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In the early hours of the morning the young officer awoke, and running through his head was a melody which, in his semi-drunken state the evening before, he had been attempting to extemporise. It seemed to haunt him, and, piecing it together as it came back to his memory, he played it over. Then, feeling inspired, he immediately set words to it.
Historians talk enthusiastically of the national spirit of a people rising with a united heart to repel the invader, and so on. But national spirit could not extemporise a fleet or produce trained officers and sailors to match the conquerors of Lepanto. One slight observation I must make here at starting, and certainly with no invidious purpose.
Buzzby acted with great spirit and was evidently a prime favourite. He could scarcely recollect a word of his part, but he remembered the general drift of it, and had ready wit enough to extemporise.
When the lawless men about a camp were numerous, and robberies became frequent, the diggers would suddenly extemporise a police, rout out the thieves, and drive them perforce from the camp. I may illustrate this early state of things by what occurred at Havelock, a place about seven miles from Majorca.
Although disposed to lie down and give way to an almost irresistible tendency to slumber, Dan was too well aware that death stared him in the face to succumb to the feeling without a struggle. He therefore made a mighty effort of will; sat up; undid the soaking bandage, and proceeded to extemporise a sort of tourniquet with it and a short piece of stick.
In the matter, however, of armament they have in recent years made great advance, but at this time this advance had hardly yet commenced, and they had nothing to oppose to the British fleet. Not having the real thing, with great ingenuity they proceeded to extemporise an imitation, the appearance of which they hoped would be sufficient to frighten off the foreigner.
But a Coleridge who could no more compose a lecture than he could deliver one-a Coleridge who could neither write nor extemporise anything specially remarkable on a subject so congenial to him as that of English poetry must assuredly have spent most of his time, whether in the lecture-room or out of it, in a state of incapacity for sustained intellectual effort.
"If he does, I'm willin' he should extemporise at it." "Good man, Ikey!" drawled the voice again from the crowd. "I'll back Ikey to his last pant's button." Shock stood silent and smiling, while Ike stood facing him, more and more puzzled. Shock was an entirely new experience. He would not fight, he would not run away, he would not even get angry. At this point the old gentleman interfered.
A fearful desire to continue their awful experiments, instead of pursuing their piratical avocations, was taking possession of them; but Polly, with one of the swift transitions of childhood, immediately began to extemporise a house for the party at the mouth of the tunnel, and, with parental foresight, gathered the fragments of the squibs to build a fire for supper.
Now when I heard this, O Commander of the Faithful, great concern get hold of me and I was beyond measure troubled, and behold, I heard a Voice from behind me extemporise these couplets, 'O Moslem! thou whose guide is Alcoran, * Joy in what brought safe peace to thee, O man. Fear not what Satan haply whispered thee, * And in us see a Truth-believing
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