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The King, in recalling afterwards the happy impromptus of that scene when Prelates and Laity were vying with each other in the expression of their relief, remembered how once or twice the Prime Minister had halted and gone back to the repetition of a former phrase, like one who having learned a lesson had momentarily lost the hang of it.
But the fervid facility of his impromptus could not be so accounted for. The words of one of these rhapsodies I have easily remembered.
The captain's eyes surveyed the motley collection down the length of the bright table, then returned to her, gratefully: "This ain't anything. Only a little bloomin' " "Impromptu," suggested Heywood. "That's the word!" Captain Kneebone eyed them both with uncommon favor. "That's it, ye know. I just 'opped about Saigong like a jackdaw, picking up these impromptus.
So they lie about until you get sick of the sight of them, and end by thrusting some cold scrap of a final couplet upon them, and turning them out of doors. I suspect a good many "impromptus" could tell just such a story as the above. Here turning to our landlady, I used an illustration which pleased the company much at the time, and has since been highly commanded.
I also agreed with him when he said that he had warned her against making impromptus too frequently, as such hasty verses are apt to sacrifice wit to rhyme. The honour in which improvisation was held amongst the Greeks and Romans is due to the fact that Greek and Latin verse is not under the dominion of rhyme.
What vulgarity, what pointless joking, what pitiable attempts to serve up old impromptus réchauffés! I found it impossible to stay to the end. Some actors, capable of better things, worked hard; there was a terrible air of effort in these attempts to be sprightly in fetters, and in rusty fetters.
He not only performed his duties with zeal and discretion, but he kept me up to mine. He hounded me through the routine work of my Department; he verified my references; he managed my correspondence; and he frequently drafted my speeches. He even prepared some of my impromptus.
The twenty-four Preludes were composed before the trip to Majorca, though they were perfected and polished while there. Written early in his career, they have a youthful vigor not often found in later works. "Much in miniature are these Preludes of the Polish poet," says Huneker. There are four Impromptus and four Ballades, also four Scherzos.
He became an actor by the side of whom those comedians that played impromptus for his delectation were the merest bunglers with the art. He gathered that Madonna Paola loved the poets and their stately diction, and so, to please her better, he became a poet for the season.
But his teaching repertoire seems to have contained, with the exception of the waltzes, none of the works a deux mains, neither the sonatas, nor the impromptus, nor the "Moments musicals." This shows that if Schubert was a favourite of Chopin's, he was so only to a certain extent. Indeed, Chopin even found fault with the master where he is universally regarded as facile princeps. Liszt remarks:
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