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Improvise   Listen
verb
Improvise  v. t.  (past & past part. improvised; pres. part. improvising)  
1.
To compose, recite, or sing extemporaneously, especially in verse; to extemporize; also, to play upon an instrument, or to act, extemporaneously.
2.
To bring about, arrange, do, or make, immediately or on short notice, without previous preparation and with no known precedent as a guide. "Charles attempted to improvise a peace."
3.
To invent, or provide, offhand, or on the spur of the moment; as, he improvised a hammer out of a stone.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Improvise" Quotes from Famous Books



... that ain't the step we took at rehearsal no more'n nuthin'. If you're going to improvise a new cow duet, I wish you wouldn't take the fore-quarters by ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... reprieve matters went scarcely more smoothly. Clovis and the Baroness rather overdid the Sumurun manner, while the rest of the company could hardly be said to attempt it at all. As for Cassandra, who was expected to improvise her own prophecies, she appeared to be as incapable of taking flying leaps into futurity as of executing more than a severely ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki

... seeks here its proper element, the populace,— but here it brays to a peculiarly beautiful purpose. For no sooner does it sound than the young girls of the people wreathe themselves into dances, and improvise the poetry of motion. Over the grass they whirl, and up and down the broad avenues, and no one of all the gentle and peaceable crowd molests or makes them afraid. It is a scene to make you believe ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... There was already disorganization everywhere. The planetary government was in process of destroying all the machinery by which Kandar had been governed, as if to make the Mekinese improvise a government anew. They would make many blunders, of course, which would be resented by their new subjects. There would be much fumbling, which would keep the victims of their conquest from regarding them with respect. And there would be the small tumult Bors had said was in preparation. The king ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... in the jungle, then returned to Lundu, and reached Sarawak in the yacht Fanny, after an absence of ten days. We had a visit from H.M.S. Scout about this time, and one day sat down sixteen to dinner in the mission-house, some of the officers having come up to spend the day. It is difficult to improvise a dinner in a country where no joints of meat are to be had, unless you kill an ox for the purpose. Sheep there are none. A capon or goose, or a sucking pig, are the only big dishes, and not always to be had. However, ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... correct solution was received, but an ingenious and neatly executed attempt by a man lying in a London infirmary was accompanied by the following note: "Having no compasses here, I was compelled to improvise a pair with the aid of a small penknife, a bit of firewood from a bundle, a piece of tin from a toy engine, a tin tack, and two portions of a hairpin, for points. They are a fairly serviceable pair of compasses, and I shall keep them as a memento of ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... turned away, she glanced at the card-players with a look of horror, as if they were committing sacrilege, and Harcourt had to improvise another poor joke to account ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe

... "She was in the last Russian ballet, and she is waiting now for the rest of the company to start again at Covent Garden. You see, it is Metzger who plays there. They improvise. Rather ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... slipped out into the dimly lit corridor. From her sitting-room came a burst of concerted laughter, the sound of Betty's sweet, high pitched voice raised in sudden protest, and then the echo of some sort of a physical struggle; and Caroline took the piano and began to improvise. ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley

... a lot," the Hawk cut in tersely. "Will you instruct your assistants to begin preparing as much as they can in the next hour? Yes. And your laboratory—clear it for the operations, and improvise five operating tables. Powerful lights, too, M. S. Yes—yes—right—all accessories. Have someone stand by your radio; I'll radio further details while we're on ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore

... avoided so anxiously. A few planks nailed together and bound around with an insecure rail, four wheels slipped on to the axles with no pins to hold them, a Turkish driver dangling his legs—such was our chariot. Some hay was produced to improvise a seat; we bought some apples on tick, as the vendor said he had no change for our one shilling note, ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon

... composition, but he had trained himself to improvise, singing out of his heart for the joy of the music. He told of the land of Elis, beloved of Jupiter, in which they were gathered that day, of the great bare mountain slopes, of the swift shadows of the clouds, ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... lost his wife at the age of fifty. But he had an only child, a girl who was called "Little Golden Daughter." She had a face of rare beauty and was the jewel of his love. She had been versed in the lore of books from her youth up, and could write, improvise poems and compose essays. She was also experienced in needlework, a skilled dancer and singer, and could play the flute and zither. The old beggar-king above all else wanted her to have a scholar for a husband. Yet because he was a beggar-king ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various

... cases it will be found necessary to obtain or improvise a tool similar to a broad-bladed putty knife or spatula to be used as an inking instrument. The ink is rolled evenly and thinly on the knife or spatula and applied to the finger by passing the inked knife or spatula around it. The tool, of course, replaces the ...
— The Science of Fingerprints - Classification and Uses • Federal Bureau of Investigation

... had to be found, but tenors are rare birds and we were unable to get one. To use the dancer he had engaged du Locle had Gallet and Guiraud improvise a short act, Le Kobold, which met with great success. The dancer was exquisite. Then du Locle lost interest in Le Timbre d'Argent and then came the failure of ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens

... instructed to commit it to memory, as the event proved, with but indifferent success. He comprehended, in a vague way, that the warriors were to do battle for the honor of their true loves, but, at the critical moment, the lines escaped him and he had to improvise. The lances were rake-handles, and, as this was not to be a fray a l'outrance, about the end of each formidable weapon was wadded and tied an empty ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo

... What? You! You yourself bringing this blessing to my lips! In your childhood I cried 'viva' many times before your coach. And now you deign—in your voice—with your hand. Ha! I could improvise—The star stoops to ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... or less than the living over in rhythmic form of the daily routine of her morning dressing. Her story remarks are either literal quotations or adaptations of her actual every day responses. The little verse refrains are the type of thing almost anyone can improvise. I have found that any simple statement about a familiar object or act told (or sung) with a kind of ceremonious attention and with an obvious and simple rhythm, enthralls a two-year-old. The little girl for whom this story was written ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell

... the first stupefaction, pressed hard and even angrily for an immediate assault on the whole Prussian line. Not they. It was on paper that the assault should be at daybreak to-morrow. Such leaders as they were cannot IMPROVISE. ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade

... bleeding. He decided the best thing to do would be to notify the master. So, after attending to Imp, he crept out of the cave and went over to the remains of the young master. He managed to carry him until he met some of the slaves, then had them improvise a stretcher to carry ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... about 11 in the morning from Brunswick, and brings you to Buckeburg in less than three hours. From here it will only take you thirty-five minutes to get to Eilsen. The most simple plan for you would be not to write to me beforehand even, but to improvise your programme according to your fancy here. Only let me beg you not to arrive later than Monday evening, so that the public may be free from anxiety, and to set my responsibility perfectly at rest in a corner ...
— 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

... Thus far the general scheme of attack had signally failed. Carleton on the left had not reached Nicholson's Nek and was in trouble; Grimwood with nearly half of his command gone astray, and having discovered that the enemy's left was not on Long Hill but on Lombard's Kop, had to improvise a scheme of his own; while French instead of conforming to Grimwood was compelling Grimwood to conform to him. At 8 a.m. Grimwood was suffering severely from artillery fire, and French whose cavalry now prolonged Grimwood's line southwards ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

... time we will talk about it," Cyn said. "And now, we must improvise you a cup, plate, knife, fork, and spoon. I know you must be ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer

... seventeenth century. Then it declined for lack of competent actors. It was the realism of everyday life. It tended always back again to the mountebanks, jugglers, rope dancers, etc.[2141] The lazzi were "business" which gave the actors time to improvise. In the sixteenth century Italian comedians began to play at Paris in Italian. The Italian actresses undressed on the stage much and often, so that "Italian comedy" came to mean vulgar and licentious comedy. The ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... not one to give up while a single hope remained. "I could improvise a key," he said, and with decision hastily sought ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs

... me. We sat together at table and suddenly he turned and said: "How are you getting on with your bill?" And my reply being rather halting, he continued, "You won't get a vote in either House," and he proceeded very humorously to improvise the average member's argument against it as a dangerous power, a perquisite to the great newspapers and an imposition upon the little ones. To my mind this was something more than the post-prandial levity ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... members are in possession beforehand of the precise arguments to be used. The debate is in this way advanced an important step without any speaking; opponents can prepare for, instead of having to improvise their reply, and every one is at the outset a good ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain

... that it is all your fault, dearest, and that I have behaved admirably. Between you I shall stand exonerated. And now, since it is too cold for walking, since it is late, since it is far to Lyvern and farther to London, I must improvise ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... battlefield. Against these natural limits to mobility are the compensating advantages of the power of infantry to move into and over almost any ground by day or by night, and the rapidity with which trained infantrymen can find or improvise cover. ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous

... retired. The experimenter had tasted elderberry once, but he knew no more of wine. The draught had relish fiery new, and it seemed to warm him everywhere at once. His mind grew exquisitely bright, and his thoughts were astonishingly vivid. He began to improvise verses, and they came with an ease which was quite startling. They seemed to unroll themselves before him, to reveal themselves line by line as if they had been in existence long ago, and some spell had suddenly made them visible to his intelligence. It was a moment ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... improvised an army; we have conjured a navy out of nothing so rapidly that pines the jay screamed in last summer may be even now listening for the hum of the hostile shot from Sumter; why not give another rub at our Aladdin's lamp and improvise a genius and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... who gave me this translation, also furnished me with a copy of extempore French verses, given by a gentleman of Maestricht, who was celebrated as an improvisatore. They certainly are very superior. He was at a large party, and agreed to improvise upon any theme given him by five of those present in the way of Souvenir. The first person requested ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... to be led back to the instrument. The moon shone brightly in through the window and lit up his glorious rugged head and massive figure. "I will improvise a sonata to the moonlight!" looking up thoughtfully to the sky and stars—then his hands dropped on the keys, and he began playing a sad and infinitely lovely movement, which crept gently over the instrument like the calm flow ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard

... steamer back and transfer ourselves and our belongings into a little open craft or model-boat The Mee-wah-sin. We have a crew of five men, one on the steering-sweep and four to track, and in this wise we make our way for three hundred miles up the great river to Fort Vermilion. One day we improvise a sail and so make fifty miles in a favourable wind, but, with this exception, every other mile of the ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... now; now it won't be long." Nadia caroled happily, buckling on her pack straps and taking up bow and arrows for her daily hunt. "I never thought that he could do it, but what it takes to do things, he's got lots of," she continued to improvise the song as she left the "Hope" with its multitudinous devices whose very variety was a never-failing delight to her; showing as it did the sheer ability of the man, whose brain and hands had almost ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith

... determined to have bread, and it did not take long to improvise an old Dutch oven with the firebrick, and in this a fire was built, so that the bricks were heated up intensely, and the fire then withdrawn, and a cover put over the chimney. The heated brick, therefore, did the baking. Loaf after loaf was put in, and while the dough had not risen as it ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay

... breathings of the flute, rolled this sweet and picturesque language of Italy from her lips—like music sounded those full, artistic rhymes, of which but few of the hearers had the least suspicion that they came from Tasso. To improvise in the Italian language is an easy and a grateful task! What wonder, then, that Corilla acquitted herself so charmingly? The audience paid no attention to the thoughts expressed; they asked not after ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... yourself that children are the foremost, the most charming fibsters, and at the same time the sincerest people on earth. And it's remarkable, that both they and the others—that is, both prostitutes and children—lie only to us—men—and grown-ups. Among themselves they don't lie—they only inspiredly improvise. But they lie to us because we ourselves demand this of them, because we clamber into their souls, altogether foreign to us, with our stupid tactics and questionings, because they regard us in secret as great fools and senseless ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... stages of the normal military career till they arrived at the Divisional Chateau. Should anyone desire to survey life from the altitude of an R.T.O. (Railway Transport, not Really Tantalising Officer, as supposed by some) it might be arranged for him, in the interests of realism, to improvise information as to trains for the benefit ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various

... the Confederacy. A blockading vessel need not be of great strength or powerful armament. All that is necessary is that she should be swift, and carry a gun heavy enough to overawe any merchantman that might attempt to run the blockade. And as such vessels were easy to improvise out of tug-boats, ferry-boats, yachts, and other small craft, it came about that by the last of 1861, the people of the seaport towns of the South, looking seaward from their deserted wharves, could see two or three Federal cruisers lying anchored ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... common impression which we are all apt to form of these singular geniuses; and very strongly recommend you not only to hear him play, but privately test him (as I have done) in any way you like. Improvise to him as difficult or elaborate or out-of-the-way piece as you please, and he will instantly reproduce it. Now, this is no common gift; and therefore you and I, and all who know any thing of music, should use our best efforts ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter

... undiscoverable without the most accurate measurements by delicate micrometers, would cause stoppages and the breaking of different small parts. And, at that time, spare parts were almost unknown, so it required the utmost ingenuity on the part of the gunners to improvise, with what materials could be found on the spot, and with the very few tools at hand, many of the small but all-important parts that go to make up the ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride

... odd sentences from one, who though he lived ages ago, never saw, scarcely heard of Alma. And mark me, my lord, this time I improvise nothing. What I have recited, Is here. Mohi, this book is more marvelous than the prophecies. My lord, that a mere man, and a heathen, in that most heathenish time, should give utterance to such heavenly wisdom, seems more wonderful than that an in-spired prophet should ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... that the compositions being published under his name had really been written for him by his father, since it was evident from the face of them that no boy of his age could have composed so well. To counteract these charges poems were brought to him upon which he had to improvise and fit the music to the words in the presence of the audience. In 1769 he went to Italy, where, being now thirteen years of age and correspondingly mature as compared with his early appearances, he made a most astonishing success. In Bologna and in Rome as well as in Venice ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews

... besides their insufficiency, were placed too far from the palace to be occupied by even a portion of the Emperor's service. Consequently there was great embarrassment in the city, and much difficulty was experienced in quartering the Emperor's horses; since to improvise stables in a few days, almost in a moment, was impossible, and to build carriage-houses in the midst of courts would have had a ludicrous effect. But fortunately this difficult situation was ended by one of the quartermasters of the palace ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... has only a blanket, a plaid, or broad piece of material of any kind, with which he wishes to improvise a tent, may make a framework of long wands, planting their ends in the ground, bending their tops together, and lashing or wattling them securely; over this the blanket is thrown (fig. 3). If the sticks are ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... tour" of Europe. His violin made him the most popular person on the ship. He had a facile talent and a good memory, which enabled him to play almost any kind of music; and when he could not remember he could improvise. The second officer, a short, stout man, with a pointed black beard, and a secret passion for the fine arts, conceived a great fancy for the young American. When they reached Bordeaux he took Richard to his favourite ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke

... her voice was to listen to the very essence of laughter and happiness. She had a marvelous power of telling stories, and when she was happy she told them with such verve that all people within earshot hung on her words. Then she could improvise, and dance, and take off almost any character; in short, she was the life of every party who ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade

... A basement corner below ground level, or a storm cellar, is the best place to improvise ...
— In Time Of Emergency - A Citizen's Handbook On Nuclear Attack, Natural Disasters (1968) • Department of Defense

... when the clerk of the weather will be polite enough to give moon and stars and soft southern breezes. Then cover the surface of the roof with rugs or else stretch a matting over the tin. Improvise couches upon boxes covered with rugs, or bring up a couple of cots and pile ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... at that sort of thing," said Marie; "sometimes when we're here alone, he'll take a simple little air and improvise the ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells

... smiled. "Who doesn't go in for these things for fun?" they asked. "Is it likely that we improvise verses in real earnest? Why, if any one treated our verses as genuine verses, and took them outside this garden, people would have such a hearty laugh at our expense that their very teeth ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... sufficient in itself, dispensed him from exhibiting his nature in so articulate a thing as actual vocal utterance. This he was quite opposed to: he would never even try a hymn in church. But he could accompany; he could improvise; he could modulate; he could transpose any simple air. The ease and readiness with which he did all this made less obvious—indeed, almost imperceptible—his fundamental unwillingness to abandon himself before others (especially if members of his own circle) to any manifestation ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller

... Unready." His first message to Congress was a long and exhaustive paper, dealing with many matters of importance. But almost one-fifth of it was devoted to the army and the navy. "It is not possible," he said, "to improvise a navy after war breaks out. The ships must be built and the men trained long in advance." He urged that Congress forthwith provide for several additional battleships and heavy armored cruisers, together with the proportionate ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland

... in which their provisions have been carried. Such a packing box is easily made into a cupboard, and it is not difficult to improvise shelves, hinges, or even a rough ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... not wonder, then, that a traveller like Ibn Ezra was no croaker, but a genial critic of life. He suffered, but he was light-hearted enough to compose witty epigrams and improvise rollicking wine songs. He was an accomplished chess player, and no doubt did something to spread the Eastern game in Europe. Another service rendered by such travellers was the spread of learning by their translations. Their wanderings made them great linguists, and they were thus able ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams

... it—the glasses were too small, and the poets, the wits, the punsters, the jesters, preferred to drink their port out of tumblers. After dinner Hook gave one of his songs which satirized successively, and successfully, each person present. He was then challenged to improvise on any given subject, and by way of one as far distant from poetry as could be, cocoa-nut oil was fixed upon. Theodore accepted the challenge; and after a moment's consideration began his lay with a description of the Mauritius, which he knew so well, the negroes dancing round the cocoa-nut ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... within a few inches of the surface, and finish with fine soil, on which sow the seed. This method can only be adopted for light land. In the event of a cutting east wind after the seedlings are up, improvise some kind of shelter until the danger ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons

... on the skilled labour of some one we can hire; second, if we undertake the job ourselves, on the tools made for us by skilled labour; and third, on the shops to supply us with the materials we may need. Not once in a lifetime are we thrown entirely on our own resources. Then we improvise bunglingly ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White

... she will do; but I am sure of this—that you will not take her for an angel afterwards.—And now play for me; improvise and make me happy. It will divert your thoughts; your gloomy ideas will vanish, and for me the dark hours will be filled with ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... was the answer. "I don't say I can do all the tricks Ben did, for I haven't practised them. But I may be able to improvise a ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum

... scene, which has delayed me overlong, was but a moment in that day of exercise and agitation. To fit out a schooner for sea, and improvise a marriage between dawn and dusk, involves heroic effort. All day Jim and I ran, and tramped, and laughed, and came near crying, and fell in sudden anxious consultations, and were sped (with a prepared sarcasm on our lips) to some fallacious milliner, and made dashes to ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... 100 yards off, was silenced after the ninth round. What a curious instance of our Western ways this incident affords; the Chinese firing upon our own people with the latest artillery made by ourselves, while they are left to improvise a gun from a relic found in an ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... traces of music are those in the Homeric poems, which are thought to have been composed about 1000 B.C. In these we find the minstrel everywhere a central figure, an honored guest, ready at call to entertain the company with some ballad of the ancient times, or to improvise a new one appropriate to the case in hand. The heroes themselves were not loth to take part in these exercises. Ulysses, the Odyssey tells us, occasionally took the lyre in his own hand and sang a rhapsody of his own adventures. Several centuries later, Solon, one of the famed seven wise ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews

... these words: wise, wiseacre, wisdom, wizard, witch, wit, unwitting, to wit, outwit, twit, witticism, witness, evidence, providence, invidious, advice, vision, visit, vista, visage, visualize, envisage, invisible, vis-a-vis, visor, revise, supervise, improvise, proviso, provision, view, review, survey, vie, envy, clairvoyance. Perhaps the last six should be disregarded as too exceptional in form to be clearly recognized. And certainly some words, as prudence from providentia, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... this making a ragout with mushrooms. The countless receipts one sees in large cook-books for ragouts and fricassees are merely variations in the flavoring of simple stews; and, after a little experimenting, any one can improvise her own, remembering that the strongly-flavored vegetables (as carrots) belong especially to dark meats, and the more delicate ones to light. Fresh pork is sometimes used in a white fricassee, in which case a little powdered sage is better than ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell

... came in, dressed in a short, green shooting-jacket, booted and spurred, and having a pair of brilliant, black, Italian eyes. He in turn offered to read; but finding probably the poetry of the Musen-Almanach of that year rather too insipid for him, he soon began to improvise the wildest and most fantastic poems imaginable, and in all possible forms and measures, all the while pretending to read from the book. 'That is either Goethe or the Devil,' said good old father Gleim to Wieland, who sat ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... your million-and-one favorite melodies which nobody but that all-around musical amateur, the Auto-Comrade, can so exquisitely whistle, hum, strum, fiddle, blat, or roar. There is also a universe full of new ones for him to improvise. And he is the jolliest sort of fellow musician, because, when you play or sing a duet with him, you can combine with the exciting give-and-take and reciprocal stimulation of the duet, the god-like autocracy of the solo, its opportunity ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler

... said Mr. Slocum, who had not provided himself with an explanation, and was puzzled to improvise one. "I discharged him,—that is to say, I let him go. I forgot to mention it. He didn't take to ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... By uniting two such sections together, we could make a bridge of eighteen hundred feet, enough for any river we had to traverse; but habitually the leading brigade would, out of the abundant timber, improvise a bridge before the pontoon-train could come up, unless in the cases of rivers of considerable magnitude, such as the Ocmulgee, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... he began, but the note of sarcasm in his voice was too apparent for him to permit himself to proceed. He caught up the lyre, and drawing up a diphros—a double seat of fine woods—rested against it and began to improvise with an assumption of carelessness. Ta-meri sank back in her chair and regarded him from under dreamy lids—her senses charmed, her light heart won by his comeliness and talent. Kenkenes became conscious of her inspection, at last, and looked up at her. His ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... that it was not precisely the greatest among them who were most prominent as mystagogues of Science with the big S, and it may certainly be said that when the mystagogues, the Cliffords, Huxleys, and the rest, undertook to improvise a theory of first principles, their achievement was little better than infantile. They took it on trust from Hume that the whole of knowledge is built up of sensations, actual or 'revived', and quite missed Kant's point that their empiricism left the formal constituent in knowledge, the ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... written at the suggestion of the events of the moment, is a mere improvise, and derives its interest (should it be found to possess any) solely from the intense sympathy which the Author feels with the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... instance seem too exceptional to be taken as representative, let us remember that throughout an entire important period in the history of the stage, it was customary for the actors to improvise the lines that they spoke before the audience. I refer to the period of the so-called commedia dell'arte, which flourished all over Italy throughout the sixteenth century. A synopsis of the play—partly narrative and partly expository—was ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton

... wish you to talk. I want to improvise to-night. The murmur of your conversation will ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... smiling, "that about describes it. And now I think it is about bed-time. Jim, my dear," she continued, as she took her bed-room candle, "as you have thought fit to improvise a ball, you had better take care that the young ladies have partners by asking three or four of the officers from Rockcliffe, if they will ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart

... lecture-rooms of Florence with students of all nations, and whose critical and rhetorical labours marked an epoch in the history of scholarship, was by temperament a poet, and a poet of the people. Nothing was easier for him than to throw aside his professor's mantle, and to improvise 'Ballate' for the girls to sing as they danced their 'Carola' upon the Piazza di Santa Trinita in summer evenings. The peculiarity of this lyric is that it starts with a couplet, which also serves as refrain, supplying the rhyme to each successive stanza. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... was a real trouble to him, and helped to spoil his enjoyable stay at the palace. He knew himself to be popular there and that his visit had given real pleasure. He had been asked to improvise upon the piano every evening, and had even sung once, saying gracefully to the Bishop's daughter, when she had concluded her very indifferent accompaniment to the song, 'An accompanist is born, not made!' He had preached one of his favourite sermons on Sunday, ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan

... improvise," said the manager, quite pleased, "and I've no objection when it's well done like that; but you'd better go on now, ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne

... successful. The employees listened to his interrogations with a distraught air. He could come back again; just now they were taken up with the announcement that another hospital train was on the way. The great battle was still going on near Paris. They had to improvise lodgings for the new consignment of mutilated humanity. In order to pass away the time until his return, Desnoyers went back to the garden near the grotto. He was planning to return to Pau that night; there was evidently nothing more ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... scout must know: The fireman's lift. How to drag an insensible man with ropes. How to improvise a stretcher. How to fling a life-line. The position of main arteries. How to stop bleeding from vein or artery, internal or external. How to improvise splints and to diagnose and bind fractured limb. The Schafer method of artificial respiration. How ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller

... calm that probably masked a speculative unsettled temperament. Her pose, if one wished to be critical, was just a little too elaborately careless. She wore some excellently set rubies with that indefinable air of having more at home that is so difficult to improvise. Francesca was distinctly ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki

... that is more prudent. However, it would be betraying the intentions of Mozart to execute literally many passages in concertos written by that author for the piano. At times he would write a veritable scheme only, upon which he would improvise. However, one should not imitate Kalkbrenner, who, in executing at Paris the great concerto in C Major of Mozart, had rewritten all its passages in a different manner from the author. On the other hand, when I played ...
— On the Execution of Music, and Principally of Ancient Music • Camille Saint-Saens

... ignobly in the time of trial, and showed a fairly startling contrast with the regular naval officers beside or against whom they fought. This is a fact which may well be pondered by the ignorant or unpatriotic people who believe that the United States does not need a navy, or that it can improvise one, and improvise officers to handle it, whenever the moment ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt

... half-educated dilettanti affected an interest in art matters, that was over-strained and wanting in sincerity when it was not ridiculous. For what was there the man could not do? He wrote books about which all Germany was talking, he could improvise on the pianoforte, compose operas, sketch caricatures, and streams of wit gushed from him so soon as he opened his mouth. The homage showered upon him at these gatherings flattered Hoffmann's vanity for ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... trenches. But for mechanical transport there is no peace, save such as comes when back axles break, and the big land ship is dragged into the bush to be repaired. Hot and sweating men striving to renew some part or improvise, by bullock hide "reims," a temporary road repair that will bring them limping back to the advance base. Here the company workshop waits to repair these derelicts of the road. Burning with malaria, when the hot sun draws the lurking fever from their bones, tortured with dysentery, they've ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey

... for these trifles long endure. A good ballade is almost as rare as a good sonnet, but a middling ballade is almost as easily written as the majority of sonnets. Either form readily becomes mechanical, cheap and facile. I have heard Mr. George Meredith improvise a sonnet, a Petrarchian sonnet, obedient to the rules, without pen and paper. He spoke 'and the numbers came'; he sonneted as easily as a living poet, in his Eton days, improvised ...
— Ballads in Blue China and Verses and Translations • Andrew Lang

... arsenal, the doors of which would be opened by two non-commissioned officers, and take possession of the arms and ammunition, carrying them to the Church of Santa Annunziata, where all the guns should be stored. At certain places in the city material was already gathered with which to improvise barricades. One hundred republicans had promised to take part in the movement, not as a group, but individually. On the 7th copies of the proclamation of the Italian Committee for the Social Revolution were distributed throughout ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter

... 'Amphitrite's' a dead duck." The "Lachesis" quivered as the port turrets belched flame. "That leaves nineteen torpedoes," he said. "In Cth we're safe enough but we're helpless without a probe. Yet we can only get into attack position from Cth. That leaves us only one thing to do—improvise ...
— A Question of Courage • Jesse Franklin Bone

... shall probably have lost the best part of it." Maggie went, she went—she felt herself going; she reminded herself of an actress who had been studying a part and rehearsing it, but who suddenly, on the stage, before the footlights, had begun to improvise, to speak lines not in the text. It was this very sense of the stage and the footlights that kept her up, made her rise higher: just as it was the sense of action that logically involved some platform—action quite positively ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... dinner-time) at any hour of the day or night. He retired to rest early or late, and he rose early or late, exactly as he felt inclined. The servants were forbidden to call him; and Mrs. Gripper was accustomed to improvise the breakfast as she best might, from the time when the kitchen fire was first lighted to the time when the clock stood on the ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... and even express a cordial hope that his house is in a good state of repair and his horses and cattle properly protected from any possible inclemency of weather. Furthermore, you must always adapt your greeting to time, place and circumstances, and be prepared to improvise a new, graceful and appropriate salutation to meet any extraordinary exigence. In the morning a mountaineer greets another with "May your morning be bright!" to which the prompt rejoinder is, "And may a sunny day never pass you by!" A guest he welcomes ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... the north and below the city, it may have seemed to him that it would delay our progress; but as a large number of empty coal barges were lying at the town, it took our company of mechanics, under Captain Lane of the Eleventh Ohio, but a little while to improvise a good floating bridge, and part of the command passed through the town and camped beyond it. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. p. 425.] One day was now given to the establishment of a depot of supplies at Charleston and to the organization of regular ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... a lonely childhood in a little English village. She would improvise warlike ballads for amusement, though her later works and her character are marked by gentleness of thought. She hoped to make a name by singing, but unfortunately lost her voice. Her family were all hostile to a musical career, and regarded ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson

... she would be relieved from the three elder children. Waymark called sharply to his pupils to come and take their places, but without any attention on their part. Master Felix openly urged the rest to assume a defiant attitude, and began to improvise melodies on a trumpet formed ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing

... the malicious schemer was foiled by his own device. Attilio was of a different disposition; he praised the young musician to the skies, and was never weary of sitting by his side at the organ or harpsichord, and hearing him improvise for hours. The Elector of Brandenburg also conceived a great admiration for the boy's talents, and offered to send him to Italy. On old Handel being consulted, however, he pleaded that he was now an old man, and wished his son to remain near him. In consequence of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... 'Viva la Compagnie!'" said Telford, seating himself at the piano, and playing the first bars of that well-known air, to which, in our meetings, we were accustomed to improvise a doggerel in turn. ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... to learn their ABC's; he was a virtuoso before the time when most boys can be trusted with a blunt knife. Kissed and fondled by great beauties, from the age of five, it is small wonder that Mozart began to improvise upon the oldest theme in the world precociously. His first recorded love affair is found in his letters at the age of thirteen. He loved with the same radiant enthusiasm that he gave to his music, and while some of his flirtations were of the utmost frivolity, such as his ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes

... one should either forget or confound them with others. This Djalma is my cousin! Brave and good—young and charming! above all, he has never worn the horrid European dress! And destitute of every resource! This is quite ravishing! It is too much happiness at once! Quick, quick let us improvise a pretty fairy tale, of which the handsome and beloved prince shall be the hero! The poor bird of the golden and azure plumage has wandered into our dismal climate; but he will find here, at least, something to remind him of his native region of sunshine and perfumes!" Then, addressing ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... also improvise a net with the help of their blankets, and drag the river at suitable places. Farther down on the Rio Fuerte, I once saw them make a large and serviceable net by fastening sixteen blankets together lengthwise ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... now, the situation is full of hope, and grace, and tender sentiment. If I had in the least poetic gift, I know I could improvise under such an inspiration (each girl nudges her sweetheart) something worthy to—to—Is there no poet among us? [Each youth turns solemnly his back upon the other, and raises his hands in benediction ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... does not contain above seventy stock verses, but these perennial lines are a nucleus, round which the men improvise the topics of the day, giving, I know not for what reason, the preference to ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade

... colors, half of the bags, for instance, being red and the other half blue; or some of striped material and others of plain. This aids in distinguishing the bags that belong to opposing teams or groups of players. It is easy to improvise a substitute for bean bags under almost any conditions. The writer has known some very good substitutes to be made by placing dried leaves in a square of cloth, gathering up the corners and tying them with ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft

... best of it on the high seas, and have to attack or blockade a coast like this, which is sand from end to end. You can't improvise people who are at home in such waters. The navy chaps don't learn it, though, by Jove! they're the most magnificent service in the world—in pluck, and nerve, and everything else. They'll try anything, and often do the impossible. But ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers

... description of the state of things in the Confederate internment camp at Andersonville during the American Civil War, which, after all, did not happen so very long ago. "Over 30,000 prisoners were cooped up in a narrow space; there was no shelter from the sun or cold but what the men could improvise for themselves; every possible disease was rampant; the prisoners were largely naked; the dead were pitched into a ditch and covered with quicklime; the smell of the dreadful stockade extended for two miles.... The state of affairs was known, or might have been known, ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton

... to comfort as well as to appearance. In the old days it was Jan's room, and Lionel scarcely remembered to have been inside it since; but it looked very superior now to what it used to look then. Lady Verner had never troubled herself to improvise superfluous decorations for Jan. Lionel's chief attention was riveted on the bed, an Arabian, handsomely carved, mahogany bed, with white muslin hangings, lined with pink, matching with the window-curtains. The hangings were new; but he ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... whispered, and they continued to improvise. After some five minutes of hopeless floundering, the prompter got them back on the track again, and the act proceeded, with the audience happily unaware ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster

... year that he played the organ every morning at the six o'clock mass in the Minorite church. For some years before and during this period he was busy trying his hand at musical composition, but nothing which he composed during his youth amounts to much. He could improvise in a marvelous manner and he attracted much attention by the exercise of this talent, becoming famous in this connection long before he was known as ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer

... woman than any amount of ordinary ability; and she had a passionate and great love for music. Kathleen's musical genius was already spoken of with much approbation by the rest of the school. The girls used to ask her to improvise. Kathleen could improvise in almost any style, in almost any fashion. She could make the piano sob with her heart-rendering notes; and again she could bring forth music clear and fairy-like. Again she would lead the tender and ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... her impulse, Miss Oliver suddenly found herself at a loss how to proceed. Confusion and the call to improvise an opening movement mantled her cheeks with that crimson tint which her friend Mary-Martha so often alleged ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... skilful as in former times. A knowledge of engineering had improved upon the former methods of taking towns by sapping and scaling, and though the number of military engines was as yet limited, the besiegers were well able, when occasion demanded, to improvise and make use of machines capable of demolishing even the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... also, had hastily invented the Jagborough expedition in order to impress on Nicholas the delights that he had justly forfeited by his disgraceful conduct at the breakfast- table. It was her habit, whenever one of the children fell from grace, to improvise something of a festival nature from which the offender would be rigorously debarred; if all the children sinned collectively they were suddenly informed of a circus in a neighbouring town, a circus of unrivalled merit ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... European troops, and the Nawab and his soldiers alike would have scouted the idea of obtaining supplies otherwise than from the country traversed, but weapons for the men and transport for the guns, and ammunition for both, were necessaries difficult to improvise on the spur of the moment. The Habshiabadis took the field at last, in a state that would have made a European commander tear his hair, and Gerrard hustled them on, blooding them by a smart little engagement with a force ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... be one of those kongo canes, the support to feet and belly of the devout in their long pilgrimages, sign manual of the pious intent of the bearer. He had taken a candle from his pocket, and, with small respect to the "six worlds" of its rings, used the spiked end to improvise a torch. Then an unexpected voice caught his ear; a sad, wailing cry which chilled the heart. Then followed low, rapid, disorderly speech, the meaning of which rendered indistinct by distance could not be made out. Then came the unearthly startling shriek which rang ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... not possible to improvise a navy after war breaks out. The ships must be built and the men trained long in advance. Some auxiliary vessels can be turned into makeshifts which will do in default of any better for the minor work, ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Supplemental Volume: Theodore Roosevelt, Supplement • Theodore Roosevelt

... mists grow thicker. All that can now be affirmed with certainty is, that the Dresden Conference has been no more able to improvise a German Empire than was the Frankfort Parliament. A month ago, and it seemed that Austria had outgeneraled Prussia, and made herself absolute mistress of Germany, and was in a fair way to become ruler from the Rhine to the Alps. The petty states ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... times when she had to sing from herself. To Brandon this seemed the most amazing of her powers. In Italy the power of improvisation is not uncommon, and Englishmen generally imagine that this is on account of some peculiar quality of the Italian language. This is not the case. One can improvise in any language; and Brandon found that Beatrice could ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille

... Academy is doubtless well adapted to the art of civilized warfare, but can not familiarize them with the diversified details of border service; and they often, at the outset of their military career, find themselves compelled to improvise new expedients ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy

... read this story, so I am not going to pretend to repeat the things they said, once they were released from dumb amazement. I should be compelled to improvise and substitute—which would remove much of the flavor. Let bare facts suffice, ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower

... a very different sort of pleasure that I listened to the Chevalier Neukomm, the celebrated composer of "David," which has been so popular in our country. I heard him improvise on the orgue expressif, and afterward on a great organ which has just been built here by Cavaille for the cathedral of Ajaccio. Full, sustained, ardent, yet exact, the stream, of his thought bears ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... How to use the stomach bath by three different methods. How to improvise the Turkish Bath in your own home, without apparatus. How to use the wet sheet pack. How ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell

... here!" He was on his mettle now. Surely no cardinal could sing fuller, clearer, sweeter notes! He began at the very first, and rollicked through a story of adventure, colouring it with every wild, dashing, catchy note he could improvise. He followed that with a rippling song of the joy and fulness of spring, in notes as light and airy as the wind-blown soul of melody, and with swaying body kept time to his rhythmic measures. Then he glided into a song of love, and tenderly, ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter

... he saw a wisp of gas come sliding around the edge of the inverted table. There was silence outside, and for an instant, he was tempted to abandon his post and go to the bathroom, back of the bedroom, for wet towels to improvise a mask. Then, when he tried to crawl backward, he could not. There was an impression of distant shouting which turned to a roaring sound in his head. He tried to lift his pistol, but it slipped ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper

... will mix gin and ale in one horrid draught—and in that case you know that he is very far gone indeed on the downward road. If he can possibly coax the change out of you when the waiter puts it down he will do so, for he cannot resist the gleam of the coins, and he will improvise the most courageous lies with an ease which inspires awe. He thanks you for nothing; he hovers between cringing familiarity and patronage; and, when you gladly part with him, he probably solaces himself by muttering curses ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... useless to think of scudding before the gale; our only hope of living through what was impending depended upon our ability to keep the boat riding bows-on to the sea, and to do this it became necessary for us to improvise a sea anchor again. This was easily done by lashing together six of our eight oars in a bundle, three of the blades at one end and three at the other, with the boat anchor lashed amidships to sink the oars somewhat in the water and ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood

... brilliance of the Potocka valse. There runs a story regarding this composition that George Sand had a little dog that used to chase its own tail around in a circle, and that one evening, she said to Chopin, "If I had your talent, I would improvise a valse for that dog," whereupon the composer promptly seated himself at the pianoforte and dashed off this fascinating little improvisation. It is Parisian in its grace and coquetry and ends with a rapid run, the last note of which is like ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb

... part, but could not shirk without cowardice and shame. My subsequent fortune was various. Once, though I felt it to be a kind of imposture, I got a speech by heart, and doubtless it might have been a very pretty one, only I forgot every syllable at the moment of need, and had to improvise another as well as I could. I found it a better method to prearrange a few points in my mind, and trust to the spur of the occasion, and the kind aid of Providence, for enabling me to bring them to bear. The presence of any considerable proportion of personal friends generally dumbfounded me. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... and took the mare and her appointments. Now the damsel was standing by the young Sayyid, and she winked at him with her eye as one saying, "Do thou choose me and leave all the rest;" whereupon he began to improvise the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... asked Dick to telephone before coming. Why hadn't he telephoned? Perhaps something had happened to prevent it, or perhaps an idea had come to him by which their plan could be bettered without a telephone message. In either case, she and Dick might have to improvise and deftly catch cues tossed to each other, as experienced actors sometimes do without the audience ever knowing that a hiatus in the ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott

... the further welcome discovery that the moon would shine into it, she vowed eagerly that there would be no lights at all in her music room at those times. Afterwards she told a funny story of how Schumann had been wont to improvise under such circumstances, until his next-door neighbor was so struck by the romance of it that he proceeded to imitate it, and to play somebody or other's technical studies whenever the moon rose; at which narrative Helen and the architect ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair

... the Allies have had to improvise, and on the whole the improvisation has kept pace with the demands made upon it. They have brought their military science up to date, and to-day the disparity in science and equipment between the antagonists ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells

... some good holes in parts of the trench, where you probably go down 2,000 feet if you step off the footboards, and the rest of the stuff we might have contrived to improvise. But for the moment we had somehow run ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 15, 1916 • Various

... force was not so very small I would not hesitate to send a detachment at once to garrison that work." So full of zeal was Major Anderson that the Government should without delay augment its moral and material strength, that in default of soldiers he desired to improvise a garrison for it by sending there a detachment of thirty laborers in charge of an officer, vainly hoping to supply them with arms and instruct them in drill, and hold the work until reenforcements should come. Having in detail proposed protective measures, he again, in the same letter, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay

... Paris the most beautiful capital of the world: I wish that in ten years it should number two millions of inhabitants." "But," replied his Minister of the Interior, "one cannot improvise population; ... as it is, Paris would scarcely support one million"; and he instanced the want of good drinking water. "What are your plans for giving water to Paris?" Chaptal gave two alternatives—artesian wells or the bringing of water from the River Ourcq to Paris. "I adopt the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... his fingers had a fondness for the ivory keys, and they responded to his touch with the sweet melody of the forest to the wind. He carried all the favorite airs of all the operas he had ever heard in his fingers' ends. He knew the popular songs of the day by heart, and, where memory failed, could improvise. He had a voice for the soft and deep chords of negro melodies I have never heard surpassed, and with all, he had a command of comedy and pathos which, up to this time, was little known beyond the circle in Denver over which he reigned as the Lord of Misrule. That night ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... a good thing for a scout always to carry a Red Cross First Aid Outfit, or some similar outfit, for with this he is ready to take care of almost any injury; without it he will find it very difficult to improvise anything to cover a wound with safety to the injured person. If no prepared dressing is procurable, boil a towel if possible for fifteen minutes, squeeze the water out of it without touching the inner surface, and apply that to the wound. The next best dressing, if you cannot prepare ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... Mihul said. "They just might! You're fast. You've been taught to improvise. And there's something eating you. You're ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz

... hands, he assumed the grave attitude of a man who is having relations with the Muses. After a few minutes of this sacred intercourse, he had produced one of those strings of nonsense-verses which the libretti-makers call, not without reason, monsters, and which they improvise very readily as a ground-work for the composer's inspiration. Only Schaunard's were no nonsense-verses, but very good sense, expressing with sufficient clearness the inquietude awakened in his mind by the rude arrival of that date, the ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger

... numberless characters, chipping in from manifold quarters of a wholesale discussion, and querying and exaggerating, agreeing and controverting, till the dishes she was washing would clash and clang excitedly in the general badinage. Loaded with a pyramid of glistening cups and saucers, she would improvise a gallant line of march from the kitchen table to the pantry, heading an imaginary procession, and whistling a fife-tune that would stir your blood. Then she would trippingly return, rippling her rosy fingers ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley

... 504; castle-buildier, fanciful projector. V. imagine, fancy, conceive; idealize, realize; dream, dream of, dream up; "give to airy nothing a local habitation and a name" [Midsummer Night's Dream]. create, originate, devise, invent, coin, fabricate; improvise, strike out something new. set one's wits to work; strain one's invention, crack one's invention; rack one's brains, ransack one's brains, cudgel one's brains; excogitate[obs3]; brainstorm. give play, give the reins, give a loose to ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... penitence, he said, but also of regret.[14] Ah, how different they were from those tears of his moments of inspiration and emotion, which had flowed over a countenance all illumined with joy! They had seen him, in such moments, take up two bits of wood, and, accompanying himself with this rustic violin, improvise French songs in which he would pour out the ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

... her face, their visitor saw that she belonged to the very class that she had been abusing in such unmeasured terms and so petrified was she with confusion at the faux pas she had committed, that she was entirely unable to improvise ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... corps of men who were working like beavers within the lot, urged on by a bawling, cursing voice which seemed to proceed from a stout, choleric man who bounded about, alternately waving his arms and cupping his hands to improvise a megaphone. ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant

... the performance of a passing piper. There was another episode which he recalled with humorous satisfaction. Fired by his father's tales of the jungle, Yule (then about six years old) proceeded to improvise an elephant pit in the back garden, only too successfully, for soon, with mingled terror and delight, he saw his uncle John[9] fall headlong into the snare. He lost his mother before he was eight, and almost his only remembrance of ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... family, emigrated to the United States, and became a planter in Virginia. The elder Mr. Hughes and his children seem to have inherited the Welsh musical gift, for they were all accomplished musicians. While a mere child, David could improvise tunes in a remarkable manner, and when he grew up this talent attracted the notice of Herr Hast, an eminent German pianist in America, who procured for him the professorship of music in the College of Bardstown, Kentucky. Mr. Hughes entered upon his academical ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... ink was prepared in these. Each member of the family then wrote poems. The adults composed verses, according to their ability, in praise of the Star-deities; and the children either wrote dictation or tried to improvise. Little folk too young to use the writing-brush without help had their small hands guided, by parent or elder sister or elder brother, so as to shape on a tanzaku the character of some single word or phrase relating to the festival,—such as "Amanogawa," or "Tanabata," ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn

... have the external forms of the English Constitution, without having its internal essence, which constitutes the real value of its political institutions,—viz., Self-government. It is true that the political wisdom of nations does not improvise itself, nor reveal itself all at once in its fulness, as Minerva of old sprang from the head of Jupiter, clad in complete armour, but that it develops itself during their historic progress amidst vicissitude, and by turning ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various

... just might! You're fast. You've been taught to improvise. And there's something eating you. You're edgy ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz

... 6. Chief among them is a sterilizer, or boiler, which consists of a large fiat-bottomed vessel fitted with a rack and a tight-fitting cover. A number of such devices are manufactured for canning by the cold-pack method, but it is possible to improvise one in the home. A wash boiler, a large pail, a large lard can, or, in fact, any large vessel with a flat bottom into which is fitted a rack of some kind to keep the jars 3/4 inch above the bottom can be used. Several layers ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... account. He is ready on all occasions, which he deems fitting ones, with a speech in favor of the policy advocated by the party with whom he acts. His extempore resources are ample. Few men in the House can improvise better. It does not appear to cost him an effort to speak.... He is a man of very considerable talent, but has nothing approaching to genius. His abilities are much more the result of an excellent education and of mature study than of any prodigality of nature ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... and the hymn book were in accord as to the tune, but Captain Eben and the various members of the congregation seemed to have a desire to improvise. They sang with spirit, however, and the rhythmic pat of feet grew louder and louder. Here and there men and women were swaying and rocking their bodies in time to the music. The chorus for each verse was louder than ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln

... Philip's path. He had for this purpose made a vigorous effort to undo, as it were, the whole work of his reign, to suspend the operation of his whole political system. The Emperor and conqueror, who had been warring all his lifetime, had attempted, as the last act of his reign, to improvise a peace. But it was not so easy to arrange a pacification of Europe as dramatically as he desired, in order that he might gather his robes about him, and allow the curtain to fall upon his eventful history in a grand hush of decorum and quiet. During the autumn ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley



Words linked to "Improvise" :   do, cope, perform, improvize, ad-lib, improvisation, make out, extemporize, execute, contend, extemporise, manage, deal, get by



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