"Polka" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... no one to separate me from Esther. We started the second dance together, but no sooner did I see her sister, Mrs. Martin, whirl by us in the polka with Dan Happersett, than I suggested that we drop out and take a stroll. She consented, and we were soon out of sight, wandering in a labyrinth of lover's lanes which abounded throughout this live-oak grove. On reaching the outskirts of the picnic grounds, we came to an extensive ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... bebe" assails their tympani with its suggested tintinnabulation of needed francs: for him—"models." And the Bullier, ghost now of the old Bullier where once little Luzanne, the inspiration of a hundred palettes, tripped the polka, the new Bullier with its coloured electricity and ragtime band and professional treaders of the Avenue de l'Observatoire, is eke romance to his nostril. And so, too, he finds it atop the Rue Lepic ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... Plymouthward. Yet I was, in spirit at least, a million leagues removed from that unhappy man of another nationality, who had chosen to thrust an inexpert finger into the workings of an alien life. The machinery was dragging him up and down the sunlit platform. The two men seemed to be learning polka-mazurkas together, and the burden of their song, borne by one deep voice, was: "What did you give me the ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... were both there also. Boche had heard of a cabinetmaker who had danced the polka until he died. He ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... faites-vous ici? Cordieu, Madame! Que faites-vous ici? Je danse le polka avec tous mes amis! Je danse le polka ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... ball at the old Astor House—spoke of how our unromantic Wall Street men fell to the spell of stocks, ruffled shirts and knickerbockers, and as the evening advanced, were quite themselves in the minuette and polka, bowing low in solemn rigidity, leading their lady with high arched arm, grasping her pinched-in waist, and swinging her beruffled, crinolined form in quite ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... "coppering on the ace," or a Congressman standing in a bar-room with a lump of mouldy cheese in one hand and a glass of "pony whiskey" in the other, or a Judge of the Supreme Court wriggling an ugly woman through the ridiculous movements of the polka in a hotel-parlor, must experience sensations quite as confounding as any ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... confused tableaux are offered to the bystanders; while the Quadrille is only a kind of pass at arms made with foils, where attack and defence proceed with equal indifference, where the most nonchalant display of grace is answered with the same nonchalance; while the vivacity of the Polka, charming, we confess, may easily become equivocal; while Fandangos, Tarantulas and Minuets, are merely little love-dramas, only interesting to those who execute them, in which the cavalier has nothing to do but to display his partner, and the spectators ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... that will ever come my way," he said aloud. And, humming the opening bars of a lively polka from the manuscript, he took up his pen and added a few notes. Then he paused; the polka would not come—the other ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... bayonet, father, like the one in which your worship took part. These charges are not, as one might say, greatly to the taste of the Moors, who, when they hear the call to the charge, to which we have given the name of General Prim's Polka, tremble and turn pale and fall back. [Note: It may properly be related here that this same division, with its leader, General Prim, reconnoitring at a few leagues distance from Tetuan, came upon a poor ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... clouds of her temper were dispersed, and like people "cut out for each other," Triangle and his wife sat and planned the details of the tour to Jingo Hill Farm. Frederic Antonio Gustavus was to be rigged out in new boots, hat, and breeches. Maria Evangeline Roxana Matilda was to be fitted out in Polka boots, gipsey bonnet, and Bloomer pantalettes, with an entire invoice of handkerchiefs, scarfs, ribbons, gloves, and hosiery for "mother," little Georgiana Victorine Rosa Adelaide, and the baby, Henry Rinaldo Mercutio. After three days' onslaught upon poor Triangle's pockets, with any ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... a real swell—that's what none of the others are. [The music is heard again.] Ah, they're starting. That's a polka! [Dancing again.] I'd like to dance with Mr. Siebenhaar this minute. D'you know what I'd do? I'd just kiss him before he knew what ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... patriots as not often comes within one's experience to see. General Marion was playing a dummy game of poker with General Lafayette; Governor Morris was having a set-to with Nathan Lane, and James Madison was executing a Dutch polka with Madam Roland on one arm and Luicretia Borgia on the other. The next moment the advancing ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... polka differ from a schottisch?"—"A schottisch is a lazy polka. A polka is the worst thing in the world: the next worst is a schottisch. A schottisch is so lazy, so slow, that a fire ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... fitted for the useful, as well as the ornamental parts of life, and where the fact of there being a kitchen as well as a drawing-room to every house would not be altogether lost sight of. If the world could be got through in a Polka, to the accompaniment of a cornet-a-piston, the boarding-schools of the present day would be well enough; but as there is a sort of every-day walk to be gone through, we should greatly appreciate any system of female education that should fit women to get through the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... were sliding down a muddy toboggan which they had revived by splashing water upon the incline made and provided by the town boys for scudding. Ten minutes afterward they were covering themselves with coats of mud, adorned—one with stripes made with the point of a stick, another with polka-dots, another with checks, and Mealy with snake-like, curving stripes. Then the whole crew dashed down the path to the railroad bridge to greet the afternoon passenger train. When it came they jumped up and down and waved their striped and spotted ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... hands of Bridget the Celt,—what wonder that I gladly seize this opportunity to sing the praises of my German handmaid! Honor to thee, Lenchen, wherever thou goest! Heaven bless thee in thy walks abroad! whether with that tightly-booted cavalryman in thy Sunday gown and best, or in blue polka-dotted apron and bare head as thou trottest nimbly on mine errands,—errands which Bridget o'Flaherty would scorn to undertake, or, undertaking, would hopelessly blunder in. Heaven bless thee, child, in thy ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... of it—won't I learn, though, and the raggiest ever! In the winter we're going to attend the Merchants' Assemblies. You just watch us, ma'am! I'm going to dance the polka. ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... put on an overcoat, originally of a long-haired, woolly fabric, but now completely bald from age, when suddenly, as if bitten by a tarantula, he began to execute around the room a polka of his own composition, which at the public balls had often caused him to be honoured with the particular attention of ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... clues to the structural purpose of a composition, should endeavor to recognize which one of these two rhythmic species underlies the movement to which he is listening. It is fairly certain to be one or the other continuously. Of duple measure, the march and polka are familiar examples; of triple measure, the waltz and mazurka. The "regularity" of the former rhythm imparts a certain stability and squareness to the entire piece, while triple rhythm is more graceful and circular ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... old-fashioned corsets and was abdominally correct for her years; a long gown of black voile with white polka dots, and a guimpe of white net whose raff of chiffon somewhat disguised the wreck of her throat. On her shoulders, disposed to rheumatism, she wore a tippet of brown marabout feathers, and in her ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... fade from her cheeks as the notes before her ran together, and the keys assumed the form of one huge key which Maddy could not manage. There was a blur before her eyes, a buzzing in her ears, and just as the dancers were entering heart and soul into the merits of a popular polka, there was a sudden pause in the music, a crash among the keys, and a faint cry, which to those nearest to her sounded very much like "Mr. Guy," as Maddy fell forward with her face upon the piano. It was hard telling which carried her from ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... naturally be, in the general scheme, my childhood sweetheart; later, my fiancee; and ultimately my wife. Such a relationship would help me, of course, to keep tab more easily on Raymond during the long course of his life. For instance, at this very party I see her doing a polka with Johnny McComas, while Raymond (who had been sent to dancing-school, but had steadfastly refused to "learn") views Johnny with a mixture of envy and contempt. A year or two later, I see Elsie seated in the twilight at the head of her grandfather's grandiose front steps, surrounded ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... they considered full dress, and their hair loaded with flowers. The national air of the Jarabe was played, and the dancers trod the measure with energy. Lucien, who had joined the crowd, wanted to teach the polka and waltz to the Indian children. Sumichrast stood by, laughing most heartily; but his merriment increased on seeing l'Encuerado's gambols, for never before had such wonderful capers been cut. He ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... skylarking, vagary, monkey trick, gambade, fredaine[obs3], escapade, echappee[Fr], bout, espieglerie[Fr]; practical joke &c. (ridicule) 856. dance; hop, reel, rigadoon[obs3], saraband[obs3], hornpipe, bolero, ballroom dance; minuet[ballroom dances: list], waltz, polka, fox trot, tango, samba, rhumba, twist, stroll, hustle, cha-cha; fandango, cancan; bayadere[obs3]; breakdown, cake-walk, cornwallis [U.S.], break dancing; nautch-girl; shindig* [U.S.]; skirtdance[obs3], stag dance, Virginia reel, square dance; galop[obs3], galopade[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... no other way for you to explore this region, as all our available resources at Bronx Park have already been spent in painting appropriate scenery to line the cages of the mammalia, and also in the present exceedingly expensive expedition in search of the polka-dotted boom-bock, which is supposed to inhabit the jungle ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... says, 'I must have a dance; blest if I don't! First chop music—good room this—three gals and the missus—course we must. I'm regular shook on the polka. You play us a good 'un, Polly, or whatever yer name is. Dan Moran's goin' to enjoy himself this night if he never sees another. Come on, Burke. Patsey, stand up, yer blamed fool. Here ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... behind a bed, had been amusing herself, despite her fourteen years, in making a doll out of a few rags. She was now talking to it, so happy, so absorbed in her play, that she laughed quite heartily. "Hold yourself up, mademoiselle," said she. "Dance the polka, that I may see how you can do it! One! two! dance, turn, kiss ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... please!" shouted the Badger. "Have you come to school to dance the polka? Attend to this little problem immediately, and mind it is correctly answered. If 10,000 Bears and a Pole-cat, ran round a tree 1,500 times and a half, in an hour and ten minutes; each knocking off one leaf and three-quarters every time he ran round—how ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... and all the country round; and he gave me very pleasant account of it. "There were various booths for eating and drinking, and the selling of trinkets and sweetmeats; and in one place there was a great circle cleared, in which the common people waltzed and polka'd, without cessation, to the music of a band. There was a great roundabout for children (oh my stars what a family were proprietors of it! A sunburnt father and mother, a humpbacked boy, a great poodle-dog possessed of all sorts of accomplishments, and a young murderer of seventeen ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... here!—See how he crawls.—Come here! You must go to town and buy me two pounds of soft soap, here's the money for it. But see here, if you're not back on this very spot inside of four hours, Master Eric will dance the polka ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... Mulligan," says I, and led the noble Irishman to the upper apartments, which were in a profound gloom, the candles not being yet illuminated, and where we surprised Miss Fanny, seated in the twilight at the piano, timidly trying the tunes of the polka which she danced so exquisitely that evening. She did not perceive the stranger at first; but how she started when the Mulligan ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... little Donkey, that I have brought you here only to give you food and drink? Oh, no! You are to help me earn some fine gold pieces, do you hear? Come along, now. I am going to teach you to jump and bow, to dance a waltz and a polka, and even to ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... not quickly return. The music stopped, yet he did not return; a polka followed, yet he did not return. At last he appeared: 'The master asks you to come to the bailiff's office.' He took Pan Hirschgold into a room where several camp-beds had been made up for the guests. The Jew took ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... to many nice consciences to know that our Chief Magistrate would not regard with eyes of approval the (by many esteemed) sinful pastime of dancing, and I own myseif to be so far of that mind, that I could not but set my face against this Mexican Polka, though danced to the Presidential piping with a Gubernatorial second. If ever the country should be seized with another such mania pro propaganda fide, I think it would be wise to fill our bombshells ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... his sister, looking almost shocked at his evident desire to hurry away her guest. "You surely don't think of going yet. Miss Dawson?" said she, in her most persuasive manner. "You will dance this polka." ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... witch hard, I tremble," said Rosa to Richard. "A ghostly hair-standing dilemma Needs 'bishop,'" said Alfred to Emma; "What fun when with fear a stout crony Turns pale," said Maria to Tony; "And Hector, unable to rally, Runs screaming," said Jacob to Sally. "While you and I dance in the dark The polka," said Ruth unto Mark: "Each catching, according to fancy, His neighbour," said wild Tom to Nancy; "Till candles, to show what we can do, Are brought in," said Ann to Orlando; "And then we all laugh what is truly a Heart's laugh," said William to Julia. "Then ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... numbers, with a fine introduction, and containing some very bright and sweetly-flowing melodies. These waltzes had a good sale, and added much to the composer's reputation. Besides the above, Mr. Williams has composed eight or ten polka-redowas, and several mazurkas and quadrilles (some of these have been published); and he is ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... most men do, and stepped out of his berth fully appareled—in a natty business sack-suit of Scots-gray, a high turn-down collar, fine enamel shoes and a rather noticeable tie. Florian Amidon had always worn a decent buttoned-up frock and a polka-dot cravat of modest blue, which his haberdasher kept in stock especially for him. He felt as if, in getting lost, he had got into the clothes of some other man—and that other one of much less quiet and old-fashioned ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... not a sparkling face, I am inclined to believe that his chief merit lies in his legs. Certainly when he dances he puts his best foot forward, and knows it, too. Miriam, who adores dancing, is flirting openly with this divinity of the "Deux Temps" and polka, and skims around with his arm about her (position sanctified by the lively air Lydia is dashing off on the piano) with a grace and lightness only equaled by his own. And Lieutenant Duggan, with his good, honest, clever face ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... her hair, with a man's overcoat protecting her against the freshness of the evening air over her ballet-dancer's dress, played at the same time the cymbals and the big bass-drum a desperate accompaniment to three measures of a polka, always the same, which were murdered by a blind clarionet player; and the ringmaster, a sort of Hercules with the face of a galley-slave, a Silenus in scarlet drawers, roared out his furious appeal in a loud voice. Mixed with the crowd of loafers, soldiers, and women, I regarded the abject ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... the room, young Martinez, with a beaming face, was just dancing a polka with a strikingly beautiful girl dressed in white, with a fluttering blue ribbon round her waist. She had thick beautiful hair of a shade nearly golden, with a large silver pin like a dart run through it, ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... them afterwards. The powers of music are nowhere better illustrated than among these people. Their ready ear quickly catches a new tune, and it is not uncommon to hear, in a Mexican town, a senorita giving vent to a negro melody or a favorite polka which she has heard some American sing or whistle. At Santa Fe there are several noted players on the violin and harp who cannot read a word of music, yet they can play on their respective instruments with taste and skill. A New Mexican female, in preparing herself for these balls, is very particular ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... a polka. One still danced the polka in those days, and the schottische and the dear old lancers, though the waltz was already ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... Miss Faro Dell was admittedly the belle of this festive occasion, and Diana would have envied her as, radiant and happy, she led the grand march leaning on the arm of Mr. Cherokee Hall. By request of Mr. Daniel Boggs, the 'Lariat Polka' was added to the programme of dances, as was also the 'Pocatello Reel' at the instance of Mr. Texas Thompson. As the ball progressed, and at the particular desire of those present, Mr. Boggs and Mr. Thompson entertained the company with that difficult and intricate dance known as the 'Mountain ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... tarts and soldiers, more soldiers, everywhere soldiers... and not a single "Teur" in sight except for him... so he found walking across the square a bit embarrassing. Everyone stared.... The military band stopped playing and the Offenbach polka came to a halt with ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... of his guitar and plays a polka. MME. VOITSKAYA writes something on the leaves of ...
— Uncle Vanya • Anton Checkov
... very seriously of pinning a green stripe to a yellow polka-dotted weave which had once formed part of Mrs. Macy's mother's christening-robe, when Susan opened her lips and addressed her. The attack was so sudden that the proprietor of the crazy-work started violently and dropped the piece of the christening-robe; but ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... passages in Virgil, working out his problems in mathematics, and even writing, or at least revising and correcting, his compositions, while he in return gave her lessons in etiquette as practiced by the Boston girls, teaching her how to polka a waltz gracefully, so he would not be ashamed to introduce her as his cousin, he said, at the children's parties which they attended together. It was not strange that Frank Van Buren should admire a girl as bright and piquant and pretty as his cousin Ethelyn, but it was strange ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... decennial class, with some samples of their male children marching with them, and a banner inscribed "515 Others. No Race Suicide"; 1898, carefully arranged in an H-shaped formation, dancing along to their music with a slow polka-step, each with his hands on the shoulders of the man in front, and at the head of all their leader, dancing backwards in perfect time, marshalling them; 1888, middle-aged men, again with some children, and a Highland regiment playing ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... a polka," decided Liuba in a capricious tone. "Isaiah Savvich, play a little polka, please. This is my husband, and he is ordering fox me," she added, embracing the pedagogue by the neck. "Isn't ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... Looking up from his book, he saw a little girl, with large eyes, playing an organ, while a monkey begged for alms from a crowd of idlers who had nothing in their pockets but their hands. The girl was playing, but she was also weeping. The merry notes of the polka were ground out to a silent accompaniment of tears. She looked very sad, this organ-girl, and her monkey seemed to have caught the infection, for his large brown eyes were moist, as if he also wept. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... one served?" she asked, and without waiting for any reply she sat down to the piano and struck the first notes of a polka. ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... lasted a long time. At last, the piper having struck up a polka, the black men, in a transport of mirth, quitted the table and danced and waltzed with an ardor and frenzy which ill accorded with their icy faces. One of the dancers gathered up all the gold that was heaped on the table, ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... the breast, which is marked with chains of white spots like polka-dots; belly white; a white band on each side of the breast in front of the wing; the sides further back tan color with fine wavy black lines, and still further back distinctly banded crosswise with ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... they gathered in the dining room at five o'clock to drink tea and to dance round the Christmas-tree, Liljekrona was silent and out of spirits. He did not seat himself on the bench; he touched neither tea nor punch; he could not remember any polka; the violin was out of order. Those who could play and dance had to do it ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... from the matter that filled her own thoughts, in a way that surprised and annoyed her, sorted, and snipped, and pasted, and decided weighty questions as to whether a goitred robin on a twig should be placed next to a smiling plum-pudding, dancing a polka with a turkey, or whether a congealed cross, with "Christian greeting" in icicles on it, should ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... comes into play, there is a display of tone-effects of great beauty, which are perhaps too elaborate for the simple subject, but the Cottage scene, and the simple Tirolean-songs of the peasants are all the more graceful by contrast; one of the most charming songs in the Polka-air in f: ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... that is, for a country dance. It was after nine o'clock when, riding Comet, he saw the schoolhouse lamps winking at him through the oaks and heard the merry music of fiddle and guitar in the frolic of a heel-and-toe polka. Already he made out here and there the saddle horses which had brought so many "stags" so many miles to the dance, and which stood tied to tree and shrub. Also there were the usual spring wagons that ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... were astonished to find that she remembered all of them, and recognized every one she had met the night before. She taught the young people the alphabet, and several of them learned to talk with her. One of the girls taught her to dance the polka, and a little boy showed her his rabbits and spelled their names for her. She was delighted, and showed her pleasure by hugging and kissing the little fellow, which embarrassed ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... at the close of a polka, and slipped unnoticed into the train of those who promenaded. But they had not gone once round, when they were the observed of all eyes; although he looked straight in front of him, Maurice could see the astonished eyebrows ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... throng of dazzled lawyers crowded Simaise's studio. To the sounds of a hired piano, all this little world danced the polka, waltzed, schottisched,—they still schottische in Normandy. "I shall end by marrying off one," thought old Simaise; and the fact is if one had gone off, all the others would have followed suit. Unluckily the first never went off, but it was a near touch. Amongst the numerous ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... Mr. Sleary, 'your thon may be aboard-a- thip by thith time. Childerth took him off, an hour and a half after we left there latht night. The horthe danthed the polka till he wath dead beat (he would have walthed if he hadn't been in harneth), and then I gave him the word and he went to thleep comfortable. When that prethiouth young Rathcal thed he'd go for'ard afoot, the dog hung on to hith neck-hankercher with all ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... evening of Thursday, the twenty-seventh, it was fairly well occupied, but not to any great extent. One couple attracted my attention by reason of the gentleman's erratic steering. Had he been my partner I should have suggested a polka, the tango not being the sort of dance that can be picked up in an evening. What I mean to say is, that he struck me as being more willing than experienced. Some of the bumps she got would have made me cross; but we all have our fancies, and, so far as I could judge, ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... behind, the toe touching the top of the pedestal. The head slightly turned towards the audience; the expression of the countenance quite brilliant. The lights should be at the left side of the stage, and of medium quantity. A waltz or polka can be played while the tableau ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... decided Liuba in a capricious tone. "Isaiah Savvich, play a little polka, please. This is my husband, and he is ordering fox me," she added, embracing the pedagogue by the neck. "Isn't that ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... Hotspur's Kate. Miss Donaldson accepted it thankfully, as being less bizarre than any yet proposed to her, requiring nothing more than a full skirt of white satin, a jacket not very unlike the modern Polka, and a bridal veil. One condition she insisted on, however, namely, that Arthur should be her Hotspur. To this he consented without difficulty, not without an eye, I suspect, to the appearance of his tall, erect, graceful form and bearing in ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... and folks were beginnin' to talk; then one evenin', when I knew the Doctor had been called out of town and wouldn't be round, I went over to Luella's. I found her all dressed up in a blue muslin with white polka dots on it, and her hair curled jest as pretty, and there wa'n't a young girl in the place could compare with her. There was somethin' about Luella Miller seemed to draw the heart right out of ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... more civilized, and much happier than our own peasantry." * * * "The dancing itself, even in those tents frequented by the poorest peasants, is quite as good, and is conducted with quite as much decorum, as that of the first ballrooms of London. The polka, the waltz, and several dances not known in England, are danced by the German peasants with great elegance. They dance quicker than we do; and, from the training in music which they receive from their childhood, ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... its height. Gwendolen, who had been in to supper eight times, placed her hand timidly on the arm of Lord Beltravers, who had just begged a polka of her. ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... average irresponsible young man who has hung about North Street on Saturday nights, walked through the meadows and round by the mill and back home past the creek on Sunday afternoons, taken his seat in the brake for the annual outing, shuffled his way through the polka at the tradesmen's ball, and generally seized all legitimate opportunities for sporting with Amaryllis in the shade, has a hundred advantages which your successful careerer lacks. There was hardly a moment during the days which ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... missed, they at last returned to the parlor, where they found Ella seated at the piano, and playing a very spirited polka. Henry, who boasted that he "could wind her around his little finger," had succeeded in coaxing her into good humor, but not at all desiring her company for the rest of the evening, he asked her to play, as the easiest way to be rid of her. She played unusually well, but when, at the close of the ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... forced into it, and presently found himself getting along quite decently in a barbaric sort of polka. When the music ceased he followed the custom of the country, and shouted for his partner. She drank sherry. He left the hall a few minutes later, with the girl's kiss, lightly given, tingling on his lips, ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... lanterns. "Never such magic lanterns as those shown by him," she says. "Never such conjuring as his." There was dancing, too, and the little ones taught him his steps, which he practised with much assiduity, once even jumping out of bed in terror, lest he had forgotten the polka, and indulging in a solitary midnight rehearsal. Then, as the children grew older still, there were private theatricals. "He never," she says again, "was too busy to interest himself in his children's occupations, ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... coquetry of admiration and flattery which in the language of slang is called spooning, young persons occasionally got so far acquainted that they agreed to be married, pretty much as they agreed to waltz or to polka together; but it was always with the distinct understanding that they were doing what mammas would approve of, and family solicitors of good conscience could ratify. No tyrannical sentimentality, no uncontrollable gush of sympathy, no irresistible convictions ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... early copy of his forthcoming 'Female Poets of America'"; or as Lewis Gaylord Clark, the "sunnyfaced, smiling" editor of the Knickerbocker Magazine, "who don't look as if the Ink-Fiend had ever heard of him," as he stands up to dance a polka with "a demure lady who has evidently spilled the inkstand over her dress"; or as "the stately Mrs. Seba Smith, bending aristocratically over the centre-table, and talking in a bright, cold, steady stream, like an antique fountain by moonlight"; or as "the spiritual and dainty Fanny Osgood, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... instantly the babbling of voices ceased, and four girls hastened to the pianos placed on either side of the stage, two left-hands struck a series of chords in the bass, the treble notes replied, and, to the gallant measure of a French polka, a stately prelate entered, smiling benediction as he advanced, the soft clapping of feminine palms drowning, for a moment, the ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... be pining for admiration. At the conclusion of the waltz that was going on when Helen entered, Vavasour brought his partner a whisky and soda and a cigarette. He passed Helen twice, but ignored her, and whirled one of the Wragg girls off into a polka. Again he failed to see her when parties were being formed for a quadrille. Even to herself she did not attempt to deny a feeling of annoyance, though she extracted a bitter amusement from the knowledge that she had been slighted by such a ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... polka. The man Si McGinty had called French Charlie came up behind the girl and said something. She shook her head, turned on her heel, and began circling about in the narrow space till she found another ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... silk wad. His flaxen hair was ice-smooth, pasted back without parting. When he went to school he would add a cap with a long vizor like a shovel-blade. Proudest of all was his waistcoat, saved for, begged for, plotted for; a real Fancy Vest of fawn with polka dots of a decayed red, the points astoundingly long. On the lower edge of it he wore a high-school button, a class button, and a ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... travelling circus (I had stipulated on this disposal of her), and was about to set out on her travels. She did not disappoint my glowing anticipations, but became quite a celebrity in her way—by dancing the polka to slow music on a pine-board ball-room constructed ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... had given her a white muslin dress, a square-cut bodice with sleeves reaching to the elbows, and a blue sash tied round the waist. The remarks as she passed were, "A nice, pretty girl." William was waiting, and she went away with him on the hop of a vigorous polka. ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... for suspecting me of talking hyperborean language— hyperbolical, I mean,' cried Lord Rotherwood; 'I'll make you dance the Polka with all the beauty ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... boxes purchased or presented to us before our departure. At six o'clock in the afternoon all the officers and crew assembled in the 'tweendecks, and the drawing of lots began, now and then interrupted by a thundering polka round the peculiar Christmas tree. At supper neither Christmas ale nor ham was wanting. And later in the evening there made their appearance in the 'tweendecks five punchbowls, which were emptied with songs and ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... brief and exceedingly banal interview with Helen, and another with Andrew. And an interval having elapsed, Andrew was observed to approach Helen and ask her for a polka. Helen punctiliously accepted. And he led her out. The outraged gods of social decorum were appeased, and the reputations of Mrs. Prockter and her parties stood as high as ever. It ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... would like to inform the correspondents that I will answer all of them in due time. Now I am very busy. I am getting a new book and fixing it up, my school has commenced, and I am taking music lessons on the piano. I can play familiar tunes like the "Racquet Polka," "Fatinitza," "Pinafore," and others. I am also ...
— Harper's Young People, September 21, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... were playing a sprightly polka. A triangle marked the measures, and Reginald's red shoe tapped the floor beneath his ...
— Dorothy Dainty's Gay Times • Amy Brooks
... they presented to my view a while since, fill'd with a crowded mass of the worst wounded of the war, brought in from second Bull Run, Antietam, and Fredericksburgh. To-night, beautiful women, perfumes, the violin's sweetness, the polka and the waltz; then the amputation, the blue face, the groan, the glassy eye of the dying, the clotted rag, the odor of wounds and blood, and many a mother's son amid strangers, passing away untended there, (for the crowd of the badly ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... recovered himself and his dignity by drawing forth a huge wine-colored silk handkerchief, set with white polka-dots, and ostentatiously and vigorously using it. This ear-splitting operation having once more set him up in his own esteem, he resumed his attentions to ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... a tall dark man, dressed in the usual costume of the ricos of Mexico: dark cloth polka-jacket, blue military trousers, with scarlet sash around his waist, and low-crowned, broad-brimmed hat upon his head. He appeared about thirty years of age, whiskered, moustached, and, after a fashion, handsome. It was not his age, nor his personal appearance, nor yet his ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... all danced on the dusty brick floor of the little parlour. No strange women were invited, only men; the young bloods from the big village on the lake, the wild men from above. They danced the slow, trailing, lilting polka-waltz round and round the small room, the guitars and mandolines twanging rapidly, the dust rising from the soft bricks. There were only the two English women: so men danced with men, as the Italians love to do. They love even better to ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... Among these, so demure and still as to seem oldest of all, waited Lucy Hapgood. Camille could scarcely keep back a smile at sight of her incongruous attire. Her gown was a cotton one of a washed out indigo-blue, with large polka spots that had once been white, before the other color had beclouded them. Over this, as if apologizing and condoning, streamed the sombre veil, more suitable for a widow than for that round-faced child. But Lucy drew it about her with a tender touch, ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... by, clapping their hands, and occasionally one advances into the circle, composed of a hundred men, makes a few movements, and then retires. As I never tried it, and am unable to enter into the spirit of the thing, I can not recommend the Makololo polka to the dancing world, but I have the authority of no less a person than Motibe, Sekeletu's father-in-law, for saying "it is very nice." They often asked if white people ever danced. I thought of the disease called St. Vitus's dance, but could not say that all our dancers were ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... straight as a grenadier, and had it been her fate to carry a milk-pail, she would have carried it to perfection. Instead of this, however, she was permitted to expend an equal amount of energy in every variation of waltz and polka that the ingenuity of the dancing professors of the age has been able to produce. Waltzes and polkas suited her admirably; for she was gifted with excellent lungs and perfect powers of breathing, and she had not much delight in prolonged ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... beneath the radiance of a full moon which silvered the lace-work of a mackerel sky. I never fully realised what dancing was until Miss Harding favoured me with a polka. And then we wandered out into the moonlight, talked about the moon, and hunted for the ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... the sufferer to his feet and they staggered off together, Jellicoe hopping, Dunster advancing with a sort of polka step. Mike watched them start and ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... Carter's luck and his confidence in proclaiming his convictions, had backed Beldame. Many hundred had gone so far as to bet that the three horses he had named would finish as he had foretold. But, in spite of Carter's tip, Delhi still was the favorite, and when the thousands saw the Keene polka-dots leap to the front, and by two lengths stay there, for the quarter, the half, and for the three-quarters, the air was shattered with jubilant, triumphant yells. And then suddenly, with the swiftness of a moving picture, in the very moment of his victory, Beldame crept up ...
— The Man Who Could Not Lose • Richard Harding Davis
... thought the Leopard's spots Were pasted on for polka-dots, He asked her how much it would cost New ones to buy ...
— Animal Children - The Friends of the Forest and the Plain • Edith Brown Kirkwood
... the debut of the Prodigal Son at Vauxhall and the Casinos is that crisis of a disease which precedes a return to health, and that henceforth we shall hear less about Haroun Alraschid's views of the polka, and Julius Caeesar's estimate of cider cellars and cigars. As for the Olympic burlesque itself, it is by no means void of humor; nor is it unsuccessful. We only stigmatize it as the perfection of a ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... 'em do anything. We might just as well shut up, if we hadn't Jinx; it's a deal more popular than Lord Fatimore is—folks say they never saw such a sight as when Jeremiah and Skirrywinks dance the polka together; and it's all Jinx ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... and the border was one broad, soft, velvety band of black, and a narrower one following it above and below, easing the contrast and blending the colors. The jacket, or rather shirt, finished at the waist with a bit of a polka frill, was a soft flannel, of the bright brown shade, braided with the darker hue and with black; and two pairs of bright brown raw-silk stockings, marked transversely with mere thread-lines of black, ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... Shubin broke in, 'she is pretty, very pretty; I am sure that no one who meets her could fail to think: that's some one I should like to—dance a polka with; I'm sure, too, that she knows that, and is pleased.... Else, what's the meaning of those modest simpers, that discreet air? There, you know what I mean,' he muttered between his teeth. 'But now you're absorbed ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... "there are a few subjects for conversation which do not include the centipede and the polka-dotted dickey-bird. These subjects Kathleen and I furtively indulge in when we can ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... said to represent "impressions," though one would be shy of meeting, beyond the bounds of an insane asylum, the individual whose impressions could take so questionable a shape; lastly, the centre of the collection, a "polka mazurka harmony in yellow," by Sardanapalus Stiggins, the great impressionist painter of the day. Chrysophrasia paid five hundred pounds for this ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... ourselves. And if we get too hard up, we'll both go out as daily governesses. I think I could teach a little music, to young children, you know; you'd teach the older ones.' Emily looked at Julia inquiringly, and going over to the piano, attempted to play her favourite polka. Julia, who had once worked for her daily bread, and earned it in a sort of way by giving music-lessons, smiled sadly at the girl's ignorance ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... down the rocking floor The raving polka spins, So long as Kitchen Lancers spur The maddened violins, So long as through the whirling smoke We hear the oft-told tale— "Twelve hundred in the Lotteries," And Whatshername for sale? If you love me as I love you We'll play the game and win ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... to me. I had supper with him, and Lord Valmond was near with Lady Doraine, and she was being so nice to him, Mamma, leaning over and looking into his eyes, and I don't think it good form, do you? Two or three dances afterwards, when we went back to the ballroom, there was a polka; I danced it with some idiot who almost at once let yards and yards of my gauze frills get torn, so I was obliged to go to the cloak-room to have it ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... solution, but she was, he assured her, very far adrift. "A telegraph post," she next announced, but she was again unsuccessful. At this point I left them; but after an hour had passed Gabrielle ran up to my room to tell me that she had guessed it—a polka dot upon one of her ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... great world-knowledge and aplomb, financial shrewdness, readiness in composition—speaks half-a-dozen languages, dabbles in literature, in business, in every thing but politics—talks metaphysics one minute, and dances a polka the next—in short, knows a little of every thing, with a knack of reproducing it effectively; moreover, is a man of moral purity, deference to women and hospitality to strangers, which I take to be ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... somehow to have given place to the courtier, and so merry was his mood, so infectious his good nature, that even madame came under the spell of it. She sang with him, she even danced a Russian polka with him; she sat with him at dinner, and flirted with him in the salon afterward; and when the time came for her to retire, it was he who took her bedroom candle from the shelf and ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... not know how we have settled that," said Caroline, beginning to be hopeful now that she had something tangible to attack. "The dresses for the morning will be nothing,—only a white skirt and green polka, which will do to wear for ever after, and a little ruff, very pretty, and no expense at all; and a little alteration will make our court dresses perfectly suitable for Queen Elizabeth's ladies. You need not be at all ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... closing one eye, examined me and the portrait critically. Then whistling a polka, he answered recklessly: "The devil knows ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... sat down to the piano and was playing a lively polka. Angelot started up, seized his little cousin, and whirled her off down the room. In a minute or two Urbain took off his spectacles, shut the Theatre d'Agriculture with a sharp clap, walked up to Anne and held out his hands with ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... to the Zoo the Leopard to see, But found him an unsociable fellow. He would not look at us or say where he bought His polka-dot ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... woollen cap. Beside him, hunched up on a window-sill, was a shepherd boy who accompanied the organ upon a flute of reed. Round the walls stood a throng of gazers, and in the middle of the floor the dancers performed vigorously, dancing now a polka, now a waltz, now a mazurka, now an elaborate country dance in which sixteen or twenty people took part, now a tarantella, called by many of the contadini "La Fasola." No sooner had they entered the room than Gaspare gently but firmly placed his arm round his padrone's waist, took his left hand ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... sumptuous collation which Rachel and her juniors are preparing. The musicians are mustered,—the young belles and beaux, and not a few old bachelors, gather into the front room, commence the ftes with country dances, and conclude with the polka ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... loved the man. I used to think that stock-brokers were mere sordid calculating machines. Now that I have seen whole firms of them busy at the hoe, wearing old trousers that reached to their armpits and were tied about the waist with a polka dot necktie, I know that they are men. I know that there are warm hearts beating behind ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... but James had things to himself up there, and played The Spring Chicken through three times during dinner, with Miss Cobb glaring at the gallery until the back of her neck ached, and the dining-room girls waltzing in with the dishes and polka-ing out. ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... how to talk to weeping women, heaved a sigh, and paced slowly about the drawing-room. There followed a succession of oppressive pauses interspersed with weeping and the questions which lead to nothing. The band had already played a quadrille, a polka, and another quadrille. It got quite dark. In the adjoining room, the maid lighted the lamp; and all the while the doctor kept his hat in his hands, and seemed trying to say something. Several times Olga Ivanovna went off to her son, ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... she wore a polka jacket and the thinnest of summer blouses; and her hat, though dark, was of rough straw, plainly trimmed. Nevertheless, these peculiarities were carried off with an air of breeding and self-possession that was unmistakable. ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... notes of the polka he went to her. It was she who found their place of refuge—a little alcove behind two palm-plants. But sitting there, he realized, as never before, that there was no spiritual communion between him and this child. She could tell him her troubles or ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Geraldine is so used to polka-dotted dinosaurs and Little Green Men from Mars that she wouldn't mind an ordinary ghost, and Nelda'd probably try to drag it into bed with her." She laid down the pistol and slid off the desk. "Well, pleasant dreams; I'll see ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... easily and gracefully, and look as if he were enjoying himself. He should be careful about guiding and not running into people. Swinging the hands is vulgar and unsightly. The waltz seems to survive all other forms of dancing, but there is every now and then a revival of the polka. Two steps and fancy dances are the vogue at summer hotels, but not at ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... and ladies of his court to revive the waltz, taking the ground that it is more conducive than any other dance to ridiculous mishaps on the highly polished and parqueted floors of the royal and imperial palaces. Even with the polka, the schottische and the mazurka, to which the round dances are now limited, there are so many accidents that some time ago the kaiser summoned the generals commanding the various troops stationed in and around Berlin, and instructed them ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... paradise of the Thames, climbing rustic slopes carpeted with flowers, or gazing at a menagerie, where the monkeys bound, chatter, and take apples out of your hand; or sipping coffee of the most fragrant growth, or dancing the polka under alcoves of painted canvass, large enough to manoeuvre a brigade of the Horse-guards. By day the scene is romantic, but by night it is magical. By day the stranger roams through labyrinths of exotic vegetation, but by night he is enchanted with invisible music, dazzled with fireworks, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... the new and modern square dances and tabulated forms for the guidance of the leader or others in calling them. Full and complete directions for performing every known square dance, such as Plain Quadrilles, Polka Quadrilles, Prairie Queen, Varieties Quadrille, Francaise, Dixie Figure, Girl I Left Behind Me, Old Dan Tucker, Money Musk, Waltz Lanciers, Military Lanciers, Columbian Lanciers, Oakland ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... called the jenka. It is more like a schottische perhaps than anything else; and really it was extraordinary to see how well these peasants danced, and how they beat time. Thoroughly they entered into the spirit of the thing, the polka, waltz, and jenka being all danced in turn, until ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... dance by the introduction of what they called the "shuffle" or the "bunny-hug," "turkey-trot," and other ungraceful and unworthy dances. It was decided that the Castles should, through Bok's magazine and their own public exhibitions, revive the gavotte, the polka, and finally the waltz. They would evolve these into new forms and Bok would present them pictorially. A series of three double-page presentations was decided upon, allowing for large photographs ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... the Colonel of the Grenadiers and order it. Anyhow, you can play the Goblin polka if ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... canaries, and pretty trinkets. Her rooms and garden, it is true, were small and poorly fitted-up, yet everything in them was so neat and methodical, and bore such a general air of that gentle gaiety which one hears expressed in a waltz or polka, that the word "toy" by which guests often expressed their praise of it all exactly suited her surroundings. She herself was a "toy"—being petite, slender, fresh-coloured, small, and pretty-handed, and invariably gay and well-dressed. The only fault in her was that a slight ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... graceful country dance—lively always, but always decorous. In those days people did not think it necessary to the pleasures of dancing that any stranger should have liberty to snatch a shy, innocent girl round the waist, and whirl her about in mad waltz or awkward polka, till she stops, giddy and breathless, with burning cheek and tossed hair, looking,—as I would not have liked to see our pretty ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... which one cannot say all have come true. But he poured them forth from the mighty heart of one who loved his country, and sat down with a sense of duty fulfilled and wiped his pale forehead while the band played a polka. ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... there were constant rehearsals for the Christmas and New Year's parties; and more especially for the dance on Twelfth Night, the anniversary of my brother Charlie's birthday. Just before one of these celebrations my father insisted that my sister Katie and I should teach the polka step to Mr. Leech and himself. My father was as much in earnest about learning to take that wonderful step correctly, as though there were nothing of greater importance in the world. Often he would practice gravely in a corner, without either partner or music, and ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... class made by sundry French tailors, bootmakers, dancing-masters, and Mr. Brown. They are a corps-de-ballet, for use of private entertainments. They are fostered by society for the use of young debutantes, and hardier damsels, who have dared two or three years of the "tight" polka. They are cultivated for their heels, not their heads. Their life begins at ten o'clock in the evening, and lasts until four in the morning. They go home and sleep until nine; then they reel, sleepy, to counting-houses and ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... people sat down on the piazza steps while the music of The Sultan's Polka floated out of the barn door. Old Mrs. Jenks was dancing with Peter, her eighty-year-old steps as fleet as his, her white side-curls bobbing to the tune. Her withered hands clasped his dimpled ones and the two seemed to be of the same ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... a lively polka, and Monsieur Tournevau started off with the handsome Jewess, whom he held up in the air, without letting her feet touch the ground. Monsieur Pinipesse and Monsieur Vasse had started off with renewed vigor, and from time to time one or other couple would stop to ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... went off and danced for hours and hours. For hours and hours? For ages and ages! while I withered away amid mouldering mothers, and saw my charges through the dreadful half- dreams of such a state whirling in the waltz, hopping in the polka, sliding in the galop, and then endlessly walking up and down between the dances, and eating and drinking the chill refreshments that it made my teeth chatter to think of. I suppose they decently came to me from time to time, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... her, I did not mind expense; I bought her two gold ear-rings, They cost me fifty cents. And a-a-away, you santee! My dear Annie! O you New York girls! Can't you dance the polka! —Shanty, "The ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... since heard of a tame elephant exhibited in England having been taught to stand on his head, and, I fancy, dance the polka; and from the extraordinary positions into which I saw the animals throw themselves on this occasion, I fully believe in their power to do anything ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... riding. He was at ease on the back of a spirited horse. He was particularly fond of dancing, which later aroused the wonder of Elizabeth Barrett, who found it difficult to imagine the author of Paracelsus dancing the polka. ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... the other, and made fearless jests the while, to the infinite excitement of the audience, especially of the hyah-hyah-hyahing negroes, whose faces, under the flicker of lowered calcium-carbide lights, made a segregated strip of yellow-black polka-dotted with white eye-balls. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... some other small items. I take one at random. While the Duke of Wellington danced the polka in Brussels the Prince of Orange with a small Dutch army stopped Napoleon's progress at Quatre Bras, and by disobeying the orders of the British commander saved the army of the allies and made the victory of Waterloo possible. Our ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Gracious Madam, I put him under your protection! Nephew, you escort Madam Piepenbrink. (MRS. PIEPENBRINK takes a firm grip on BELLMAUS'S arm and holds him securely. Polka behind the scene.) Farewell, gentlemen, it's beyond your power to spoil our good humor. There, the music is striking up! We march off in a jolly procession, and again I cry in ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... vault is but 132 French feet—about 150 English. Think only—you who have been in Switzerland,—the Staubbach falls nine hundred! Nay, Dover cliff under the castle, just at the end of the Marine Parade, is twice as high; and the little cockneys parading to military polka on the asphalt below, think themselves about as tall as it, I suppose,—nay, what with their little lodgings and stodgings and podgings about it, they have managed to make it look no bigger than a moderate-sized limekiln. Yet it is twice the height of Amiens' apse!—and it ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... it, and the best thing you can do is to follow her example. What would you think of some light refreshment? Let's go to the dining-room and drown our sorrows in strawberry ice. Then we can have a waltz, and try a vanilla—and a polka, and some lemonade! That's, my idea of enjoying myself. Come along, while you ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... had been deputed to collect all donations at once went to the door, and all eyes were turned upon him when he came back towards the lawn, every member on tip-toe of expectation. But he had only returned to say that the squire's lady wished the band to play a polka. This spread consternation throughout the band, and one of the younger members went to the conductor saying, "A polka! A polka! I say, Jim, what's that?" "Oh," replied the conductor, "number three played quick!" Now number three was a quickstep named after Havelock the famous English General in ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... introduced to this gentleman and his charming lady. Seeing a young creature before me in a white dress, with white satin shoes; with a pink ribbon, about a yard in breadth, flaming out as she twirled in a polka in the arms of Monsieur de Springbock, the German diplomatist; with a green wreath on her head, and the blackest hair this individual set eyes on—seeing, I say, before me a charming young woman whisking beautifully ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Regiment after regiment marched past, the men swinging their arms regularly as they moved, and trying to persuade themselves they were British grenadiers. At all events the band was playing that tune. Suddenly the music changed; they struck up a lively polka, and a number of little boys in a sort of penwiper costume, clasping one another like civilized ladies and gentlemen, began to caper about, after which they went through various antics that surpassed even the wildest notions of our highly civilized community: all this while the ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... distinctly through the curtained windows, the storm appeared to be at some distance, and, except for one peal, the thunder was not loud. After supper dancing was resumed, and I was taking part in a polka (called, I remember, the "King Pippin"), when my partner pointed out that one of the footmen wished to speak with me. I begged him to lead me to one side, and the servant then informed me that my brother was ill. Sir John, he said, had been seized with a fainting fit, but ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... that blue one and the polka dot up there. They'd make corking shirts. I'll trade you twelve of my umbrellas for one of those grass bonnets of yours. They've been showing too much partiality. Here you've got nearly one hundred suits of pajamas and I ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... differ from a schottisch?"—"A schottisch is a lazy polka. A polka is the worst thing in the world: the next worst is a schottisch. A schottisch is so lazy, so slow, that a fire would hardly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... a waltz, while the plait kept up an accompanying polka. Certainly Peter Klausson did press her too close ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... the violin tucked under his chin, began to play in a very spirited manner. Our pulses beat time to lively polka and schottische while Mr. Watlin tapped on the carpet with his large foot as he played. Mary Ellen was wild for a ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... that it was more like the slow tunes her niece played than the quick ones. The player said with unmoved gravity this was andante. Mrs. Bailey said that her niece, on the contrary, had been christened Selina. She could play the Polka. So could Mr. Torrens, rather to the good woman's surprise and, indeed, delight. He was so good-humoured that he played it again, and also the Schottische; and would have stood Gluck over to ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan |
