"Strike up" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... awful kind of pause. Many were beginning to drop their heads and shut their eyes, in anticipation of the usual petition before a meal; some expected the music to strike up,—others, that an oration would now be ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... as good as his word, and no sooner was our meal finished than, jumping up, forgetting all his fatigue, he began dancing a real Irish jig with wonderful agility, making the music with his own voice, crying out to us, every now and then, to strike up an accompaniment. The effect was at all events very advantageous to us, for the old Rajah looked on with astonishment and approval as Paddy continued his performance. When he ceased, the chief called Smith up to him, and spoke ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... authority, "is so deeply affected by this spontaneous outpouring of your good-will as to be unable to respond in words. Let us respect her natural embarrassment; let us now exhibit that proud Western chivalry which will cause her to feel perfectly at home in our midst. The orchestra will strike up, and amid the mazy whirling of the dance we will at once sink all formality, as becomes citizens of this free and boundless West, this land of gold, of sterling manhood, and womanly beauty. To slightly change the poet's lines, ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... horses had all been killed, and he had been sorely bruised by the falls. Sending for a cannon, he got astride of it, called up the infantry round him—the brigade of General Lestwitz—begged the drummers to strike up the Prussian march and, through the blackness of the night, started for the point where the din of battle was going ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... number had tuned up his fiddle. William Isham was his name, a great bearded fellow who hailed originally from Rochester, New York; he would sit by the hour on the tongue of his wagon playing "Oh Susannah" and other lively airs, or strike up a jig tune while Negro Joe, who had fled from slavery in Mississippi, did a double shuffle in the firelight. The children slipped away from their mothers to set peeps at the fun from the edges of the crowd or play hide and seek in the shadows of the sage-brush; there ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
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