras of guns, music, and flags.' The governor rode a good deal ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... bowed from the window, but a young Hungarian journalist leaned out and without a moment's hesitation poured forth a torrent for fully fifteen minutes with scarce a pause for breath. I told him that such impromptu oratory seemed marvellous, but he dismissed it as nothing. "I'm politiker!" he explained, with a wave of ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... anxiety to please her distinguished guests speedily displayed itself in a very plentiful, if not very dainty repast. To the duckling, peas, and other delicacies, intended for Mr. Kneebone's special consumption, she added a few impromptu dishes, tossed off in her best style; such as lamb chops, broiled kidneys, fried ham and eggs, and toasted cheese. Side by side with the cheese (its never-failing accompaniment, in all seasons, at the carpenter's board) came a tankard of swig, and a toast. Besides these ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... admiring group, tested the impromptu platform. He accepted a short riding whip handed up to him by Alf Warren with a truly professional flourish. Andy stood easy and erect, one hand on his hip. All that seemed lacking was the sawdust ring ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... looked into that garret on some Saturday afternoon while our century was not far advanced in its second score of years, he might have found three boys in cloaks and doublets and plumed hats, heroes and bandits, enacting more or less impromptu melodramas. In one of the boys he would have seen the embryo dramatist of a nation's life history, John Lothrop Motley; in the second, a famous talker and wit who has spilled more good things on the wasteful air in conversation ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... scattered dwellings of the prairie outcasts. Then he drew a small piece of looking-glass from his pocket and held it out in the sun. Turning and twisting it in the direction of the camp, as might a child who wishes to dazzle a play-fellow's eyes. For several minutes he thus manipulated his impromptu heliograph. Then, as he suddenly beheld an answering flash in the distance, he desisted, and returned the glass to his pocket. Now he drew back in the shade and composed ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... He was more respectful, more sincere. Supposing the impossible were to happen—supposing he were to ask her to be his wife? For all she knew, the proposal might come that very evening. It might be part of the plan of this sudden impromptu dinner. What would she say to him? Did she love him? Frankly she did not—yet. Could she ever love him? The answer to that was in the future. Ought a girl to marry a man whom she knew in her heart she did not love? He was rich, the marriage ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... by inverting a truism." That sounds well; must lay it by for use. Take "Virtue," for instance. "Virtue" offers a fine field for paradox, brought strictly up to date. Must jot down stray thoughts. (Good idea in the expression "Stray Thoughts." Will think over it, and work it up either for impromptu or future play.) Here are a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 29, 1893 • Various
... in silence back to the Dormy House. When he arrived there the place was deserted. The other men were lunching at the golf club. He made his way slowly to the impromptu shed which served for a garage. His own car was standing there. He looked all around to make sure that he was absolutely alone. Then he lifted up the cushion by the driving-seat. Carefully folded and arranged in the corner were the horn-rimmed spectacles ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... joint caucus he escorted Madeleine to the council-chamber, where the new Governor was holding his impromptu reception. There were no shadows on the faces which pressed closely around him. All the politicians of the State were there, eager to be the first to congratulate him. Their fears had been somewhat allayed. In political circles it was well understood that Waymouth ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... George's Fields." It was a wanton fire on an unarmed populace that was protected against; and the protest was by men who involuntarily shrank from mob-law as they would from the hell of anarchy. They apprehended an impromptu collision between the people and the troops; they knew that an illegal and wanton fire on the people would produce such collision; the danger of this result formed, undoubtedly, a large portion of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... to engage in exercises of sonnet-skill with his brother William and his sister Christina, and, even then, he attained to such proficiency, in the mere mechanism of sonnet structure, that he could sometimes dash off a sonnet in ten minutes—rivalling, in this particular, the impromptu productions of Hartley Coleridge. It is hardly necessary to say that the poems produced, under such conditions of time and other tests, were rarely, if ever, adjudged worthy of publication, by the side of work to which he gave adequate deliberation. But ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... unprecedented merit of the lady. Nevertheless I got the better of him; for he was struck absolutely dumb, when (waving her present perverseness, which yet was a sufficient answer to all his pleas) I asserted, and offered to prove it, by a thousand instances impromptu, that love was not governed by merit, nor could be under the dominion of prudence, or any other reasoning power: and if the lady were capable of love, it was of such a sort as he had nothing to do with, and which never before reigned in a ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... their own background, the two girls seemed more at their ease and showed more spontaneity than at school. They were fond of "dressing up" and of organizing impromptu dramatizations of the stories of familiar books, and showed a native ability for acting which explained their success in recitations. Once when the fun was very rollicking, Camilla brought out ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... breast covered with a double row of medals. Of the toasts drunk to Constance, the manager, poets Straws and Phazma, etc., unfortunately no record remains. Of the recollections of the wiry old lady; the impromptu verse of the rhymsters; the roaring speech of Mr. Barnes; the song and dainty flower dance by Susan and Kate—only the bare facts ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... boat the news passed, and so it traveled to the deck of the "Waverly," where the sailors received it with broad smiles. The leader of the impromptu band raised his baton, rapping for attention. But Lieutenant Featherstone, below, caught the leader's eye in time and held up his hand ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... May 27. Liszt's "Rhapsodie Hongroise" (number 1); Schubert's "Impromptu" in C minor; and Schumann's "Bilder aus Osten"; and on the 28th, Schubert's "Teufel's Lustschloss" given by Theodore ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... the plains!" answered Pixie unexpectedly, and as a wild buffalo she comported herself for the next half-hour, ambling on hands and knees round the room, while the children wreathed her neck with impromptu garlands made of wools from their mother's work-basket, and made votive offerings of sofa cushions, ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... new to himself, at least so far as the arrangement of his words were concerned. The floating thoughts were most beautifully arranged, and delivered on the spur of the moment. What accident gave rise to the singular request, that he should deliver this lecture impromptu, I never learnt; nor did it signify, as it afforded a happy opportunity to many of witnessing in part the extent of his reading, and the extraordinary ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... upon each other they immediately engaged in a fierce struggle, in which poor Harry learned, when too late, that his wounded shoulder was almost powerless. Meanwhile, the Canadian having been assaulted by three Indians at once, floored one at the outset, and immediately began an impromptu war-dance round the other two, dealing them occasionally a kick or a blow, which would speedily have rendered them hors de combat, had they not succeeded in closing upon him, when all three fell heavily to ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... is a big thing and cannot be ignored, particularly in love affairs. It would have been better for the poet if he had accepted the bourgeois' invitation to dinner; friends, as I suggested, might have come in, an impromptu dance might have been arranged, or the rain might have begun again; something would certainly have happened to make them miss the train; and they would have been asked to stay the night. The widow did not speak French, the young man did; he might ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... viii., rank among the finest compositions in later Greek literature. Regarded merely as a piece of poetical prose, 1 Cor. xiii. is finer than anything that had been written in the Greek language since the great Attic prose-writers. And if this was dictated impromptu, similar outbursts of splendid eloquence were probably frequent in his mission-preaching. Their effect must have been overwhelming, when reinforced by the flashing eye of the speaker, and by the absolute sincerity which none could ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... or by us, he invariably came off triumphant. Whether in deciding the pitch or component parts of chords the most difficult and dissonant; whether in repeating with correctness and precision any pieces, written or impromptu, played to him for the first and only time; whether in his improvisations, or performances of compositions by Thalberg, Gottschalk, Verdi, and others; in fact, under every form of musical examination,—and the experiments are too numerous to mention or enumerate,—he ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... "if I hadn't better rig up something evening-like for the dance to-night. If you could let me borrow a white muslin curtain, I could easily rig it up into an impromptu dance frock." ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... blow on the arm and gave ground. Charles pressed him. Then he hit with his right and with the violence of despair. It was a hit of his own devising,—an impromptu,—but it chanced to coincide with the regulation hook hit at the head. He perceived with a leap of exultation that the thing his fist had met was the jawbone of Charles. It was the sole gleam of pleasure he experienced during the fight, and it was ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... guests. It was little more than a closet and was not even furnished. A cot had been put in that very afternoon, but only to meet a special emergency. A long-impending conference was going to be held between him and his employers subsequent to closing up time, and he had planned this impromptu refuge to save himself a late walk to the stable. At his offer to pass the same over to the Demarests, the difficulty of the moment vanished. Miss Demarest was shown to the one empty room in front, and the ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... boys had to mount the dormitory steps and make impromptu speeches, and then submit to a general handshaking and leave-taking all around. "Fair Brighton" was sung, and the familiar old Brighton yell chorused over and over, with three long 'rahs for Jack Hammond and ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... blighting effect these multitudinous preparations and ceremonies have upon the pleasures they profess to subserve. Who, on calling to mind the occasions of his highest social enjoyments, does not find them to have been wholly informal, perhaps impromptu? How delightful a picnic of friends, who forget all observances save those dictated by good nature! How pleasant the little unpretended gatherings of book-societies, and the like; or those purely accidental meetings of a few people well ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... these memorable stanzas was enacted at a banquet at Carlton House, February 22, 1812. On March 6 the following quatrain, entitled, "Impromptu on a Recent Incident," appeared in ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... to complain of in heaven except that "his halo didn't fit," or said in her quick way, when the plainness of a lady's dress was commended, "Why, I didn't suppose that anybody could go to heaven now-a-days without an overskirt," or wrote her sparkling impromptu rhymes for our children's games, her mirth was all in harmony with her earnest life. Her quick perceptions, her droll comparisons, her readiness of expression, united with her rare and tender sympathies, made her the most fascinating of companions to both ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... sort of thin skirt whose color had vanished in the blue-black of its wetness. Over her head and shoulders was thrown a ragged piece of shawl. From under it dangled strands of grizzled gray hair. Her dark eyes were hidden in the shadows of her impromptu hood. The hollows of her cheeks looked deeper in ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... tallow candles, he was unable to read them when he arose to address the court and jury, paying them aside, he depended entirely upon his memory and found it perfect. He made an eloquent plea, produced a marked impression, and won the case. Since then he has always been an impromptu speaker. Formed a partnership later with William Wallace, but in 1860 the latter became clerk of Marion County, and the firm was changed to Harrison & Fishback, which was terminated by the entry of the senior partner into the Army in 1862. Was chosen reporter of the supreme court of Indiana in 1860 ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... Lightbody, and that Miss Hunter was made use of against her. Having a most contemptible opinion of her Albina's understanding, and knowing that her young friend had too little capacity to be able to deceive her, or to invent a plausible excuse impromptu, Mrs. Beaumont turned quick, and exclaimed, "My dear, what could Lightbody be saying to you when I came up?—for I remember he stopped short, and you both looked ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... some ancient prophet, upon whom the Spirit of the Lord had come, "the Golden Shoemaker" turned and preached, from the living text of his besotted friend, a telling impromptu Temperance sermon to the motley crowd. The whole incident was quite unpremeditated. He had never dreamt that he would do such a thing as he was doing now. But that by no means lessened the effect of his burning ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... hauteur so enraged the new regime that by the new year of 1815 it was seen by all except those in authority that the return of the exile, Corporal Violet, as he was now called, was inevitable. So it came about that on the 20th of February, his pockets stuffed with impromptu addresses to the people and the army, Bonaparte, eluding those whose duty it was to watch him, set sail, and on the 1st of March he reached Cannes, whence he immediately marched, gaining recruits at every step, ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... strikes and boycotts, not merely industrial ones, where the grievance is so plain that virtually without leadership the same reaction takes place in many people. But even in these rudimentary cases there are persons who know what they want to do more quickly than the rest, and who become impromptu ringleaders. Where they do not appear a crowd will mill about aimlessly beset by all its private aims, or stand by fatalistically, as did a crowd of fifty persons the other day, and watch ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... little ring the area is gradually enlarged: first one other couple and then another are moved to follow the example, and they in their turn assist in bumping out the limits of the ring till it has become some twenty feet or so in diameter. These impromptu ball-rooms rarely much exceed that size, but dozens of them may be found in the course of one's peregrinations around the large piazza. The occupants of some of them will be found to consist of town-bred Romans, and those of others of people from the country. There is no mistaking ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... went by, my second tale was done, and I was now entrancing Messer Ramiro with some impromptu verses upon the divorce of Giovanni Sforza, a theme set me by himself, when I was interrupted by the arrival of ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... the derisive, incredulous look on the young medical man's face which stung him into adding: "If I understand rightly"—he turned to Varick—"something very like what I should call an impromptu materialization took place in the ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... trousers, were seen prowling about with shirts tied round their waists by the sleeves, and pants twisted turban-wise about their heads. Tui was called, and requested to inform them that they must dress properly, after the fashion of the white man, for that any impromptu improvements upon our method of clothes-wearing could not be permitted. As they were gentle, tractable fellows, they readily obeyed, and, though they must have suffered considerably, there were no further grounds for complaint on ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... did he of the velvet coat help the singer into the cart, and with what elegant abandon and ultra-dilettantism did he light a cigarette, reseat himself at the piano, and weave Scots ballads into a charming impromptu! I confess I wrapped my shilling in a bit of paper and dropped it over the balcony with the wish that I knew the tragedy ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... he doing it?" asked Pilar, thoughtfully. "Maria purisima! It isn't as if he were an impulsive or hospitable man, fond of getting up impromptu entertainments. This is done in a hurry. What can be his object? for he ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the Palace gardens, at which the Sultan of Dafur and a bodyguard armed with battle axes would be the chief attraction. Also I induced the landlord of our hotel to promise special illuminations, music, and an impromptu dance for the evening. This was to make sure that none of our friends should find time to see me off at the train. Anthony was to join me there, in mufti, and might be recognised by sharp eyes on the lookout for mysteries. Once we got away, that danger would ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... he stood there, frozen, he did not know: nor can one say how long he would have stood there had nothing further come to invite his notice elsewhere. But, suddenly, drowning even the impromptu concert, there came from somewhere upstairs the roar of a gun, and, when he heard that, Sam's rigid limbs relaxed and a violent activity descended upon him. He bounded out into the hall, looking to right and to left for a hiding-place. One of the suits of armour which had been familiar ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... Peter got with his impromptu conspiracy. Suddenly he heard a voice behind him: "What does this mean?" It was a male voice, fierce and trembling with anger; and Peter started from his silken cushions, and glanced around, thrusting up one arm with the defensive ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... to the point of assuming the responsibility and control of the military operations which New England had commenced by laying siege to Boston, in which town General Gage and his troops were caged, and before which lay an impromptu New England army of 15,000 men which the battle of Lexington had immediately brought together. Urged by the New England delegates, congress agreed to assume the expense of maintaining this army. John Adams was the first ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... consider what to say or do, her refuge was always in the impromptu, and she was far more bent on forcing Mr. Prendergast to smile, and distracting herself from her one aching desire that the Irish journey had never been, than of forming any plan of action. In walking ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... your reporter forgot his habitual caution, and giving his Oar-ist a hearing, made all sail for the mark-boat. The tow-line was passed from the bows aft, and there attached to the boat-hook, held by your representative. Upon this impromptu clothes-line was crowded all the canvas, velvet, linen, and other dry-goods appertaining to the gallant captain and his self-sacrificing crew. The latter gentleman might have been seen under this gay cloud of drapery working fitfully but energetically to and fro. But 't was all in vain! ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... that these things were given to them for having fed King. Some old clothes were then put on some of the men and women, and the affair ended in several of our party and several of the black fellows having an impromptu "corroboree," to the intense delight of the natives, and I must say, very much to our amusement. They left, making signs expressive of friendship, carrying their presents with them. The men all wore a net ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... visitors last night! One would imagine they had all come by appointment, expressly to have an impromptu dance, which they certainly enjoyed, by the way. There was little Captain C——, the Susceptible and Simple, who so innocently says "I seen" and "I done it," without the faintest suspicion of the peculiarity, and looks ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... his gallant band of shouters in an impromptu war-dance back of the grandstand, their frenzied shouts of joy at the splendid play sounding loud above ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... Woodstock Verses left by Mr Pope, on his lying in the same bed which Wilmot slept in at Adderbury The Challenge The Three Gentle Shepherds Epigram, engraved on the Collar of a Dog The Translator The Looking-Glass A Farewell to London Sandys' Ghost Umbra Sylvia, a Fragment Impromptu to Lady Winchelsea Epigram Epigram on the Feuds about Handel and Bononcini On Mrs Tofts, a celebrated Opera Singer The Balance of Europe Epitaph on Lord Coningsby Epigram Epigram from the French Epitaph on Gay Epigram on the Toasts ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... more or less tunelessly, by foreign nurses. Girls no longer sing old ballads in the twilight to weary fathers and allure restless brothers to pass the evening at home in innocent participation in an impromptu concert, the boys bearing their part with voice and banjo or flute. We did not make perfect music when these domestic entertainments were in vogue, but we helped make ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... request was refused, that his regiment was even then embarking to cross the Delaware, and that therefore he could not return, whatever his wish. The Twenty-sixth is under orders to follow at daybreak to-morrow, and so we plan an impromptu farewell supper this evening at my quarters. Will you forgive such brief notice and help to cheer ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... as an extemporaneous preacher. This is a mistake. He prepared most of his discourses carefully, and full one-half of many of them were written out. Among these written passages he interjected bursts of impromptu thoughts; and these were generally the most effective passages in the sermon. While he repeated himself often—especially on his favorite topic of God's love—yet it was always in fresh language and with new illustrations. ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... this man was the owner of several square miles of land, of which nearly every acre would produce corn, and, with a little trouble, all the common vegetables. The evening was spent in smoking, with a little impromptu singing, accompanied by the guitar. The signoritas all sat together in one corner of the room, and did not sup ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... followed with his incomparable lecture on "Self-Made Men." One could but feel in seeing his magnificent physique and his manly bearing as he proceeded, that he was a most notable example of his subject, while to report his lecture, with its impromptu sallies of wit and wisdom, would be almost impossible. He instanced many men as illustrations and especially interested his audience with stories of personal interviews with Lincoln, Seward, Greeley, Stanton, Grant and others during and after ...
— The American Missionary — Vol. 48, No. 10, October, 1894 • Various
... Dick's arrival with his companions was a great day in the annals of the Mustang Valley, and Major Hope resolved to celebrate it by an impromptu festival at the old block-house; for many hearts in the valley had been made glad that day, and he knew full well that, under such circumstances, some safety-valve must be devised for the ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... had organized with the promptness characteristic of the bourgeois whenever they are moved by any sentiment whatever to disguise themselves as soldiers. On the nineteenth the impromptu army had attempted a sortie, more to assure itself and others of its actual existence than with any more serious intention. They carried a banner, on which could be read this strange device: "We are seeking ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... thought for him in all that did not regard horses, dogs, and game. He looked perfectly astounded, and required to have all told him over again before he could fully take it in. Then he uttered a suppressed malediction on engines, insisted that all his impromptu guests should immediately eat, drink, and sleep, and declared his intention of going off at once to Redcastle to see about ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the locksmith was brought and the gate was forced. The whole party, hosts and impromptu guests, hurried through the narrow courtyard, entered the house without further hindrance, and were met by a strange spectacle. The valet had been seized with a sudden fit of madness and had smashed the crockery, ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... likely to turn Sandy so sullen that he would refuse to answer, or to tell the truth, at any rate; and Ford's muscles were very, very sore. He did not feel equal to a scuffle with Sandy, just then. He repeated something which sounded like an impromptu litany and had to do with the ultimate disposal of ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... water-color. Between the one picture and the other there were twelve or fifteen of the bric-a-brac things already mentioned; also an oil-painting by Elihu Vedder, "The Young Medusa." Every now and then the children required me to construct a romance—always impromptu—not a moment's preparation permitted—and into that romance I had to get all that bric-a-brac and the three pictures. I had to start always with the cat and finish with Emmeline. I was never allowed the refreshment of a change, end-for-end. It was not permissible ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... attire (in which however he loses nothing of the out-and-outer), gets into the coach and grumbles all the way at his own good nature: his bitter reflections aggravated by the recollection, that Tom Smith has taken the chair at a little impromptu dinner at a fighting man's, and that a set-to was to take place on a dining-table, between the fighting man and his brother-in-law, which is probably 'coming off' at ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... except at the moment of invention, scornful of whoever thought that art was a work of mere industry and rule, often coming the whole length of Milan to give a single touch. He painted it, not in fresco, where all must be impromptu, but in oils, the new method which he had been one of the first to welcome, because it allowed of so many afterthoughts, so refined a working out of perfection. It turned out that on a plastered wall no process could have been less durable. ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... defended. The more ill-humored Mrs. Fotheringham grew, the more Lady Niton enjoyed the evening and her own "Nitonisms." It was she who after dinner suggested the clearing of the hall and an impromptu dance—on the ground that "girls must waltz for their living." And when Diana proved to be one of those in whom dancing is a natural and shining gift, so that even the gilded youths of the party, who were perhaps inclined to fight ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... In the evening impromptu concerts were held, at one of which, on the fo'c'sle decks the pipers played "The 5th H.L.I.'s Farewell to Aboukir," composed by Pipe Major Thomson. Can its plaintive harmonies still be heard, or did they perish with him when he fell just ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... illustration there of this peculiarly charming type of his women in "Luxury" (typified, for this artist, by breakfast in bed), "House Breakers," "The Inn Yard on Fire" (where the ladies are making a very impromptu exit), in the lovely model of "The Artist Disturbed," and (for women of fashion) in the series (twelve prints in all) of ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... the people who only found out the jokes some two or three minutes after they were made, and who then laughed apparently at some grave statements of fact. Reduced to paper, the showman's jokes are certainly not brilliant; almost their whole effect lies in their seemingly impromptu character. They are carefully led up to, of course; but they are uttered as if they are mere afterthoughts, of which the speaker is hardly sure." Herein the writer in the Standard hits the most marked peculiarity of Artemus ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... houses are low and mostly thatched, the roof being often covered with soil, and are not infrequently rendered attractive with blooming heather and little blue and pink blossoms planted by Nature's hand,—the hieroglyphics in which she writes her impromptu poetry. In the meadows between the hills are sprinkled harebells, as blue as the azure veins on a delicate face; while here and there patches of large red clover-heads are seen nodding heavily with their wealth of golden sweets. Further away, in solitary glens, ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... irresistible. Whatever she did was done well. Her high spirits never failed, her strength never seemed to tire. She could ride all day and dance all night. She could answer Gaspare Visconti's verses in impromptu rhymes, and keep up animated literary controversies with Niccolo da Correggio and Messer Galeaz, or discuss grave political questions with the duke in the wisest and most sagacious manner. "As usual," wrote her secretary Capilupi, "Madonna's gracious ways and ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... that it was no concern of his, and came off the stand. An impromptu recess was taken by the court-room for several minutes, wherein there was much ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... where Hoffmann was the soul of the party, his genius, wit, irony, and drollery being inexhaustible. Whilst sending out flashes of sarcastic wit or gleams of exquisite humour, he would clench a droll or clever description by quickly embodying his thoughts and words in impromptu sketches, which were handed round to the company. Music and singing, often by the actors and actresses, also added to the entertainment of the evening. Mine host of the "Rose" saw his company increased by some scores of visitors when it was known that the inimitable sharp-eyed little ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... day in 1860, a Southern gentleman hastened to the White House. On the steps he met an old friend who had just left Buchanan. Waving his hat, he shouted, "This is a glorious day! South Carolina has seceded!" That night an impromptu banquet was held in Washington, at which the Southern leaders drank to the success of the slave empire that was to be founded, and talked about a Southern army, a Southern navy, the annexation of Mexico and the ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... I think how the railroad has been pushed through this unwatered wilderness and haunt of savage tribes; how at each stage of the construction roaring, impromptu cities, full of gold and lust and death, sprang up and then died away again, and are now but wayside stations in the desert; how in these uncouth places Chinese pirates worked side by side with border ruffians and broken men from Europe, gambling, drinking, ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... the daughter was called up on the 'phone by one of her girl friends and asked to make one of the party, who were arranging an impromptu dance at a private house. The girl friend and her brother would stop for her in their car and ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... all were uncritically included in the third folio of his collected works,(1664). Schlegel and a few other critics of repute have, on no grounds that merit acceptance, detected signs of Shakespeare's genuine work in one of the six, 'The Yorkshire Tragedy;' it is 'a coarse, crude, and vigorous impromptu,' which is clearly by a ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... communication ended. So with other things. Rhymes are often unexpectedly written, especially if the "control" professes to be a poet, and they are dashed off so rapidly that I do not understand their import until the close when I can read them over. Impromptu rhyming is a feat utterly impossible to either Mr. U. or myself. Names persistently recur which are unknown to us. Many different handwritings appear, some of them far superior to my own. When I first began to get communications I destroyed, in a day or two after they ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... The impromptu tragedian recited several lines in a declamatory tone accompanied by gestures to match. Delsarte listened without a sign of praise or blame. Then he rose, struck an attitude appropriate to the text, but perfectly natural, and, in his quiet ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... gave me great pleasure to get your last letter, for these little impromptu effusions are the genuine letters. I rejoice that man and nature seem harmonious to you, and that the heart beats in unison with the voices of Spring. May all that is manly, sincere, and pure, in your wishes, be realized! Obliged ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... fall; he and Samuel Gray and Jonas Caldwell were killed on the spot. Samuel Maverick and Patrick Carr were mortally wounded. The excitement which followed was intense. The bells of the town were rung. An impromptu town-meeting was held, and an immense assembly was gathered. Three days after, on the 17th, a public funeral of the martyr took place. The shops in Boston were closed, and all the bells of Boston and the neighboring towns were rung. It is said that a greater number of persons assembled on this occasion, ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... Written impromptu, on reading the following passage in Mr. Capel Lofft's beautiful and interesting Preface to Nathaniel Bloomfield's Poems, just published:—"It has a mixture of the sportive, which deepens the impression of its melancholy close. I could have wished, as I have ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... then sat down and gazed at each other in strained and unnatural silence. They could find nothing to say to each other. Ordinary topics seemed to be precluded by their festive appearance and the formal nature of the occasion. Their informal meetings were usually celebrated by impromptu wrestling matches. This being debarred, a stiff, unnatural atmosphere descended upon them. William was a "host," they were "guests"; they had all listened to final maternal admonitions in which the word "manners" and "politeness" ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... not to say terrified, the dusky crowd of juveniles with jack-o'-lanterns, impromptu giants and brigands, false faces, fire crackers, ventriloquism ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... he had neglected to inform her what the "something" was which he had "on" brother Joe. Mr. Hennage could see no profit in telling her that it was a blood-stained tarpaulin, under which Mrs. Pennycook's brother reposed, quite dead, in the back room of the stage stable, to which impromptu morgue Joseph, with his two companions, had been borne by the committee of citizens headed by the constable, shortly after the elimination of the trio by ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... we spent in rowing, walking, and later at a little impromptu supper, I was interested in observing the puzzling behavior of Beth and my chum. I had expected that he would avoid her as much as possible and speak to her only when common politeness made conversation obligatory, and that she, a born coquette, would seek to add his scalp to her ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... Karlov set the candle on Kitty's impromptu stepladder. "We saw your interest in the affair, and attacked you on that side. You had seen me once. Being a newspaper writer—the New York kind—you would not rest until you learned who I was. You would not forget me. You were too well guarded uptown. You have been out of the city ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... audience by their mimicry or improvisations; not a few of the greatest actors and actresses might starve if they had to rely upon their own ideas. It is even notorious that some of our most illustrious actors have had their brilliant after-dinner impromptu speeches ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... degenerated into doggerel, and desecrated the spot by the following impromptu, which, as he had the delicacy not to scribble on Camoen's Cave, I ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... ma'am," said Adelaide; "and I suspect it is some one for us. You know we never venture on impromptu visits, except to you, and our ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... of this great man's club, and offers him a seat in his brougham. Amid the cheers of the people they drive away together. Inside the club there are fresh congratulations, and it is proposed to arrange an impromptu dinner, at which the duke will preside. But with modesty and honest thanks the great man declines. He pleads an engagement. He had pleaded this engagement the day before to a well-known society. After his health is proposed, he makes his adieux, and leaving the club, walks away towards ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... When I think how the railroad has been pushed through this unwatered wilderness and haunt of savage tribes; how at each stage of the construction roaring, impromptu cities, full of gold and lust and death, sprang up and then died away again, and are now but wayside stations in the desert; how in these uncouth places Chinese pirates worked side by side with border ruffians and broken men ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... one end of the room is the crowd of American students singing in a chorus. The table is full now, for many have come from dinners at other cafes to join them. At one end, and acting as interlocutor for this impromptu minstrel show, presides one of the best fellows in the world. He rises solemnly, his genial round face wreathed in a subtle smile, and announces that he will sing, by earnest request, that popular ballad, "'Twas Summer and the Little Birds ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... it were, written for a tenor, and he strains at it like a low baritone. Figurez-vous a portly gentleman, brown as walnut juice, dark black hair, moustache and beard. Teeth flashing and brilliant, like a set of impromptu epigrams in the mouth of a wit. Laughing lips, and eyes beaming with good-nature. Height five feet seven. Voila le ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... national banner. The success of the experiment emboldened her to throw off the most sacred observances of her past. She took up Madame Adelschein, she entertained the James J. Rollivers, she resuscitated Creole dishes, she patronized negro melodists, she abandoned her weekly teas for impromptu afternoon dances, and the prim drawing-room in which dowagers had droned echoed with ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... asked why he no longer spoke to a lawyer named Peat; to which he replied, "I choose to give up his acquaintance—I have common of turbary, and have a right to cut peat!" An impromptu of his on a learned serjeant who was holding the Court of Common Pleas with his glittering eye, is ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... in Practical English How to Speak Without Notes Something to Say: How to Say It Successful Methods of Public Speaking Model Speeches for Practise The Training of a Public Speaker How to Sell Through Speech Impromptu Speeches: How to Make Them Word-Power: How to Develop It Christ: The Master Speaker Vital English for Speakers ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... "commedia del arte." In Italy the commedia del arte was the continuation or revival of the mimus. The speeches were impromptu; the characters and roles were stereotyped. The action and speeches must have grown by the contributions of talented men who played the parts from generation to generation. The characters have become traditional and universal.[2135] Such were Maccus ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... had been much mystified—he had known nothing of his host's past history; he had thought that the child was only paying an impromptu visit until she mentioned her name. Erle had told him that Mrs. Trafford was Mr. Huntingdon's daughter, and that he had never seen her since her marriage. This clew guided him to the meaning of the sternness in Mr. Huntingdon's voice; but he had hardly understood in what ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Lambton, Esq. Written in the Album of the Lady of Counsellor D. Pollock The Heliotrope Sonnet On seeing a Young Lady I had previously known, confined in a Madhouse Prometheus Rosa's Grave The Sibyl. A Sketch Love On a delightful Drawing in my Album Stanzas Shakspeare Impromptu. To Oriana, on attending with her, as Sponsors, at a Christening To my Spaniel Fanny Widowed Love Written to the Lady of Dr. George Birkbeck The Chain-pier, Brighton. A Sketch Sonnet. Morning. On the Death of Dr. Abel Sonnet. Night. Constancy. To ——— Epistle to a Friend Here ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... unlimited access to good things—when a gift of pocket-money brings the contents of the confectioner's window within reach, or when by some accident the free run of a fruit-garden is obtained; then the long-denied, and therefore intense, desires lead to great excesses. There is an impromptu carnival, due partly to release from past restraints, and partly to the consciousness that a long Lent will begin on the morrow. And then, when the evils of repletion display themselves, it is argued that children must not be left to the guidance of their ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... her distinguished guests speedily displayed itself in a very plentiful, if not very dainty repast. To the duckling, peas, and other delicacies, intended for Mr. Kneebone's special consumption, she added a few impromptu dishes, tossed off in her best style; such as lamb chops, broiled kidneys, fried ham and eggs, and toasted cheese. Side by side with the cheese (its never-failing accompaniment, in all seasons, at the carpenter's board) came a tankard of swig, and ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... a yacht piano in the cabin. Villona played a waltz for Farley and Riviere, Farley acting as cavalier and Riviere as lady. Then an impromptu square dance, the men devising original figures. What merriment! Jimmy took his part with a will; this was seeing life, at least. Then Farley got out of breath and cried "Stop!" A man brought in a light supper, and the young men sat down to it for form's ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... of the war that was critical, picturesque, dramatic, by some lucky accident he found himself among those present. He could not lose. Even when his press boat broke down at Cardenas, a Yankee cruiser and two Spanish gun-boats, apparently for his sole benefit, engaged in an impromptu duel within range of his megaphone. When his horse went lame, the column with which he had wished to advance, passed forward to the front unmolested, while the rear guard, to which he had been forced to join his fortune, fought its way through ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... was overturned and the royal party barely escaped being drowned. One of the aids who accompanied them recounted the fact that the impromptu bath had cured the king's toothache which he had acquired over a rather hasty meal just before leaving the palace. "Had I witnessed the adventure," said the Marquis de Verneuil, "I should have proposed the toast: 'Le Roi Boit!" As a result of this incident a new bridge was constructed, though ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... staffs which, in order to carry out the programme, had to furnish impromptu instruction in history, had no clear idea either of the reasons for such instruction, or of its place in general education, or of the technical methods necessary for giving it. With this lack of tradition, of pedagogic ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... smile. "Very well," I said, "I will try, though I don't suppose anybody wants to hear, and I can't see why anybody should." Audience and lecturer laughed together till the tears ran down; vociferous and repeated applause hailed my impromptu sally. Another hit which I made but a little after, as I turned three pages of the copy: "You see, I am leaving out as much as I possibly can," increased the esteem with which my patrons had begun to regard me; and when I left the ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... springing from the same fervid abundance, that links the Spanish tradition to ours of the present day is the strangely impromptu character of much Spanish art production. The slightly ridiculous proverb that genius consists of an infinite capacity for taking pains is well controverted. The creative flow of Spanish artists has always been so strong, ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... said Adelaide; "and I suspect it is some one for us. You know we never venture on impromptu visits, except to you, and our people know ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... confirmed, upon the opening of the cage at that height, by Mr. Potter's voice melodiously belling a flourish of laughter on the other side of a closed door bearing his card. It was rich laughter, cadenced and deep and loud, but so musically modulated that, though it might never seem impromptu, even old Carson Tinker had once declared that he liked to listen to it almost as ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... be extracted from a tragic theme will be found in his vivacious "Letters." He seems one of those high-spirited and versatile young men who notice the humorous side of everything, and can add to the jollity of a company by a story, a song, an "impromptu" poem, or ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... firewood and matches. The chamber to which he conducted me was comfortable enough, but by no means profusely furnished. It contained a small truckle bedstead, two chairs, and a washstand, but no attempt at pictures or ornaments of any description. Evidently it was an impromptu bedroom. My entertainer in a few minutes kindled a cheerful fire upon the old-fashioned stone hearth. Then, after arranging my bed and placing my candle on the mantelpiece, he wished me a respectful goodnight ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... that if he persisted in doing as he had threatened, he would soon find himself standing alone. She promised the gentleman that she would repeat to her husband what he had said, and as soon as he had gone seized her pencil and wrote the following impromptu, which serves well to illustrate her firm persistence in any course she believes right, as well as the principle that ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... rehearsed. On one side he heard them discussing the question of loans to complete the net-work of canals proposed by the department on highways; and the discussion involved millions! On the other, journalists, pandering to the banker's self-love, were talking about the session of the day before, and the impromptu speech of the great man. In the course of two long hours Birotteau saw the banker three times, as he accompanied certain persons of importance three steps from the door of his study. But Francois Keller went to ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... the Luxembourg gardens, in grisettes' rooms, even in the law schools—anywhere rather than in their horrible rooms—horrible for purposes of study, delightful as soon as they were used for gossiping and smoking in. Put a cloth on the table, and the impromptu dinner sent in from the best eating-house in the neighborhood—places for four—two of them in petticoats—show a lithograph of this "Interior" to the veriest bigot, and she will ...
— Z. Marcas • Honore de Balzac
... I was highly excited by our near approach to Jerusalem. There were several other travellers along the road, all bound for the Holy City. We occupied seven and a half hours on the journey. We passed two cafes on the road, impromptu donkey sheds, where we found good Turkish coffee and narghilehs; and there were shady groves, and fields of marigolds, poppies, and such-like. At last I reached the crest of the hill, and beheld Jerusalem beneath me. I reined in my horse, and with ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... you, not to you. 'Have you seen Mrs. Pontellier? How is she looking?' he asks. 'As Mrs. Pontellier says,' or 'as Mrs. Pontellier once said.' 'If Mrs. Pontellier should call upon you, play for her that Impromptu of Chopin's, my favorite. I heard it here a day or two ago, but not as you play it. I should like to know how it affects her,' and so on, as if he supposed we were constantly in each ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... was furnishing much amusement with an impromptu sleight- of-hand exhibition. The black audience clustered around Jim Pink in his pinstripe trousers and blue-serge coat. They exhibited not the least curiosity as to the mechanics of the tricks, but asked for more and ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... warfare. He at once saw what would be the effect of the new departure. And so promptly and energetically did he denounce the "arch-apostate Egerton, alias Arnold, Ryerson" as a deserter, that he secured with little difficulty an impromptu verdict from the public against him. This he the more readily accomplished, by the aid of at least half a dozen editors of newspapers in various parts of the province, while Dr. Ryerson was single-handed. Not only did these editors join with great vigour in the hue and ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... "the same, though in a better dress, which I should not have thought would have made so much difference in your eyes, though it makes all the difference between man and man in the eyes of the stupid vulgar. My genius has broken through the clouds of misfortune of late. A few happy impromptu verses I made on the Count de Flora's fall from his horse attracted attention. The count patronizes me. I am here now to learn the fate of an ode I have just composed for his lady's birthday. My ode was ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... good-tempered, could talk with anybody, take off the bores, and leave people to be comfortable in their own way: while he had a large family of fine children of all ages, that had long given easy and constant excuse under the name of "little children's parties," for getting up an impromptu dance or a gypsy dinner,—enlivening the neighbourhood, in short. Caroline was the eldest; then came a son, attached to a foreign ministry, and another, who, though only nineteen, was a private secretary to one of our Indian satraps. The acquaintance of these young gentlemen, thus engaged, ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... end," he said with a creditable impromptu. "The wife said—'No, you're mistaken. Your Festival's only beginning. You get no supper. It's the commencement of the ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Green Isle, Corrie and Alice were married, and on the same day Bumpus and Susan were also united. There was great rejoicing on the occasion; Ole Thorwald and Dick Price distinguished themselves by dancing an impromptu and maniacal pas de deux at the ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... "Rhapsodie Hongroise" (number 1); Schubert's "Impromptu" in C minor; and Schumann's "Bilder aus Osten"; and on the 28th, Schubert's "Teufel's Lustschloss" given by Theodore Thomas, in New ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... at least so far as the arrangement of his words were concerned. The floating thoughts were most beautifully arranged, and delivered on the spur of the moment. What accident gave rise to the singular request, that he should deliver this lecture impromptu, I never learnt; nor did it signify, as it afforded a happy opportunity to many of witnessing in part the extent of his reading, and the ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... "hooray, Bloater, go in an' win," may have aroused his sense of the ludicrous, which was very strong, and helped to check him. At all events, instead of bringing his broom down on the head of Mr Sparks, Bloater performed an impromptu war-dance round him and flourished his weapon with a rapidity that was only surpassed by the ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... person observing that Mr. Dallas looked very wise on a certain occasion, his Lordship is said to have broke out into the following impromptu."—Life, Writings, Times, and Opinions of Lord Byron, 1825, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... answers were satisfactory, to allow him to revisit the scenes of his earthly life in order to repair any little omissions that he might have made in the hurry of departure. Unfortunately the leading case was a bad example of suicide. It had not been deliberate; he had simply killed himself impromptu in a tight corner to avoid arrest for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... baptize him again, and always the puncher made motions of going through the performance a second time. The joke never staled. It always got a hand, no matter how often it was repeated. At each encore the Utes stamped their flatfooted way round the room in a kind of impromptu and mirthful dance. The baptismal jest never ceased ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... carried sleeping mats for us to wrap ourselves in at night, with a small kettle for boiling our tea, and a pot for cooking our meat or soup. When resting at night we quickly formed an impromptu hut of boughs. I could not help wishing that my sister and Grace had been with us, to admire the beautiful forests and magnificent birds we saw. Rising in the morning, we witnessed another dance of the ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... the mayor delivers an impromptu oration; and Mr. Craig, of the Argus, takes notes, according to his ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... for good fortune of which Harrison Smith lost no time in availing himself. Lending a trifling support to his impromptu host they entered the building and ascended in the electric lift to the fourth floor. There was a brass plate on the front door which informed the curious that the owner of the flat was ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... with his companions was a great day in the annals of the Mustang Valley, and Major Hope resolved to celebrate it by an impromptu festival at the old block-house; for many hearts in the valley had been made glad that day, and he knew full well that, under such circumstances, some safety-valve must be devised for the ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... they set to work, the men making a rough sort of impromptu table with some boards, and the ladies spreading upon it the ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... the new trenches, Birdwood, Godley and I sat down on a high spur above Godley's Headquarters which gave us a grand outlook over the whole Suvla area, and across to Chunuk Bair. Here we ate our rations and held an impromptu council of war; Shaw, commanding the new 13th Division, joining in with us. All three Generals were in high spirits and refused to allow themselves to be damped down by the repulse of the morning's attack on the high ridge. They put down that check to the lethargy of Suvla. Had Stopford taken up ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... young people," finally said Mrs. Gibson, laughingly, "this impromptu reception is liable to last all night unless it is checked by a stern hand. It is almost five o'clock, and we haven't even seen our rooms yet. Besides, Anne will have to leave before long for the theatre. Let us hurry with our dressing, order an early ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... in the direction of his impromptu Webster's Unabridged. "Mr. Slocum does not propose to split the difference. The wages in every department are to be just what they are,—neither more nor less. If anybody wishes to make a remark," he added, ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... be the case. Mrs. Cardew would welcome any girl introduced to her daughters through her dear friend Mr. Tristram. She sent a further invitation for the three young people to remain to an impromptu supper, which was pleasanter than late dinner in such hot weather, and asked if Mr. and Mrs. Tristram would ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... or accident, had come very near him indeed. Quickly the towel at the end of the stick waved the message to the officer in command. Just as he was going to supplement it, a bullet passed clean through his impromptu flag and grazed his serge. He went on with his message as if nothing had happened. But the moment he had finished, and was still standing erect to catch the glint of the British signaller's flag, a voice hailed him. ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... Matveitch, however, rarely talked of that time; but two or three times a year, addressing himself to the crooked old emigrant whom he had taken into his house, and called for some unknown reason 'M. le Commandeur,' he recited in his deliberate, nasal voice, the impromptu he had once delivered at a soiree of the Duchesse de Polignac. I remember only the first two lines.... It had reference to a comparison between the Russians ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Italian poet, born at Arezzo, was the son of Benedetto Accolti. Known in his own day as l'Unico Aretino, he acquired great fame as a reciter of impromptu verse. He was listened to by large crowds, composed of the most learned men and the most distinguished prelates of the age. Among others, Cardinal Bombo has left on record a testimony to his extraordinary talent. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... has been chosen for Justice a great deal of fun may be caused by the impromptu imposition ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... to guests. It was little more than a closet and was not even furnished. A cot had been put in that very afternoon, but only to meet a special emergency. A long-impending conference was going to be held between him and his employers subsequent to closing up time, and he had planned this impromptu refuge to save himself a late walk to the stable. At his offer to pass the same over to the Demarests, the difficulty of the moment vanished. Miss Demarest was shown to the one empty room in front, and the mother—as ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... the term. So I boldly proposed to Mr. Shorter that I would join Mr. Ruskin's class. To tell the whole truth, I thought the experiment would be well worth making, if I only gained by it a single personal interview with the Oxford graduate, though I was doubtful about the quality of my impromptu skies. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... it severely reprimanded General Wood, who had not been aware of what the Colonel intended to say. Indeed, the offensive remarks seem to have been extemporaneous, because, as it was too dark for him to read his prepared speech, he spoke impromptu. In any event, Secretary Garrison had due notice that Roosevelt was to speak, and if he had had any doubts he should have sent word to General Wood to cancel the engagement. The Administration made as ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... missions class furnished the inspiration for it, and called it "Scum o' the Earth," an impromptu immigration pageant. A boy who had memorized Schauffler's poem stood off stage and recited it, while group after group of "immigrants" in the motley of the steerage passed slowly through the improvised Ellis Island sifting process. It was all make-believe, of course, all but one tense ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... his conception to its minutest detail of essential form, leaving the work of surface finish for the occupation of cooler leisure. What the Sistine Madonna was to Raphael, it seems that 'Macbeth' was to Shakespeare—a magnificent impromptu; that kind of impromptu which results from the application of well-disciplined powers and rich stores of thought to a subject suggested by occasion. I am inclined to regard 'Macbeth' as, for the most ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... a most popular institution; when it was wet, amusing concerts were given instead at the Masonic Hall. On these occasions Colonel Baden-Powell was the leading spirit, as well as one of the principal artistes, anon appearing in an impromptu sketch as "Signor Paderewski," or, again, as a coster, and holding the hall entranced or convulsed with laughter. He was able to assume very various roles with "Fregoli-like" rapidity; for one evening, ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... carrying on against her by Sir John Hunter and Lightbody, and that Miss Hunter was made use of against her. Having a most contemptible opinion of her Albina's understanding, and knowing that her young friend had too little capacity to be able to deceive her, or to invent a plausible excuse impromptu, Mrs. Beaumont turned quick, and exclaimed, "My dear, what could Lightbody be saying to you when I came up?—for I remember he stopped short, and ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... have neither irony nor point, not implying any pretension. Nothing that smells of the lamp, or refers much to particular experience, or second-hand information, deserves the name of wit, and although it may be recorded in writing, it generally implies impromptu speech. There seems to be a kind of inspiration in it, and we are inclined to regard it, like any other great advantage, as a natural gift. "If you have real wit," says Lord Chesterfield, "it will grow spontaneously, and you need not aim ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... Symphony" I have not yet received. My last number of the Zeitschrift is that of July 6th. I am glad that Stade does not disapprove of these Faust-things.— Schondorf's Polonaise, Impromptu, etc., which Kahnt has sent me, I have read through with pleasure and interest. With the next sending to Rome please enclose the "Petrus" Oratorio by Meinardus (the pianoforte score). In case the pianoforte score has not appeared, then let me have the full score. And together ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... back to the actualities of the moment; she had no idea of permitting her impromptu address on education (furthest of all things from her thoughts as she had entered) to be succeeded by an absolute hiatus. She therefore made inquiries of the customary civility about the other members ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... looked about, thinking he might catch sight of Andy Foger, for the bully also owned a boat, called the Red Streak and, more than once, in spite of the fact that Andy's craft was the more powerful, Tom had beaten him in impromptu races. But there was no sign of his rival this morning, and Tom kept on to Waterfield. He found that Mr. Damon had not ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... as to the Countess, in particular, I consider to have been an example of sustained invective such as one rarely encounters in this degenerate age. Well, her next essay in creative composition is my supper, which will be an equally spirited impromptu. To-morrow she will darn and sew me an epic; and her desserts will continue to be in the richest lyric vein. Such, sir, are the poems of Lisa, all addressed to me, who came so near to gallivanting with ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... his harangue and of the reply on behalf of the States. Her Majesty and her counsellors therefore, knowing that the same envoy was on his way to England with a similar errand, may be supposed to have had leisure to prepare the famous impromptu. Moreover, it is difficult to understand, on the presumption that these classic utterances were purely extemporaneous, how they have kept their place in all chronicles and histories from that day to the present, without change of a word ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... was reviewed in the 'Edinburgh.' We hear of one gentleman who lies awake all night after reading it; and Mrs. Inchbald promises a candid opinion, which, however, we do not get. Besides stories and novels, Mrs. Opie was the author of several poems and verses which were much admired. There was an impromptu to Sir James Mackintosh, which brought a long letter in return, and one of her songs was quoted by Sydney Smith in a lecture at the Royal Institution. Mrs. Opie was present, and she used to tell in after times 'how unexpectedly the compliment came upon her, and how she ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... for several hours. So he got up willingly enough, and hurried his dressing because he remembered what Ernst had told him. Then he followed the soldier downstairs, and found himself the prisoner in an impromptu sort ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine
... in rehearsing her death-scene, she resigned herself to the impromptu imposed upon her, and prepared to follow her Romeo, wherever she might choose to die; but when the evening came, Malibran contrived to die close to the foot-lights and in front of the curtain; Sontag of necessity followed, and ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... synagogue, craved morbidly for gruesomeness and gore. The 'happy endings' of Broadway would have spelled bankruptcy here. Players and audience made a large family party—the unfailing result of a stable stock company with the parts always cast in the same mould. And it was almost an impromptu performance. Pinchas, from his proximity to the stage, could hear every word from the prompter's box, which rose in the centre of the footlights. The Yiddish prompter did not wait till the players 'dried up'; it was his ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... own to the savage and melancholy music; for he had his own design in hand, and terror and cowardice prevailed in his bosom alternately, like the hot and the cold fit of an ague. Courage was uppermost during the singing, which he accompanied through all its length with this impromptu strain: ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... iron table in the corner of the saloon hiccoughed, and lifted a crimson, puffy face, with bleary eyes in it that were startlingly blue. He drew back the great arms that had been hanging over the edge of his impromptu pillow, and heaved up his massive stooping shoulders, and got slowly upon his feet. Then, lurching in his walk, but not stumbling, he moved across the little space of saw-dusted, hard-beaten earth that divided him from W. Keyse, and ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... it," he said. "But it is never too late to begin. I had little more acquaintance with my own late lady ere I married her; which proves," he added with a grimace, "that these impromptu marriages may often produce an excellent understanding in the long-run. As the bridegroom is to have a voice in the matter, I will give him two hours to make up for lost time before we proceed with the ceremony." ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... moment resolved to lay violent hands on the captain, and assume the command of the Bounty. The language attributed to Bligh reads like a translation into the vernacular, but if Christian kept his designs to himself, it is strange that they were immediately understood and acted upon by a body of impromptu conspirators. Testimony, whether written or spoken, with regard to the succession of events "in moments like to these," is worth very little; but it is pretty evident that Christian was a gentleman, and that Bligh's violent and unmannerly ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... they come down, Denise has a cup of tea, some delicious bread and butter, cream cheese that she can make to perfection, and a dish of peaches. Violet is as surprised as they, and rejoices to play hostess. They are in the midst of this impromptu picnic when Grandon looks in the doorway, and laughs with the light heart of ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... beside the fire. Tullius took from a flat, heated stone a battered tin coffee-pot, poured into an earthenware cup some smoking mixture, and brought it to the scout. "Hit ain't moh'n half chicory, sah," From an impromptu cupboard he brought a plate of small round cakes. "Mis' Miriam, she done ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... his depth, if only she had taken a moment to think of it. Because when she plumped, like a child, into his arms, how came his arms to be so wide open? and when two great tears rolled down her cheeks, how sprang his handkerchief so impromptu out ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... containing a carpenter's bench, a chest for bats and stumps, and various other things belonging to different boys. Acton, as head of the school, kept the key, and having unfastened the door, summoned his followers inside to hold an impromptu council of war and discuss the situation. There was a grave expression on each face, for every one felt that things were beginning to look serious. Mason, the only one of their number who had been physically equal to the leaders ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... them all laughing by the spirit with which she spoke the droll poem, "Pussy's Class," which some of my young readers may have read. The "meou" and the "sptzz" were capital, and when the "fond mamma rubbed her nose," the children shouted, for Miss Bab made a paw of her hand and ended with an impromptu purr, which was considered the best imitation ever presented to an appreciative public. Betty bashfully murmurred "Little White Lily," swaying to and fro as regularly as if in no other way could the rhymes be ground out ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... was impossible,' said Dr. Johnson.) Why all that rapid tossing of handfuls of chords from the middle to the highest octaves, lifting the hand with such conscious appeal to our eyes? To what end all those rapid octave passages? since in the intervals of easy execution, in the seemingly quiet impromptu passages, the music grew so monotonous and commonplace: the same little figure repeated and repeated, after listless pauses, in a way which conveyed no meaning, no sense of musical progress, but only the appearance ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... masques, and stage-plays. It pleases her now to see this wonderful fairy piece, of which she has heard so much since, two years ago, it graced the nuptials of the Earl of Derby. Does she not remember also that pretty impromptu verse of the author when acting the part of King in another man's play, two years ago at Greenwich? Did she not twice drop her glove near his feet in crossing the stage? And how happily had he responded to the challenge! ...
— Shakespeare's Christmas Gift to Queen Bess • Anna Benneson McMahan
... behind a trap and drive along, too, where was the harm? The very fact that it need not be concealed made it a matter of course. Friday evenings were always ones of exceptional liberty. Callers of both sexes came, and the girls danced, had candy pulls, or any sort of impromptu fun. Once a year, usually in February, a dance was given, which was, of course, the event ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... once reduced. It was a compendious act. The throne was thus impoverished, its influence shaken, the queen's relatives mortified, and sixteen chief women (some of great possessions) cast in a body on the market. I have been shipmates with a Hawaiian sailor who was successively married to two of these impromptu widows, and successively divorced by both for misconduct. That two great and rich ladies (for both of these were rich) should have married 'a man from another island' marks the dissolution of society. The laws besides ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... aristocracy. He wore a cowboy rig and had a scrubby beard of a week's growth. But he was very jolly and played the violin beautifully. After tea—and a lovely tea it was, although, as Kate remarked to me later, there was no ham—we had an impromptu concert. Mr. Lonsdale played the violin; Mrs. Hopkins, who sang, was a graduate of a musical conservatory; Mr. Hopkins gave a comic recitation and did a Cree war-dance; Kate gave a spirited account of our adventures since leaving home and mother; and I described—with ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... indicated the Lion Dance was a very ancient and conventional ceremony. These dancers gave way to a chorus of singers. For interminable hours, so it seemed, they chanted a high, shrill recitative, carried in fugue by deeper voices. The burden of the song was evidently an impromptu. Occasionally some peculiarly apt or pleasing phrase was caught up for endless repetition. And in the background, against the farther background of the undistinguished masses, those who had formerly carried ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... boat-building. It is a pleasure to see English mechanics at work in a wild country; they finish a job while an Egyptian workman is considering how to do it. In a very short time Mr. Jarvis, the head shipwright, had constructed an impromptu workshop, with an iron roof, within the forest; several sets of sawyers were at work, and in a few days the keel of a new boat ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... she was known ever after. Many graceful compliments paid to her by the courtly earl testify to his admiration of her beauty and accomplishments. On seeing her wear an orange lily on the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne he addressed her in the following impromptu: ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... of the welcome addition of fresh meat to their scanty fare, in the fine wapiti that they possessed through the precision of the young engineer's rifle, which at another time would have roused equally their enthusiasm and their appetites—remained grouped round impromptu log-fires that they had lit to hail the absentees when they came back, looking to their arms and ammunition so as to be ready for anything that might happen, and considering amongst themselves as to what was best to be done in the event ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... a grassy bank, and ate the food Bart had purchased. Mr. Hardman seemed to be thinking of many things, for he hardly spoke during the impromptu meal, and, when he had eaten a couple of sandwiches he arose from the bank and wandered off a little way into the woods. When he came back he ...
— Frank Roscoe's Secret • Allen Chapman
... wait and see," said Tom, easily. But, though he showed much confidence he asked Mr. Sharp in private, just before the impromptu contest: "Do you think we ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... We had an impromptu service on deck this afternoon; I played the hymns,—never been on a voyage yet without being let in for that. It was run by the three C. of E. Padres and the Wesleyan hand in hand: the latter has been in the Nile Expedition of '98 and all through South Africa. We ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... to find himself in a courtyard that recalled the exquisite proportions and traceries of the Alhambra—to be able to wander thence under fretted arches through a maze of marble-paved Moorish chambers, great and small, opening upon each other at irregular angles with a deliciously impromptu effect? The palace had been built regardless of expense. It was originally laid out, Keith explained, by one of the old rulers of Nepenthe who, to tease his faithful subjects, simulated a frenzied devotion for the poetry and architecture of the ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... himself up. He took his meed of praise and flattery, and he withstood the battery of arch eyes modestly, as became the winner of many fields. But even the reception after the Princeton game paled in comparison with this impromptu dance. ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... of sunset when, having snatched a hasty impromptu meal and provided themselves with a few sandwiches and a well-filled pocket-flask each, as well as a liberal supply of cartridges, the four hunters left the Flying Fish on their way to the ambush which they had arranged. The golden light of evening still gleamed ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... to whose love and service she and they were alike pledged. In consequence of this unanimous choice, the holy Foundress, prostrating herself with the whole community before the statue of the Blessed Virgin, addressed to her impromptu, the ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... little impromptu sketch had the desired effect. Melted by the woes of Belinda, or Sophia, or Amelia, or Lavinia Paget, Mrs. Sheldon was moved to relate a sad event in her husband's family; and encouraged by the almost tearful sympathy of the Captain, she again repeated every detail of Susan Meynell's ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... will remind her of her own notable description of 'sorrow,' whence she was once called upon to distinguish wherein 'sorrow, grief,' and 'melancholy,' differed from each other; which she did 'impromptu,' by their 'effects,' in a truly admirable manner, to the high satisfaction of every one: I myself could not, by 'study,' have distinguished 'better,' nor more 'concisely'—SORROW, said she, 'wears'; GRIEF 'tears'; ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... and curious ring of themselves, and the combined volume of their glad, amazed outbursts might be heard for a distance of furlongs. On prankish impulse then they locked hands and with skippings and prancings and impromptu jig steps they circled about him; and he, had he sought to speak, could not well have been heard; and, anyway, he was for the moment past speech, because of being entirely engaged in giving vent to one vehement sneeze after another. And next, above the chorus of joyous whooping ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... fools is essential, and in which are furthermore introduced the lyrics of the Southern and Northern Palaces. These fairy songs consist either of elegaic effusions on some person or impressions of some occurrence or other, and are impromptu songs readily set to the music of wind or string instruments, so that any one who is not cognisant of their gist cannot appreciate the beauties contained in them. So you are not likely, I fear, to understand this lyric with any clearness; and unless you first peruse the text and then ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... stairs, and the sound of voices, interrupted our odd impromptu conversation, as the Grenadier came up, followed by the tall, grave gentleman who was being shown over the house. My sister drew me along the corridor towards her room, where she went in and closed the door behind me, yet not before I had stolen a good ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... these Indians will retire, and in an almost incredibly brief space of time will return with an excellent likeness of the individual whom they design to represent, not merely as regards his ordinary physique, but in facial expression. Practice has made them quite perfect in this impromptu modeling. Chihuahua, if we may credit the historians, as well as judge by the remains, once had a ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... back at the store. Her skirt didn't fit in the back, and the little hollow places in her cheeks did not take the customary dash of rouge as well as when they had been plumper. She held a little impromptu reception that extended down as far as the lingeries and up as far as the rugs. The old sparkle came back to Effie's eye. The old assurance and vigor seemed to return. By the time that Miss Weinstein, of the French lingeries, arrived, breathless, to greet ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... me, formed themselves into a sort of triumphal procession. First went Iguma and her supporters, then followed four of my attendants, then I came with two on either hand, the rest bringing up the rear, all shouting and singing impromptu verses in praise of me, for I could tell by certain words that such was the case. The ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... Brown, and who lies awake at night until he loathes his comfortable pillow and tumbles his sheets into two twisted rags of linen in his agonies, as if he were a prisoner and wanted to wind them into impromptu ropes; this same Jones who thinks Russell Square a magic place because his divinity inhabits it, who thinks the trees in that inclosure and the sky above it greener and bluer than other trees or sky, and who feels a pang, yes, an actual pang, of mingled hope, and ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... should the water in that transparent thing disappear, the evil spirit inside the boiler would get angry through the greatness of his thirst, and take a terrible vengeance. So he sweated and fired up and watched the glass fearfully (with an impromptu charm, made of rags, tied to his arm, and a piece of polished bone, as big as a watch, stuck flatways through his lower lip), while the wooded banks slipped past us slowly, the short noise was left behind, the interminable miles of silence—and we crept on, ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... how we 've wanted an automobile!" she cried, when the impromptu omelet in her lap had been banished into oblivion. "The rides we 'll have—and we won't be pigs! ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... a long and wandering impromptu prayer by somebody, a prayer which "Shirley" found disagreeable (since she herself was a churchwoman, and missed the burial service), the procession, containing twenty men ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... her at these impromptu lunches, without the restraint of Gordon's presence, he had revealed to her a new phase of his character which had interested her still more deeply. It was here that she discovered the secret of his real attitude toward women, his deep hunger for love, tenderness ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... to consider what to say or do, her refuge was always in the impromptu, and she was far more bent on forcing Mr. Prendergast to smile, and distracting herself from her one aching desire that the Irish journey had never been, than of forming any plan of action. In walking to the cabstand they met Robert, and exchanged greetings; a sick faintness ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... what he meant, that of course I should say nothing but the most pleasant things I could think of; that, in fact, I intended to read my speech, lest, in the agitation of the moment, I might overlook some complimentary impromptu little touch. Then he laughed and said: "Why, that isn't the way to do at all—in New York. It is easy to see you are a stranger, and don't read the papers. The correct thing nowadays is for the guest to criticise his entertainers. Mayor So-and-So always does it. And only last year—it was ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... Schlegel and a few other critics of repute have, on no grounds that merit acceptance, detected signs of Shakespeare's genuine work in one of the six, 'The Yorkshire Tragedy;' it is 'a coarse, crude, and vigorous impromptu,' which is clearly by a far ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... got the impromptu breakfast together. The placer sluices outside were neglected. Nobody wished to shovel sand for gold when marvelous tales might be exchanged concerning the wind storm that had raged across the hills the ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... outside and pile neatly at the blind end of the building all the boards, boxes and other debris littering up the room, swept it, and selected two packing cases and nailed them up into a convenient impromptu desk, manufactured a bench seat out of some loose boards, set his pen, ink and paper in order, and felt quite ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... she got up on the piano and gave them an organ monkey; I gather she went in for realism rather than a Maeterlinckian treatment of the subject. Finally, she fell into the piano and said she was a parrot in a cage, and for an impromptu performance I believe she was very word-perfect; no one had heard anything like it, except Baroness Boobelstein who has attended sittings of the Austrian Reichsrath. Agatha is trying the Rest-cure ...
— Reginald • Saki
... silence prevailed till the church clock struck the half-hour, when Clement got up, and taking the slate, where he had been solacing himself with imitating Edgar's caricatures, he was about to make it an impromptu dust-pan, and went down on his knees to sweep up Fulbert's malicious litter, but was rewarded with a vicious kick on the cheek. It was under the table, out of sight; and Clement, like a true son of his mother, made no sign, but went off to bed like ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... spends her breath as years prevail At this sad wicked world to rail, To slander all her sex impromptu, And wonder what the ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... necessarily original and relevant locally. The accompaniment—an easy change of chords—was played on the piano colla voce. And no one minded in the least a foot, more or less, at the end of a verse. The joke was the thing with the Madigans, and the impromptu rhyme that brought down the house was ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... eighteenth century legislation was resumed in regard to negroes, it took the form of a slave code much like that of Connecticut but with an added act, borrowed perhaps from a Southern colony, providing that slaves charged with theft be tried by impromptu courts consisting of two or more justices of the peace or town officers, and that appeal might be taken to a court of regular session only at the master's request and upon his giving bond for its prosecution. Some of the towns, furthermore, added by-laws ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... Street, on a Tuesday morning, and went up to Mr. Hutton's room, where on that day the two editors used to spend the greater part of the morning discussing the coming issue of the paper. I had prepared a nice little impromptu speech, which was to convey in unmistakable terms that I had not come to ask for more books; "I fully realise and fully acquiesce in your inability to use my work." When I went in I was most cordially received, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... the Black Growler darted forward almost as if she was a thing alive. The Varmint II started at the same moment and an impromptu race was on. ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay
... dark stairway, he told of J. Pinkney Hare's evidently impromptu experiences in the public square, which had undoubtedly knocked from his mind all memory of his engagement at the seamstress's; and of the sudden recollection of it, which, there could be no question, was what had sent him ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... I modestly replied—as I never expected to see him again this side of the grave—that my charge would be one hundred and fifty dollars. He nodded, and indicating his pocketbook, told me to help myself, which I did, regretting not having asked for more. That night he died, and my impromptu will was forwarded to California and became the subject of a litigation lasting over eleven years and costing several ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... picture of suburban innocence, and pink and white propriety; to stand facing her audience for a second of time, motionless and in perfect gravity—it was a trick that, though Poppy never varied it, had a more killing effect than the most ingenious impromptu. ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... they had a world of trouble in making the island; as they approached, Willis, who had made a speaking-trumpet by joining his hands round his mouth, was roaring out alternately, "starboard," "larboard," "hard-a-port," just as if these terms had not been Hebrew to the impromptu mariners. ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... astonishing heights, which had an irresistible contagion for the hearers; and he would sometimes, sitting at a table with pen and paper at hand, illustrate his whimsicalities with lightning sketches of immense cleverness, considering their impromptu character. I have preserved a sheet of letter-paper covered with such drawings. The conversation had got upon Byron, whom Mr. Story chose to ridicule; as he talked, he drew a head of "Byron as he thought he was," followed by one of "Byron as he was," and by another of "Byron as he might ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... the garret. If one with a prescient glance could have looked into that garret on some Saturday afternoon while our century was not far advanced in its second score of years, he might have found three boys in cloaks and doublets and plumed hats, heroes and bandits, enacting more or less impromptu melodramas. In one of the boys he would have seen the embryo dramatist of a nation's life history, John Lothrop Motley; in the second, a famous talker and wit who has spilled more good things on the wasteful air in conversation than would carry a "diner-out" ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... room near Hull-House, who heard one Christmas week that the House was going to give a party to which they might come. They arrived one afternoon, when, unfortunately, there was no party on hand and, although the residents did their best to entertain them with impromptu music and refreshments, it was quite evident that they were greatly disappointed. Finally it was suggested that they be shown the Labor Museum—where gradually the thirty sodden, tired women were transformed. ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... have you managed to be here so soon?" asks Miss Priscilla, when the impromptu luncheon, improvised by the startled Timothy, has come to an end. The children were all hungry, and have eaten a great deal, and have talked more. Indeed, though Miss Priscilla has been dying to ask this question for a long time, it has ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... of Dick's arrival with his companions was a great day in the annals of the Mustang Valley, and Major Hope resolved to celebrate it by an impromptu festival at the old block-house; for many hearts in the valley had been made glad that day, and he knew full well that, under such circumstances, some safety-valve must be devised for ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... soft wind, when the shadows of the clouds go sweeping over the hills. Quite casually I happened upon a girl clambering over a hedge, and her dress had caught in a bramble, and the chat was quite impromptu and most idyllic. I remember she had three or four wood anemones in her hand—"wind stars" she called them, and I thought it a pretty name. And we talked of this and that, with a light in our eyes, as ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... welcome, in spite of the little flurry produced by my impromptu visit, for I had only been able to give a day's notice. Miss Matilda looked miserably ill; and I prepared to comfort and ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... house and effects, and he was not disposed to give him a good reception; but Asker who well knew his majesty's passion for poetry, and particularly of that kind which sings the royal praises, had long since foreseen the event, and had provided himself with an impromptu, which he had composed even when he was living an exile among the Turcomans. This he repeated at the proper moment; and thus the tide of the king's favour, which was running full against him, he entirely turned, and made it flow to his advantage. In short, ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... in the cabin. Villona played a waltz for Farley and Riviere, Farley acting as cavalier and Riviere as lady. Then an impromptu square dance, the men devising original figures. What merriment! Jimmy took his part with a will; this was seeing life, at least. Then Farley got out of breath and cried "Stop!" A man brought in a light supper, and the young men sat down to it for form's sake. They drank, however: it was ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... N. 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; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the shawl, arranged the rug over her knees, and took the seat beside her. She thanked me, laid her cheek upon the impromptu pillow, and closed her eyes. The train sped on, the carriage swaying as we rounded the curves, the jolting increasing as we neared the great tunnel. Settling myself in my seat, I drew my traveling-cap well down so that ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... beasts paced slowly on, with drooping heads and smoking sides. Now and then, when the road was less steep, and levelled into trotting-ground, the postilions climbed to their seats,—ours on his rightful box-seat, the other on an impromptu one, which he made for himself upon a sack of corn slung beneath the front windows of the coupe,—and while our horses fell into an easy jog, we could see the return ones go on before at a swagging run, with their loosened harness tossing and hanging from them as they took ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... beside the maid, their backs to the logs, and watched the shifting groups of warriors. He told her of the arrival of the Big Throat, and of the confusion that resulted. Then for a time they were silent, waiting for the impromptu council to reach a conclusion. The warriors finally began to drift away, though the younger and more curious ones still hung about. A group of braves came slowly toward ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... At an impromptu luncheon at the Knowle Hotel, before the intended dinner party at Valley House, she referred to the interest Society would begin to take ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... that Elmer met Grossmann at an informal gathering of members of the Royal Society a few days after the examination of the Wonder in the Challis Court Library. Herr Grossmann was delivering an impromptu lecture on the limits of variation from the normal type, when Elmer came in and joined the group of the great Professor's listeners, every one of whom was seeking some conclusive argument to confute their guest's overwhelmingly accurate ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... ever offered him such a chance to say the right thing wrongly or the wrong thing first. It was a fascinating topic. Other Premiers had done such things off-hand, almost impromptu as it seemed, and inspired by merely patriotic sentiment. This was a notice that the Premier of Canada could speak his mind in advance, or if he so preferred, wait till the Conference of Premiers opened and ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... favourite remark of his, "an impromptu" that had been much admired. He made the remark again on this particular evening, but ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... how brightly ye return! How, rubbed afresh, your phosphor traces burn! The ramble schoolward through dewsparkling meads, The willow-wands turned Cinderella steeds, The impromptu pin-bent hook, the deep remorse O'er the chance-captured minnow's inchlong corse; The pockets, plethoric with marbles round, That still a space for ball and peg-top found, Nor satiate yet, could manage to confine Horsechestnuts, flagroot, and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... central musical theme as is the Sonata or sound-piece. The Toccata, in its early and pure form, possessed no decided subject, made such by repetition, but bore rather the form of a capricious Improvisation, or 'Impromptu.'" ("A Toccata of Galuppi's" by Mrs. Alexander Ireland, published ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... nearly twenty-one and a pretty good mixer; I liked men and enjoyed mingling with them and learning all I could from what they told me. When they drifted into a saloon I went along for the company. I did not care to drink, so I would join some impromptu quartet and we would sing popular songs while the other fellows cheered us with the best will in the world. A drink of beer or two heightens a man's appreciation of music, and the way the boys applauded my singing makes me rather regret the Volstead Act. It queered my act. Since beer disappeared ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... complain of in heaven except that "his halo didn't fit," or said in her quick way, when the plainness of a lady's dress was commended, "Why, I didn't suppose that anybody could go to heaven now-a-days without an overskirt," or wrote her sparkling impromptu rhymes for our children's games, her mirth was all in harmony with her earnest life. Her quick perceptions, her droll comparisons, her readiness of expression, united with her rare and tender sympathies, made her the most fascinating of companions ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... was beating time with one finger, and within the room, to an impromptu accompaniment invented ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... Down upon the Swanee Ribber," and everybody joined in. "Nearer, my God, to Thee" was also most impressive from the vast impromptu chorus. In the foreground Lake Michigan lay darkly expectant, with a large black cloud upon its horizon, though the stars shone overhead. A half-circle of boats extended from the long Exhibition Wharf on the ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... Maria Dolores, to console him. "You weren't a figure of fun. Your costume had the air of being an impromptu, but," she laughed, "your native ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... not the clever, calculating thing that, at fifteen, he thought it. Her one simple idea was to be happy and, as a means to that end, to have people happy about her. His father, or Anne's father, could have told him that all her ideas were simple as feelings and impromptu. Impulse moved her, one moment, to seize on the faithful, defiant little heart of Anne, the next, to get up out of the sun. Anne's tears spoiled her bright world; but not for long. Coolness was now the important thing, not Anne and ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... execute the orders assigned to him by the state." Against this general indignation, however, Agesilaus protested. (24) If mischief had been wrought to Lacedaemon by this deed, it was just that the doer of it should be punished; but, if good, it was a time-honoured custom to allow full scope for impromptu acts of this character. "The sole point you have to look to," he urged, "is whether what has been done is good or evil." After this, however, Leontiades presented himself to the assembly (25) and addressed the members as follows: "Sirs, Lacedaemonians, the hostile attitude of ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... distinction of scholars, girls, old men and women, and fools is essential, and in which are furthermore introduced the lyrics of the Southern and Northern Palaces. These fairy songs consist either of elegaic effusions on some person or impressions of some occurrence or other, and are impromptu songs readily set to the music of wind or string instruments, so that any one who is not cognisant of their gist cannot appreciate the beauties contained in them. So you are not likely, I fear, to understand this lyric with any clearness; and unless you first peruse the text and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... eleves did not always live in a fool's paradise of sycophancy. There is a story, vouched for by Weltrich, to the effect that Schiller, who had acquired fame as a mimic, was one day asked by the duke, with Franziska on his arm, to give an impromptu specimen of his powers by imitating his sovereign. The youth hesitated, but after some urging borrowed the duke's cane and proceeded to examine him. As his Highness did not answer well, Schiller exclaimed: 'Oh, you are an ass!' Then he took Franziska's arm and began to walk away with her. Serenissimus ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... profits of my search." I consented, and he soon went, and was gone for at least two hours before he returned loaded with his findings, having taken his shirt off and tied the sleeves and collar up, and then filled his impromptu sack quite full. He had evidently carried his burden no small distance, for on his return the perspiration was running down as big as peas. "Tare an' 'ounds," poor Paddy said, for he was an Irishman, "I've got a fine lot of flour, but ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... enlarged: first one other couple and then another are moved to follow the example, and they in their turn assist in bumping out the limits of the ring till it has become some twenty feet or so in diameter. These impromptu ball-rooms rarely much exceed that size, but dozens of them may be found in the course of one's peregrinations around the large piazza. The occupants of some of them will be found to consist of town-bred Romans, and those of others of people from the country. There is no mistaking them one for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... between them, giving it morose glances. They were not happy. Sometimes, as now, they concluded an evening visit by sitting in Clancey's or Warwick's car parked outside the Douglas fence, holding an impromptu post-mortem on an intellectual corpse that had come to life in complete defiance of all the rules. They didn't notice the stealthy movement of one of the fence-boards, nor the small form that snaked through the shadows of concealing shrubbery until it was near ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... gaily as if she had known them both all her life, she introduced them to Pa. Pa, whose youngest daughter was just now in high favour, was mildly pleased with the invasion. This impromptu hospitality smacked of prosperity, of worldliness. He went stiffly into the study with John, to bore the poet with an old volume about California: "From the ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... and in truth so unmerited, he could not but confess would be most gratifying to him; he would therefore prepare himself for the occasion, hoping they would excuse any little deficiency, for barring now and then he was not clever at an impromptu speech. The party now took leave of him for the night, and having handsomely rewarded Dame Snider for the trouble they had given her, set sail on board the Saucy Kate, her white sails flashing in the moonbeams as she made for the fleet, and the music of Flora's voice ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... Mr. Dallas looked very wise on a certain occasion, his Lordship is said to have broke out into the following impromptu."—Life, Writings, Times, and Opinions of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... delivering myself of one more thumb-nail characterization of the doctor. My inability to recall that delineation, verbatim, entails no loss on literature. But one remark made as the doctor seized hold of me was apt, though not impromptu. "Well, doctor," I said, "knowing you to be a truthful man, I just took you ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... do anything; but I am so glad, nobody could be more glad," said Lucy. Little Tom had been brought in, too, in his nurse's arms, and crowed and clapped his fat little baby hands for his father; and when his mother took him and stepped out upon the balcony, from which her husband was speaking an impromptu address to his new constituents, with the child in her arms, not suspecting that she would be seen, the cheers and outcries ran into an uproar of applause. "Three cheers for my lady and the baby," the crowd shouted at the top of ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... fine view over land and sea; returning home by a different way through the town again, which we entered just as the cathedral bell and the bells of all the churches were pealing the Ave Maria. On our return we found a fire lighted and everything illuminated, and by half-past eight we had a capital impromptu dinner served. Chinese Tommy, who waited on us, had decorated the table most tastefully with flowers. Macao is a favourite resort for the European residents of Hongkong who are addicted to gambling. The gentlemen of our party went to observe the proceedings, ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... Indian camp suddenly broke the roar of a dog-fight. Two of the sledge giddes had come to teeth, and the friends of both were assisting the cause. The idlers went to see, laughing, shouting, running impromptu races. They sat on their haunches and cheered ironically, and made small bets, and encouraged the frantic old squaw hags who, at imminent risk, were trying to disintegrate the snarling, rolling mass. Over in the high log stockade wherein the Company's sledge animals were confined, other wolf-dogs ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... It was enough for the editor of the "Friendship's Offering" if he could gather for his Christmas bouquet a little pastoral story, suppose, by Miss Mitford, a dramatic sketch by the Rev. George Croly, a few sonnets or impromptu stanzas to music by the gentlest lovers and maidens of his acquaintance, and a legend of the Apennines or romance of the Pyrenees by some adventurous traveler who had penetrated into the recesses of their mountains, and would modify ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... like a happily-adapted recollection than the actual impromptu of a boy of nine. But another, in which, after a painful silence, he replied to the brutal enquiry of a ne'er-do-well relative as to when he meant to grow handsome, by saying that he would do so when the speaker grew good,—is characteristic ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... offer, they set to work, the men making a rough sort of impromptu table with some boards, and the ladies spreading upon it the ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... were with Livy I am tired wanting for that man to get old I would not call her back if I could If I could only see a dog that I knew in the old times Billiards Impatient as the Creator doubtless was to see man Impromptu speech It was his habit to grow fond of his surroundings Jester, who for forty years had been making the world laugh Last and best of life for which the first was made Learned the meaning of grief Letter on inadvertant theft on a visit to friends Life is a game of whist. Looks like ...
— Widger's Quotations from Albert Bigelow Paine on Mark Twain • David Widger
... this case. Some time or other he would "get into something," they had decided, and then he would marry Dolly, and they would all enjoy the attendant festivities. And in the mean time they allowed the two to be happy, and made Griffith welcome, inviting him to their little impromptu suppers, and taking care never to be de trop on the occasion ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... had been occupied by many an important personage. The walls were covered with names. Above some of them impromptu verses had been scribbled; others had perpetuated their profiles; and still others had drawn caricatures of those who had been the means of lodging them here. The guillotine also ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... to tell you his request was refused, that his regiment was even then embarking to cross the Delaware, and that therefore he could not return, whatever his wish. The Twenty-sixth is under orders to follow at daybreak to-morrow, and so we plan an impromptu farewell supper this evening at my quarters. Will you forgive such brief notice and help to cheer our sorrow with ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... the sophomore chorus and the joyous cheers of their fans. No echoing song arose from freshman lips. The vanquished team had already betaken themselves to their quarters, but the sophomore players were holding an impromptu reception on the ground they had ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... almost specifically named as the reason for this honor,—and Eads had not by any means lacked even earlier appreciation in England. Three years before, at a meeting of the British Association, he had been urged, nay pressed, to deliver an impromptu address on his works, both completed and projected. Nevertheless, it was not until after the Mersey report that the Albert Medal was conferred upon him. This medal, founded in 1862 in memory of the Prince Consort, is awarded annually by the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... call you an old maid, my dear," denied the impromptu poet pertly. "I merely said, or meant to say, that the idea you expressed might better be expected from an old maid, although I doubt if many old maids could have expressed it as well as ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... illustrate the range of Greek civilization as it spread over the shores of Asia and Europe. And as in writing a book he was careful first to plan out the scheme of it and the balance of the parts, so, however much his public addresses gave the impression of being largely impromptu, he had always thought out carefully every word he meant to say. "There is," he said, "no greater danger than the so-called inspiration of the moment, which leads you to say something which is not exactly true, or which you would ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... battens, each seven feet long, four inches deep, by two and a half inches broad. These were laid upon the ground twelve inches apart; seven planks, each one foot wide, were placed across the battens to form an impromptu floor. Upon this platform was laid a non-conductor of simply doubled hair-felt, sewed into a thin mattress of light canvas. There was very little trouble in this arrangement; the men were kept well off the ground, and the hair-felt ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... did I," said Ingred, sitting with her head in her hands, considering. "On the whole, it doesn't matter. Sometimes a quite impromptu thing goes off best. It's largely a question of what costumes we can rake up out ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... her gangplank, the alert captain would not unnaturally take some risks to get there first. Those were the moments that resulted in methods in the engine room picturesquely described as "feeding the fires with fat bacon and resin, and having a nigger sit on the safety valve." To such impromptu races might be charged the most terrifying accidents in the history ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... fellow to act along with us, in order to play a personage I want. But let me see; just look at me a little. Stick your cap rather rakishly on one side. Put on a furious look. Put your hand on your side. Walk about like a king on the stage. [Footnote: Compare the 'Impromptu of Versailles'.] That will do. Follow me. I possess some means of ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere
... to Crevel without a word; and Crevel could not help smiling at the child's astonishment when threatened with this impromptu tubbing. ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... xiii., Phil, ii., Rom. viii., rank among the finest compositions in later Greek literature. Regarded merely as a piece of poetical prose, 1 Cor. xiii. is finer than anything that had been written in the Greek language since the great Attic prose-writers. And if this was dictated impromptu, similar outbursts of splendid eloquence were probably frequent in his mission-preaching. Their effect must have been overwhelming, when reinforced by the flashing eye of the speaker, and by the absolute sincerity which none could doubt who saw his face ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... Mrs. Barclay's scruples and fears. But it was no longer in his power. The Caruthers family had altered their plans; and instead of going abroad in the spring, had taken their departure with the first of December, after an impromptu wedding of Julia to her betrothed. Mr. Dillwyn did not seriously believe that there was anything his plan had to fear from this side; nevertheless he preferred not to move in the dark; and he waited. Besides, he must allow time for ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... Merrill showed only a slight seriousness. Billy Fairfax, however, wore a look permanently sobered. Pete Murphy became subject at regular intervals to wild rhapsodical seizures when he raved, almost in impromptu verse, about the beauty of sea and sky. These were followed by periods of an intense, bitter, black, Celtic melancholy. Ralph Addington degenerated into what Honey described as "the human sourball." He spoke ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... another weird natural manifestation, or was it, as was much more likely, a couple of dozen men bearing lights? Yes, that was it, men bearing lights—and what else besides? Men don't climb up and down steep watercourses in the night for the sake of giving an impromptu firework display to an unexpected visitor, I told myself. There was only one thing to do, and that was to investigate the matter and chance what might happen to me. I crept down to the hut, and lay on my face among the heather and listened. Here and there a mumble of voices, ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... Bermondsey, in Blackwall and Oxford Street, were gathered bundles of hilarity, lingering near the scenes of their recent splendours. A thousand sounds, now of revelry, now of complaint, disturbed the brooding calm of the sky. A thousand impromptu concerts were given, and a thousand insults grew precociously to blows. A thousand old friendships were shattered, and a thousand new vows of eternal comradeship and blood-brotherhood were registered. A thousand ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... There was always "a steady hum of laughter and talk, dance, song, shout, and the twang of musical instruments." It was "a scene full of life and fun, of jostling, scuffling, and racing, of clown performances and cake-walks, of impromptu minstrelsy, speech-making, and preaching, of deviling, guying, and fighting, both real and mimic." The colonel found great difficulty in getting men to work alone. Two would volunteer for any service. "Colonel," said a visitor to the camp, "your sentinels are sociable fellows. I saw No. ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... and quite unbidden, it would warble little impromptu inward melodies of my own composition, which often seemed to me extremely pretty, old-fashioned, and quaint; but one is not a fair judge of one's own productions, especially during the heat of inspiration; and I had not the means of recording them, as I had never learned the musical ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... he went to work and brought back consciousness, rebound the wounds, lifted the body in his strong arms and bore it down the beach. A sail-boat lay in a cove, with a little skiff in tow. Waring arranged a couch in the bottom, and placed the old man in an easy position on an impromptu pillow made of his coat. Fog opened his eyes. 'Anything come ashore?' he asked faintly, trying to turn his head towards the reef. Conquering his repugnance, the young man walked out on the long point. There was nothing there; but farther down the coast barrels ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... to boil an emu's egg in a quart-pot?" the man from Beyanst asked, "lending a hand" with another piece of fencing wire, using it as a fork to turn the steak on the impromptu gridiron. "It goes in all right, but when it's cooked it won't come out, and you have to use the quart-pot for an egg-cup and ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... often asserted her dignity and maintained her rights, not only by physical force, but by intellectual superiority as well. The poetesses of the Arabs are numerous, and some of them hold a high rank. Their poetry was impromptu, impassioned, and chiefly of the elegiac and erotic type. The faculty of improvisation was cultivated even by the most barbarous tribes, and although such of their poetry as has been preserved is mostly a kind of rhymed prose, it often contains striking and beautiful ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... a pulpit, who can silence keep? A maid, who would not dream her ta'en to wife? Men looking down from some sheer dizzy steep Have (quite impromptu) leapt, and ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... a poem he had just dashed off written with pencil, "To my Saxon Blonde." I was surprised and somewhat flattered, regarding it as a complimentary impromptu. But, on looking up his poetry in the library, I found the same verses printed ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... of impromptu reception after the ceremony, when Captain Eri, with Mrs. Snow on his arm, struggled through the crowd ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... moreover, to be guarded against surprises by the enemy's cavalry; and as men were so scarce, it was generally arranged that the navy-yard should follow the army lines. Constantly shifting position—caused by the rapid movements of the enemy, left these impromptu ship-yards unprotected; and then a small party of raiders would either burn them, or force their builders to do so. It was not until the appropriation was nearly spent—although not one efficient gunboat of this class was ever finished—that the ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... was immediately in an uproar. The old corporal was seized, and after undergoing sundry kicks and cuffs, and cudgelings, which are generally given impromptu by the mob in Spain, as a foretaste of the after penalties of the law, he was loaded with irons, and conducted to the city prison; while his comrades were permitted to proceed with the convoy, after it had been well rummaged, to ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... a man of reading, and left at his death a choice collection of old English literature. I should judge him to have been a man of wit. I know one instance of an impromptu which no length of study could have bettered. My merry friend, Jem White, had seen him one evening in Aguecheek, and recognising Dodd the next day in Fleet Street, was irresistibly impelled to take off his hat ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... however, was not repeated; and there was no evidence of retreating footsteps. In another minute they had a candle burning, using an empty end of a cigar case as a holder; and when the first flare had died down he held the impromptu lamp aloft and surveyed the scene. And it was dreary enough in all conscience, for there is nothing more desolate in all the abodes of men than an unfurnished house dimly lit, silent, and forsaken, and yet tenanted by rumour with the memories of ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... Men may help to cure themselves off the face of the land without knowing it," said Will, who could find reasons impromptu, when he had not thought of ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... he said with a creditable impromptu. "The wife said—'No, you're mistaken. Your Festival's only beginning. You get no supper. It's the commencement of the Day ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... which had always been considered as the most hospitable and pleasant estancia in the district, became more than ever popular, and many were the impromptu dances got up. Sometimes there were more formal affairs, and all the ladies within twenty miles would come in. These were more numerous than would have been expected. The Jamiesons were doing well, and in turn going for a visit ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... La Nobil Donna Susanna Torrebianca?" She tried the name on her tongue. "Yes, for an impromptu, Torrebianca is n't bad. It's picturesque, and high-sounding, and yet not—not invraisemblable. You don't think it invraisemblable? So here 's luck to that bold adventuress, that knightess-errant, ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... than living wages was quite lost to sight. At first the methods were very crude. One man held a coarse screen of willow branches which he shook continuously above an ordinary cooking pot, while his partner slowly shovelled earth over this impromptu sieve. When the pots were filled with siftings, they were carried to the river, where they were carefully submerged, and the contents were stirred about with sticks. The light earth was thus flowed over the rims of the pots. The residue was then dried, and the lighter sand was blown away. The ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... mold and sentiment. Opposed to the king on religious grounds, he gathered a body of peasant runaways, a hundred in number, and, afraid to stay in his house, he took them to a wood in the neighborhood, felled trees for barricades, and laid up a supply of provisions in his impromptu fort. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... performers seems the most independent of the author, buys his merriest stories, his most up-to-the-instant jests, ready-made from the writer who works like a marionette's master pulling the strings. The two-act, which sometimes seems like a funny impromptu fight, is the result of the writer's careful thinking. The flirtatious couple who stroll out on the stage to make everyone in the audience envious, woo Cupid through the brain of their author. And the musical comedy, with its ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... the jacals—the little farms and settlements on the creek—are likely to send forth a contingent bound for the cook-house and a night of it. A harp and an accordion are found, and to the sharply-marked music produced by this combination an impromptu baile forms itself. The swarthy sombreros clutch each other, and hop about, their spurs gleaming and jangling, their pistols sticking out behind like incipient tails; and soon the baile overflows the kitchen, and the glowing cigarette-tips circle like fire-flies ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... with blades and gimlets enough to make a man at home on a desert island. He had hardly returned from the marquee with the prize in his hand, when it began to be understood that Wiry Ben proposed to amuse the company, before the gentry went to dinner, with an impromptu and gratuitous performance—namely, a hornpipe, the main idea of which was doubtless borrowed; but this was to be developed by the dancer in so peculiar and complex a manner that no one could deny him the praise of originality. Wiry Ben's pride ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... by means of the aiming-posts. Absolute accuracy being essential, the aiming-posts are specially designed and are of a settled pattern. Judge of the two colonels' astonishment then when they perceived Dumble's impromptu contrivance. ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... orders to the workmen who were preparing to cut the ropes, then flitting back to the crowd to answer the questions of impromptu admirers. ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... presence of danger, your reporter forgot his habitual caution, and giving his Oar-ist a hearing, made all sail for the mark-boat. The tow-line was passed from the bows aft, and there attached to the boat-hook, held by your representative. Upon this impromptu clothes-line was crowded all the canvas, velvet, linen, and other dry-goods appertaining to the gallant captain and his self-sacrificing crew. The latter gentleman might have been seen under this gay cloud of drapery working fitfully but energetically to and fro. But 't was all in vain! The Dauntless ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... was plain to his one-sided judgment that he was called upon to act, and to act immediately. But this was easier said than done. It is simple enough for a fellow to strike splendid chords on the piano, merely by ear, or in a moment of impromptu genius he may construct some wonderful little piece of mechanism; Guy felt that he could achieve countless feats such as these, but he'd be blessed if he could master a double-locked window, or door, through any ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... a blow on the arm and gave ground. Charles pressed him. Then he hit with his right and with the violence of despair. It was a hit of his own devising,—an impromptu,—but it chanced to coincide with the regulation hook hit at the head. He perceived with a leap of exultation that the thing his fist had met was the jawbone of Charles. It was the sole gleam of pleasure he experienced during the fight, and it was quite momentary. ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... formed part of a group of hotels—which seemed to have been the result of some violent volcanic eruption, when the mountain threw up several hotels, and left them there anyhow—is at present separated from the Splendide and its other former companions by an impromptu wall, and from all its front windows it commands varied, beautiful, and, on the Clermont-Ferrand side, extensive views. It has a pleasant garden, a most enjoyable terrace, and it only wants to be in the hands of a firmly fixed and intelligent management ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 24, 1887 • Various
... when the house party began to settle into its stride, he made occasion, aping the other servants, to peep in at a door of the great ballroom, where an impromptu dance had been organized; and was rewarded by sight of the Princess Sofia circling the floor in the arms of a boldly good-looking young man whose taste was as poor in flirtation ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... and down the crossed streets which made up the village. He was studying the ground for immediate strategic purposes, just as he had been studying the valley on his long trudge up from the railroad for purposes related to distant campaigns. Though Scattergood's arrival in Coldriver may have seemed impromptu, as his adoption of the town for a permanent location seemed abrupt, not to say impulsive, neither really was so. Scattergood rarely acted without reason and ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... the discourse Burns produced a neat impromptu, conveying an elegant compliment to Miss Ainslie. Dr. B. had selected a text of Scripture that contained a heavy denunciation against obstinate sinners. In the course of the sermon Burns observed the young lady turning ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... the charge. The result was unfortunate for the Confederates. General Warren, seeing his peril, had promptly disposed his line behind the railroad embankment at the spot, where, protected by this impromptu breastwork, the men rested their guns upon the iron rails and poured a destructive fire upon the Southerners rushing down the open slope in front. By this fire General Cooke was severely wounded and fell, and his brigade lost a considerable part of its numbers. Before a new attack could be made, ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... to say indecent. And in this, far from being a romantic idealist, she was entirely right and realistic. This explains why her taste inclined more resolutely to the adventurous idea of love, to the impromptu element, to the wild ardour of first embraces that must perforce flee from the sight of fellow creatures, than to the kind of graduated passion which begins with conversation, proceeds to a public engagement with staring people all about you, and ends with ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... to join Dick's dinner-party on an impromptu invitation, and the clock striking the appointed hour warned Edward it was time to be off; so, jumping up on a jaunting car, he rattled off to Dick's lodgings, where a jolly party was assembled ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... first call, laughed herself into hysterics over the parade, proves that it was funny. The further fact that she had firmly decided to leave college at Christmas time, but changed her mind after she had seen the parade, shows that even "impromptu stunts" are not always as silly and futile as ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... French reasons for detesting it. Nor have the French ever enjoyed the savage forms of sport which stimulate the blood of more apathetic or more brutal races. Neither prize-fighting nor bull-fighting is of the soil in France, and Frenchmen do not settle their private differences impromptu with their fists: they do it, logically and with deliberation, on the duelling-ground. But when a national danger threatens, they instantly become what they proudly and justly call themselves—"a warlike nation"—and apply to the business in hand the ardour, the imagination, the perseverance that ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... to mind and sometimes they were not, but the laws of hospitality held good in the woods as in the house, and they were welcomed civilly at least. Once or twice, when particular friends of his came on sap-boiling days, Davie ventured on an impromptu sugaring-off on his own responsibility. He made use of a small kettle for the purpose, so that the important matter of boiling down the sap need not be interfered with. He told himself that he was not disobeying his grandfather, but he knew that probably it had never come into ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... caricatures—for he had talent with his pencil—and his brilliant conversation, rather than to apply himself to routine work. His comrades used to lock him into a room to make him work, and even then he would outwit them by dashing off a witty parody or a bit of impromptu verse. Among his literary jeux d'esprit was an examination paper on 'Pickwick,' prepared as a Christmas joke in exact imitation of a genuine "exam." The prizes, two first editions of Pickwick, were won by W. W. Skeat, now famous as a philologist, and Walter Besant, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... at once induced a train of thought. Seating myself on my sofa pillow, I bade the boys gather about me, and I then gave an impromptu discourse on the subject of this vanished race, meantime holding in my hands the earthenware vessel and occasionally elevating it in illustration as I described the customs and habits of the Mound Builders so far ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... thought of your own, than to present her outlines as they appear to any other observer. Permit me to judge for myself." And he bent over the sketch-book. It is often difficult for one who is not himself an artist nor a connoisseur to judge whether the pencilled jottings in an impromptu sketch are by the hand of a professed master or a mere amateur. Kenelm was neither artist nor connoisseur, but the mere pencil-work seemed to him much what might be expected from any man with an accurate eye who had taken a certain number of lessons from a good drawing-master. ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... one could help it, after last winter,' said that lady, and an impromptu kiss passed between the two mothers, much to the astonishment of the Marquis, who had never seen his lady so moved ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the Herakles, which Browning here translates. Aristophanes, naturally, is not convinced; impressed he must have been, to have borne so long a reading without demur: he flings them a snatch of song, finding in his impromptu a hint for a new play, the Frogs, and is gone. And now, a year after, as the couple return to Rhodes from a disgraced and dismantled Athens, Balaustion dictates to Euthukles her recollection of the "adventure," ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... Commodore for an informal lunch. It has been suggested that you contribute to the discussion on Underwriting Overhead."—"The Executives Association plans a clambake and barbecue at the Barking Rock Country Club. Around the bonfire a few impromptu remarks on Business Cycles will be called for. May we count on you?"—"Will you address the Convention of Knitted Bodygarment Buyers, on whatever topic is nearest your heart?"—"Will you write for Bunion and Callous, ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... painter; talk cleverly of books which they would never read did not people talk about them, and generally follow for three long months a time-table of "enjoyment" which very few of them really enjoy. In the meanwhile, the only affairs which give them pleasure are the little impromptu ones arranged on the spur ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... was brought and the gate was forced. The whole party, hosts and impromptu guests, hurried through the narrow courtyard, entered the house without further hindrance, and were met by a strange spectacle. The valet had been seized with a sudden fit of madness and had smashed the crockery, scattered the food about, spilt a bottle of wine on the carpet, ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... the rock where he had crouched, for one or two bullets, either by design or accident, had come very near him indeed. Quickly the towel at the end of the stick waved the message to the officer in command. Just as he was going to supplement it, a bullet passed clean through his impromptu flag and grazed his serge. He went on with his message as if nothing had happened. But the moment he had finished, and was still standing erect to catch the glint of the British signaller's flag, a voice hailed ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... when it was wet, amusing concerts were given instead at the Masonic Hall. On these occasions Colonel Baden-Powell was the leading spirit, as well as one of the principal artistes, anon appearing in an impromptu sketch as "Signor Paderewski," or, again, as a coster, and holding the hall entranced or convulsed with laughter. He was able to assume very various roles with "Fregoli-like" rapidity; for one evening, soon after the audience had dispersed, ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... past, he loved seclusion, and modestly sought the shade. No man was less conscious of his powers, or attached less value to his literary performances.[73] Of his numerous poetical compositions each was the work of a sitting, or had been uttered impromptu; and, unless secured by a friend, they were commonly laid aside never to be recollected. As a clergyman, he retained, during a lengthened incumbency, the respect and affection of his flock, chiefly, it may be remarked, from the acceptability ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... effect his escape. He was ultimately captured in Picardy, and put in a dungeon. He was banished from the kingdom by order of the Parliament. In his old age he found an asylum in the house of the Duke of Montmorency. The poet's real surname was Viaud. The following impromptu is attributed to Thophile, who was asked by a foolish person whether all poets ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... us as we were at dinner. The commandant bowed from the window, but a young Hungarian journalist leaned out and without a moment's hesitation poured forth a torrent for fully fifteen minutes with scarce a pause for breath. I told him that such impromptu oratory seemed marvellous, but he dismissed it as nothing. "I'm politiker!" he explained, with a wave of ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... city. As we came up they broke into a cheer at the news that the American wrestler had defeated his foreign opponent. There was a discussion as to what constituted the "toe-hold," three boys ran an impromptu foot-race, there was some talk on the poor condition of the range, and the party began to ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... himself to be on Phoebidas's side, and said that the only thing to be considered was, whether it was advantageous to Sparta or not; for it was always lawful to render good service to the state, even impromptu and without previous orders. Yet in his talk Agesilaus always set a high value upon justice, calling it the first of all virtues; for he argued that courage would be useless without justice; while if all men were just, there would be no need of courage. When ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... tragic scene exhibited in St. George's Fields." It was a wanton fire on an unarmed populace that was protected against; and the protest was by men who involuntarily shrank from mob-law as they would from the hell of anarchy. They apprehended an impromptu collision between the people and the troops; they knew that an illegal and wanton fire on the people would produce such collision; the danger of this result formed, undoubtedly, a large portion of the common talk; and the frequency and manner ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... cried. "For an impromptu shove wherein I turn over the shoving to you in my own behalf, I never saw it equalled. Wouldn't be a bad thing if all writers would wet down their MSS. the same way, now ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... good nature, coached her so well and so vigorously that before long she was a capital player; and when once Toni realized that Owen wished her to be as hospitable as she could possibly desire to be, she rejoiced in giving little impromptu tea-parties on the lawn, under the shade of one of the noble elms which were a ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... in their own way, only add to the attractiveness of any group. Why should we enjoy characterization more in literature and in drama than in life? "Good talking," says Stevenson, "is declarative of the man; it is dramatic like an impromptu piece of acting where each should represent himself to the greatest advantage; and that is the best kind of talk where each speaker is most fully and candidly himself, and where, if you should shift the speeches round from one to ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... imaginary audience, his expressive young countenance contorted into a grimace of unholy glee, the listener flung aloft his arms and blithely executed a few noiseless steps of an impromptu war-dance. ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... rooms, even in the law schools—anywhere rather than in their horrible rooms—horrible for purposes of study, delightful as soon as they were used for gossiping and smoking in. Put a cloth on the table, and the impromptu dinner sent in from the best eating-house in the neighborhood—places for four—two of them in petticoats—show a lithograph of this "Interior" to the veriest bigot, and she will be bound ...
— Z. Marcas • Honore de Balzac
... burning interest, a mouth-watering interest, a wistful and pathetic interest; a minority of nineteen couples gazed at it tenderly, lovingly, proprietarily, and the male half of this minority kept saying over to themselves the moving little impromptu speeches of thankfulness for the audience's applause and congratulations which they were presently going to get up and deliver. Every now and then one of these got a piece of paper out of his vest pocket and privately glanced at ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain
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