"Polka" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were in action now. Each fired at six-second intervals. All about the flitting target the smokeballs burst—above it, below it, to this side of it and to that. They polka-dotted the heavens in the area through which the Frenchman scudded. They looked like a bed of white water lilies and he like a black dragonfly skimming among the lilies. It was a pretty sight and as thrilling a one as ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... looking for a place to sit down, and at last threw himself into Karna's lap, and began to play a dance. Erik was the first upon his feet. He led on account of his difference with the bailiff, and pulled Bengta up from the grass with a jerk. They danced a Swedish polka, and always at a certain place in the melody, he tossed her up into the air with a shout. She shrieked every time, and her heavy skirts stood out round her like the tail of a turkey-cock, so that every one could see how long it ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... had struck up 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
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Country led the van of as sorry a band of 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 flames ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... Cockney familiarity with the disreputable works of the Metropolis. We trust that 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 ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... well, on very good legs, but with rather large feet. She was as 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 ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... Vulcanized Rubber Head for Cane (to bite on). 1 Shoe-horn to use in working Ears into Ear-Muffs. 1 Pair Corsets. 1 Dark-brown Wash for Mouth, to be used in the morning. 1 Large Box Ennui, to be used in Society. 1 Box Spruce Gum, made in Chicago and warranted pure. 1 Gallon Assorted Shirt Studs. 1 Polka-dot Handkerchief to pin in side pocket, but not for nose. 1 Plain Handkerchief for nose. 1 Fancy Head for Cane (morning). 1 Fancy Head for Cane (evening). 1 Picnic Head for Cane. 1 Bottle Peppermint. 1 do. ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... refreshment 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 myself 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 de propaganda fide, I think it would be wise to fill our bombshells with alternate copies of the Cambridge Platform and the ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... night, dad,' we heard her say, 'I played it ever so much. Honest—I have been playing it. And it's such a splendid instrument, you don't know how I love it. Last night I played "Bonnie Dundee" and the "Anvil Polka" and the "Blue Danube"—and lots of pieces. You must surely have heard me playing a little, didn't you, dad? I didn't like to play loud when you was ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... Alps my soldiers had been of your dancing sort. How far would I have got if every time the band played a two-step my grenadiers had dropped their guns to pirouette over those snow-white wastes? Let the diplomats do the dancing. For soldiers give me men to whom the polka is a closed book ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... 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 thanks for this self-sacrifice was the mild abuse of Mr. Thackeray ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... though wondering at their impotence. They were bronzed and rough from the camp, but his sensitive nature was expressed in them. The gray showed in his beard and hair. Where the short beard did not hide his cheeks they were tanned. His blue serge suit had been freshly pressed; a polka-dot scarf was neatly tied under the points of a white-wing collar. He suggested an artist who had just returned from a painting trip in the open—a town man who wasn't afraid of the sun. If an artist one might have assumed that he was none too prosperous; ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... 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
... play a soft, dreamy waltz. It was full of bewitching invitation. No one could resist it. It passed into a wild, stirring polka, into a maddening galop, back again to a dreamy waltz. Now it was dizzying, whirling; now it was languishing, full of repose. Now it was the burst and clangor of a full orchestra; now it was the bewitching appeal of a single voice that invited to dance. Up and down the long ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... 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
... But her vanity was flattered at having in her train at least one devoted dangler, whom she could play off, whenever opportunity required, against some more valuable admirer. Besides, Strachan was a man of family, tall, good-looking, and unquestionably clever in his way: he also danced the polka well, and was useful in the ball-room or the pic-nic. So Mary Rivers kept him on in a kind of blissful dream, just sunning him sufficiently with her smiles to make him believe that he was beloved, but never allowing matters ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... several hours later, the rooms were filled with warmth and laughter and the vague perfume of women's dresses mingled with the odour of American Beauty roses. An old-fashioned polka was in the air, and beyond the furthest doorway he saw young people dancing. The red candles were burning down, and drops of wax lay like flecks of blood upon the floor. Near the entrance, a small, ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... 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 ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... brother George? He is such a good boy! He never teazes us, or the cat, or anybody. Mary O'Reilly (that's our kitten) always rubs her coat against his legs when he comes home; so you see that is a sign that he is never cruel to animals. He once tried to teach a crab at Long Branch to dance the polka, but he didn't hurt ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... a glorious night 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 ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... Blessington's annuals ... and who was the only other female rhymer he had had the misfortune of attending. And she was to die in two years, though she was dancing quadrilles then (and has lived to do the same by the polka), and I, of course, much sooner, if I did not ponder these things, and amend my ways, and take to reading 'a course of history'!! Indeed I do not exaggerate. And just so, for a long while I was persecuted and pestered ... vexed thoroughly sometimes ... my own family, instructed to sing the burden ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... 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 followed when Tom did ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... at the sky with a pathetic air, "a piece as I composed myself. I don't often play it, 'cause, you know, sir, one doesn't 'xactly like to shove one's-self too prominently afore the public. I calls it the 'Banging-smash Polka.' But I generally charge hextra for it, for it's dreadful hard on the lungs, and the trombone he gets cross when I mention it, for it nearly bu'sts the hinstrument; besides, it kicks up sich a row that it puts ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... candles to get into position outside, and arrangements had to be made for their protection from the damp November mist. Then, too, the faithless Grenadiers had not turned up, which necessitated Jill deserting her herrings and privately practising the Goblin polka, in view of possible emergencies. Further, the table had to be laid, and every guest's "go" of buns, and cocoa-nut, and coffee-ice, doled out in readiness. And at the last moment there arose a difficulty in raising ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... 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 ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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, though they ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Helen, and flaxen-haired Fritz, radiantly holiday-like in his lustrously washed face and large, blue polka-dot tie, approached the ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... aprons. She made them herself and she sews so carefully. She had bought patterns and the little dresses were stylishly made, as well as well made. Mrs. O'Shaughnessy brought a piece of crossbar with a tiny forget-me-not polka dot, and also had goods and embroidery for a suit of underwear. My own poor efforts were already completed when the rest came, so I was free ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... 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 ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... young 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 age, for in the atmosphere of laughter ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... 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 have no share but to follow, ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... Madame Kukshin; her vanity had been deeply wounded by neither of them having paid any attention to her. She stayed later than any one at the ball, and at four o'clock in the morning she was dancing a polka-mazurka with Sitnikov in the Parisian style. This edifying spectacle was the final event of ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... by, the dancing still went on, with the trampling of tiny feet. Blanche Berthier's bells could be heard ringing in unison with the softer notes of the piano; Madame Deberle and Pauline were clapping their hands, by way of beating time. It was a polka, and Helene caught a glimpse of Jeanne and Lucien, as they passed by smiling, with arms clasped round ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... They were that of M. de Nonancourt, an old beau with the air of a mummy preserved in cold cream, and that of Madame de Larsillois, the wife of a prefect of Louis Philippe. She was terribly frightened, for she had just heard an organ playing a polka which was a signal amongst the insurgents. Many of the wealthy class of citizens had similar apprehensions; they thought that men in the catacombs were going to blow up the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Some noises escaped from cellars, ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... weren't content to sit down and play cards while others footed it. Not they! They danced the Lancers, and a polka or two, and waltzed and dipped and bowed to "Comin' through the Rye" while all the masqueraders lined up against the walls to admire and applaud. And after the gayest sort of a buffet supper, the prizes that had been won by a belle and a trooper ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... done. In rented bathing suits, unfastidious, if you will, but, pshaw! with the ocean for wash day, who minded! Hers a little blue wrinkly one that hit her far too far, below the knees, but her head flowered up in a polka-dotted turban, that well enough she knew bound her up prettily, and her arms were so round with that indescribable softiness of youth! Getaway, whose eyes could focus a bit when he looked at them, ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... Madame! Que faites-vous ici? Cordieu, Madame! Que faites-vous ici? Je danse le polka avec tous mes amis! Je danse le polka avec ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... 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 ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... the only dollars 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 ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... Irma, for the detective seemed 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
... hauled forth a pair of black-and-white trousers with checks as large as the squares of a chessboard, a blue cloth vest with white polka dots, and a long, gray Prince Albert coat, with mauve satin lapels. The shirt was pink and blue, stripes of each alternating, running cross-ways, a white collar, and a flaring ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... fashion. Stephen's dancing, compared with Claude's, was as the deliberate motion of an ox to the hopping of a neat little robin. When Claude took a girl's hand in the "grand right-and-left," it was as if he were about to try on a delicate glove; the manner in which he "held his lady" in the polka or schottische made her seem a queen. Mite Shapley was so affected by it that when Rufus attempted to encircle her for the mazurka she exclaimed, "Don't act as if you ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... 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 one ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... 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, and walked away quickly, treading on air. Presently he began to question himself. ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... and his memory, lost in a polka of his own composition, beginning it again and again, unable to remember its conclusion, the unfortunate Stoltz had gone to sleep while playing, and with him all the ladies on the Rigi, nodding, as they slumbered, romantic ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... turned by a perspiring man in a long, 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 ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... began to 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 ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... was conscious of a feeling of embarrassment. Not that she was at all ashamed of being "The Girl of The Polka Saloon," for that never entered her mind; but she suddenly realised that it was one thing to converse pleasantly with a young man on the highway and another to let him come to her home on Cloudy Mountain. Only too well could she imagine the cool reception, if it stopped at that, ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... 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 ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... 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 ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... and ridden over several times to teach her the steps, and they had practised them on the hard-trodden ground in front of the cook tent, where the dust could be kept down by frequent sprinkling. If the waltz and the polka and schottische sent her blood racing under such adverse conditions, what must it be like on a real floor with real music, she asked herself ecstatically. These dancing lessons were provocative of much merriment and teasing from the ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... person who attended it are soon brought under discussion. This naturally inspires the young people with a desire to dance; so the table is pushed aside, and papa being squeezed nearly into the fire, mamma takes her place at the piano, and bursts off with the Annen Polka. ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... 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 Minuet, Waltz Quadrilles, etc. The "German" introduces over One ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... 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
... hated them!—whether they were shy, or whether they were bold; whether they romped with their sweethearts, and laughed at their own jokes like bulls of Bashan, or whether they wore their best clothes as though the garments burnt them, and danced the polka in a perspiring and anguished silence! No; she was not of their class, thank Heaven! She never wished to be. One man had asked her to put a pin in his collar; another had spilt a cup of coffee over her ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... extremely brilliant, being seen 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. ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... Mme Poisson were both there also. Boche had heard of a cabinetmaker who had danced the polka until he ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... black trees. Loving couples paced them slowly, while the music from the shows sounded muffled by the distance. They were still there when a band of fifes, trombones, and trumpets struck up close by, playing a popular polka tune. The very first bar put Madame Ewans on her mettle. She drew Jean to her, settled his hands in hers and lifting him off the ground with a jerk of the hip, began dancing with him. She swung and swayed to the lilt of the music; but the boy was awkward and embarrassed, and ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... Bustle Punch Stanzas for the Sentimental. Punch 1. On a Tear which Angelina observed trickling down my nose at Dinner-time 2. On my refusing Angelina a kiss under the Mistletoe 3. On my finding Angelina stop suddenly in a rapid after-supper-polka at Mrs. Tompkins' Ball Soliloquy on a Cab-stand Punch The Song of Hiawatha Punch Comfort in Affliction Aytoun The Husband's Petition Aytoun The Biter Bit Aytoun A Midnight Meditation Aytoun The Dirge of the Drinker ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... anticipation of the amusement he expected to derive from its performance. In the short silence which ensued while Akulina was resting her lungs for a second and more deadly effort, the wretched little musical box made itself heard, clicking and scratching and grinding out a miserable little polka. At the sound, the sunny smile returned to the tobacconist's face. He knew that no earthly eloquence, no scathing wit, no brutal reply could possibly exasperate his wife as this must. He resented everything she had said, and in his vulgar way he was ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... their names, etc. It is no uncommon thing to see a pupil throw these blocks into a confused heap, mix them all up, and, then picking them up one by one, put each in its place with as much accuracy as the most accomplished pianist will strike each key in a simple march or polka. ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... one eye, examined me and the portrait critically. Then whistling a polka, he answered recklessly: "The ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... saw something more: the man's face was familiar. With that regal faculty of not forgetting a face that had ever given him professional audience, he instantly classified it under the following mental formula: "At 'Frisco, Polka Saloon. Lost his week's wages. I reckon—seventy dollars—on red. Never came again." There was, however, no trace of this in the calm eyes and unmoved face that he turned upon the stranger, who, on the contrary, blushed, looked embarrassed, hesitated and then stopped with an involuntary ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... had been sold to the ring-master of a 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 for ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... might be 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 ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... never been more alert. He noticed that Buck had on a red necktie that had got loose from his shirt and climbed up his neck. It had black polka dots and was badly frayed. Sweeney was chewing tobacco. He would have that chew in his mouth after they had finished what they ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... reasons, monsieur," he explained to me excitedly; "a little girl on the floor below me played a polka—the same polka half the day—always forgetting to put in the top note; and the fellow over me whistled it the rest of the day and put in the top note false; and so I moved to the rue St. Peres, where one only hears, within the ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... nun cried, running in, and 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 slangy strains of ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... 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 ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... audible assent; she simply let him put his arm round her waist—as she did so it occurred to her more vividly than it had ever done before, that this was a singular place for a gentleman's arm to be—and in a moment he was guiding her round the room in the harmonious rotation of the polka. When they paused she felt that she was red; and then, for some moments, she stopped looking at him. She fanned herself, and looked at the flowers that were painted on her fan. He asked her if she would begin again, and she hesitated to answer, ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... appeared as one born to Sunday clothes and shined shoes and a new hat, the Wilbur twin would be one to whom Sabbath finery was exotic and unwelcome. The flawless lustre of his shoes would be dulled, even though he walked sedately the safe sidewalk; his broad collar and blue polka-dotted cravat would be awry, one stocking would be down, his jacket yawning, all his magnificence seeming unconquerably alien. Winona did him the justice to recognize that this disarray was due to no ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... names by which it has been called well describe its effect on the patient; breakbone fever, dandy-fever, stiff-necked or giraffe-fever, boquet (or "bucket") fever, scarlatina rheumatica, polka-fever, etc. While the suffering is intense as long as the disease lasts it seldom ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane
... 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, ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... 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 ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... 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 was well ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... 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 ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... might be roaming through this 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, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... has been unusually fortunate this evening. She has only had to sit out thirteen dances, and has already been given half a polka by Mr. LAYSIBOHNS, who, however, seemed too tired to finish it. Her view is, that "half a loafer is better ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, February 4, 1893 • Various
... condemned to pass his evenings; and when he approached her to tell her that the carriage was waiting, and her mother had sent to summon her to her side, he could not restrain his smiles when the young men crowded round to remind Pauline, one of a waltz, another of a polka, and pleading with Mr. Grey for more engagements than she could have fulfilled if they had staid all night; and his paternal pride had its share of gratification in the homage that even his ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... 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 ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... the Leopard's spots Were pasted on for polka-dots, He asked her how much it would cost New ones to ...
— Animal Children - The Friends of the Forest and the Plain • Edith Brown Kirkwood
... aloud had she not remembered how sensitive to ridicule Shaggy's brother was, for the handkerchief with which he had masked his features was a red one covered with big white polka dots. In this two holes had been cut—in front of the eyes—while two smaller ones before the nostrils allowed the man to breathe freely. The cloth was then tightly drawn over the Ugly One's face and knotted at the ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... five 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 the author ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... for the greatest donkey in the entire collection, it is obvious that we shall find him in the middle-aged party of 1936, who is gadding about in inflated trunks and with a fan in his hand. If it were not for the gloves and polka-dot neck-wear we should assume that this costume was a particularly fantastic bathing-suit. The youth of the ensuing year, in the next plate, is probably a son of the foregoing personage, for it is not difficult to detect a strong family likeness. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... hollow-eyed from want of sleep. A stubbly beard covered his brick-baked face. But the unquenchable gayety of the youthful West could not be extinguished. Though his flannel shirt gaped where the thorns had torn it, and the polka-dot bandanna round his throat was discolored with sweat, he was as blithely ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... the dust from his tan shoes with a polka-dotted handkerchief, while rosy dreams, full of ambition and success filled his ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... crescendo there; nothing careless or slapdash from the first bar to the last. She would play the same piece a hundred times without varying the performance by a hair's-breadth. Nor did she affect anything but classical music. She was one of those young ladies who, when asked for a waltz or a polka, freeze the impudent demander by replying that they play no dance music—nothing more frivolous ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... 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 four legth in the ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... likewise a favourite with the Virgin Queen, and which I should like to see supersede the eternal polka at Almack's and elsewhere, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... very hard. I saw a woman in the indefinable seasons past fifty. In my vague mental condition, the impression of her came slowly. First it was as though I saw three cubes, one above the other, the largest in the middle. Then these took on clothing, blue calico with large polka dots, and the topmost one crowned itself with thin wisps of hair, parted in the middle and plastered down at the side. So, little by little, John Shadrack's widow grew on me, till I saw her a square little old woman, with a wrinkled, ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... 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 ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... demands. One of the historical prints showed the dress worn in her bridal days by 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 such a ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... Henri Bosch Spencer. Senor Don Calderon de la Barca, the Spanish Minister, was very popular, as was his gifted wife, so favorably known to American literature. As for the South American Republics, their representatives were generally well dressed and able to put a partner through a polka in a manner gratifying to her and to ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... started on their walk. Oh, those lovers' rambles! A man as he grows old can perhaps teach himself to regret but few of the sweets which he is compelled to leave behind him. He can learn to disregard most of his youth's pleasures, and to live contented though he has outlived them. The polka and the waltz were once joyous; but he sees now that the work was warm, and that one was often compelled to perform it in company for which one did not care. Those picnics too were nice; but it may be a question whether a good dinner at his own dinner-table is not nicer. Though ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... know mighty well where to find him again, if you don't step lively. Come 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 on your back. ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... a polka, and Nils convulsed Joe Vavrika by leading out Evelina Oleson, the homely schoolteacher. His next partner was a very fat Swedish girl, who, although she was an heiress, had not been asked for the first dance, but had stood against the wall in her tight, high-heeled shoes, nervously fingering ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... 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 ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... her independence, she suggested that the next dance, a polka, was a dreadful bore and Skippy, still unsuspicious, bore her away in great delight to the shadowy intimacies of the veranda. Miss Dolly was a little quicker in her perceptions. She saw what was up, and being of high spirit, decided to answer in kind. ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... 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 ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... you for suspecting me of talking hyperborean language— hyperbolical, I mean,' cried Lord Rotherwood; 'I'll make you dance the Polka with all the ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... touch—an ancient polka struck up, a tune remembered at children's parties. Then a waltz, a very old one too. The T.B.'s were playing ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... 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, lessons, amusements, and general welfare." Clearly not one of those brilliant ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... you 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 ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... to yet brighter eyes, and the sprightly tones of various instruments accompanied the graceful evolutions of the dancers, as they threaded the mazes of the country-dance, cotillon, or quadrille; for waltz, polka, and schottish, were then unknown in our ball-rooms. Here and there sat a couple in a quiet corner, evidently enjoying the pleasures of a flirtation, while one pair, more romantic or more serious than the others, had strayed out upon the balcony, to indulge more unrestrainedly ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various |
