"Polka" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hotel, about twenty, I think. The next morning we 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
... and polka and schottische, don't you?" Her eyes, as she looked up at him, reminded Billy achingly of that time in the line-camp when she asked him for a horse to ride home. They had the same wistful, pleading look. ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... did 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 off his expensive ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... 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 ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... small sprinkling of sentiment, if any, And a very large diamond imported by Tiffany. On her virginal lips, while I printed a kiss, She exclaimed, as a sort of parenthesis, And by way of putting me quite at my ease, "You know I'm to polka as much as I please, And flirt when I like—now, stop, don't you speak— And you must not come here more than twice in the week, Or talk to me either at party or ball, But always be ready to come when I call; So don't prose to me about duty and stuff, If we don't break this off, ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... 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 offices, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... Poisson were both there also. Boche had heard of a cabinetmaker who had danced the polka until he died. ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... elsewhere referred to. The first of these was the music occasionally printed in his pages from the hand of his own particular maestro, Tully, the well-known member of the Punch Club, whose musical setting of "The Queen's Speech, as it is to be sung by the Lord Chancellor," appeared in 1843; the polka, at the time when that dance was a novel and a national craze, dedicated to the well-known dancing-master, Baron Nathan; "Punch's Mazurka," in Vol. VIII. (1845); and one or two other pieces besides. ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... Albert to-day—no one will come." With these observations, and a consolatory grumble about Christmas coming but once a year, Mr. Brown seeks repose beside his consort; whilst the Waits make the lowing wind, the frigid vegetation, and the rattling shutters, dance again to the "Bridal Polka." ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... 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
... month, and the Doctor was goin' to see Luella steady 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 you, but she didn't draw it out of ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... 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 many leaves would be knocked ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... and began a discourse upon round dances, country dances, morris dances, and quadrilles, all of which are entirely superior to the bastard waltz and spurious polka which have ousted them most unjustly in contemporary popularity—when the waiters gently pushed him on to his ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... 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
... "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 so that the steps ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... 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 ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... "A polka," he replied with sweet urbanity. I shook my head negatively and tried to look pleasantly sorry. He raised his perfect dark eye-brows in thorough astonishment and ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... 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 ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... altogether without meaning. 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 ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... 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 ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... 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 with alternate copies of the Cambridge Platform and the Thirty-nine Articles, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... as possible. You are to dance the polka quadrille with her, are you not? After the polka quadrille, then. And now let us part, or they will begin to think we are hatching another ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... 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 ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... hall 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 and open mouths that greeted their advance. ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... quarters were no more comfortable than those of his men. He was dressed in the costume which he wore throughout the Santiago campaign—a coarse blue-flannel shirt, wide open at the throat; brown-canvas trousers and leggings; and a broad-brimmed felt hat put on over a blue polka-dot handkerchief in such a way that the kerchief hung down, like a havelock, over the nape of his neck. As he cordially shook hands with me there flashed into the field of my mental vision a picture of him as I had seen him last—in full evening ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... 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 ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... you must constantly be calling for, escorting, or dropping one of them somewhere. Most men of Jo's age were standing before their mirror of a Saturday night, whistling blithely and abstractedly while they discarded a blue polka-dot for a maroon tie, whipped off the maroon for a shot-silk, and at the last moment decided against the shot-silk in favor of a plain black-and-white, because she had once said she preferred quiet ties. Jo, when he ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... in the Christmas tree, together with about two hundred Christmas 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 toasts for King and Fatherland, for the objects of the Expedition, for its officers and ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... 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
... 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
... 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 ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... one eye, examined me and the portrait critically. Then whistling a polka, he answered recklessly: "The ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... a polka. One still danced the polka in those days, and the schottische and the dear old lancers, though the ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... had checker bibs on, the striped pigs had striped bibs on. And the polka dot pigs had polka dot ...
— Rootabaga Stories • Carl Sandburg
... 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 Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... you stand sentry there? Come and dance, and have some of the fun! Some of these girls are the nicest partners in the world. There's that Lady Alice, something with the dangling things in her hair, sitting down now—famous at a polka. Come along, I'll introduce you. It ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... given us many glimpses into Borrow's character. "He was very fond of ghost stories," she writes, "and believed in the supernatural." {332b} He enjoyed music of a lively description, one of his favourite compositions being the well-known "Redowa" polka, which he would frequently ask to have played ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... the clarionet slowly, looking 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 the French 'orn's nose out o' jint—you can't 'ear ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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 ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... long anticipated day, or rather night, a metamorphosis startling as the transition of the cocoon; a formal letting loose of the finished maiden on the polished parquet floor of the social arena. Tra-la-la-la-la! Tra-la-la-la-la! Off she whirls to the rythm of a Strauss waltz or a blood-stirring polka, and for the next four years, on an average, she never stops, metaphorically speaking. She may not always be waltzing or polkaing, but if she is conventionally sound she is sure to be in a whirl. She exchanges daylight for gaslight; ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... 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
... 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 poor hunchback was struck with pity, and called the little girl over to give her a penny,—not, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... Expressing from the spongy skin The nectar that ran down her chin In little rills of lusciousness, Sat Maud, the beautiful coquette; Her dainty mouth, like "two lips" wet With morning dew, her crimson dress, A sad discoloration showed Where orange-juice—it was a sin!— A polka-dot had painted in; Which moved the roguish girl to say Half-ruefully (half-decollete)— "I'm glad it's Leap Year now, for I—" Her voice was like a moistened lute "Shall wear the flowers, by and by— I do not like this leaky fruit!" And looking straight and saucily At cousin Ned, her vis-a-vis; ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... 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 air and pulled ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... impersonate the guides. I know of 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 ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... 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, ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... 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
... 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; his white cuffs ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... invited not at all to the delights of dancing, with many another tiny lad and lass I was marshalled up to dance in the dancing saloon of Mr. Hoppe, the royal dancer, and learnt to take up the first to the fifth positions and swing the girls round in the polka mazurka. I became an ardent, but ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... unusual manner. And she, too, seemed attracted by the young Englishman, whose education and intelligence rendered him an agreeable companion to any educated and intelligent person. It was pleasant for Ashburner to find a young lady who could talk about something else than the polka or the last party,—who, in short, had read his favorite authors, and could join in admiring them without affectation; and he felt quite annoyed when Karl Benson interrupted the tete-a-tete. As they all rose, the Judge approached Ashburner ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... learned 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
... corsairs, they never cut a throat nor scuttle a ship under any circumstances; they are the mildest of men. While strolling in the public market I noticed a bit of local color: one of the fierce looking pirates had for sale half a dozen little red pigs with big, black, polka dots on them. I stopped to look at them and the corsair insisted that I should buy one at least and take it with me ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... I cared little for Polka or Varsovienne, and still less for the old-fashioned "Money Musk" or "Virginia Reel," and wondered what people could find to admire in those "slow dances." But in the soft floating of the waltz I found a strange pleasure, rather difficult to intelligibly describe. The mere anticipation ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... when Esther entered. Miss Mary 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
... 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 ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... attention was paid to the regularity of the steps. We owe to him the discovery, which is not recorded in any annals of dancing I have met with, that the lavolta, a dance not dissimilar, according to his description, to the polka of the present day, was brought out of Italy into France by the witches at their festive meetings. Of the language spoken at these meetings, De Lancre favours us with a specimen, valuable, like the Punic fragment ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... of his guitar and plays a polka. MME. VOITSKAYA writes something on the leaves of ...
— Uncle Vanya • Anton Checkov
... 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
... should mostly rest on the right foot; the left is extended 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 ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... galleries of the Louvre, or the classic chambers of the Palais des Beaux Arts. I have passed a Whitsunday morning at Versailles among the paintings; the afternoon at Sevres among glass and porcelain; have won a game at dominoes after dinner in Paris; and have heard the last polka at the Salle Vivienne in the evening. Paris is a city of extremes; the young Theophile who works by my side, and is an ingenious fellow and a clever workman, you will meet next Sunday in the Louvre discoursing energetically on the comparative merits of ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... hoarse voice, looking down from the oven] That's the Polka-Mazurka. You fools don't understand what dancing ...
— Fruits of Culture • Leo Tolstoy
... piece. This grew hackneyed, but, nevertheless, survived till a comparatively late day. Bosio, feeling that variations were necessary, threw Rode's over in favor of those on "Gia della mente involarmi"—a polka tune from Alary's "A Tre Nozze." Then Mme. Gassier ushered in the day of the vocal waltz—Venzano's, of amiable memory. Her followers have not yet died out, though Patti substituted Arditi's "Il Bacio" for Venzano's; Mme. Sembrich, Strauss's "Voce di Primavera," and Mme. Melba, Arditi's ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... never allowing it to lose its position, or to touch the floor at any other part but the toe, to which it adhered with singular tenacity, through the most difficult steps of the whirling waltz or puzzling polka. ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... stranger who beholds a Senator "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 Epistemon felt in ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... 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 was ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... a sword which had been borrowed from a neighbor, who was a Knight of Pythias. Finally there was a mantle, an old golf cape of Margaret's. Fluffy polka-dots of white cotton had been sewed to it generously; also it was ornamented with a large cross of red flannel, suggested by the picture of a Crusader in a newspaper advertisement. The mantle was fastened to Penrod's shoulder (that is, to the shoulder of ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... rough outer cloak 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. It was ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... 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
... 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
... according to agreement. She 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 ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Polka. Three excellent polkas, with music enough in them to draw the proper steps from every heel and toe ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... her. Such a handsome young woman! Like one of Uwins's pictures. Very dark, with a quantity of black hair, and on an immense scale. The children were already dancing, as well as the maids. After we came to an end of our dance, which was what they called a Polka-Mazourka, I saw the bride trying to screw up the courage of her fiance to ask me to dance, which after a little hesitation he did. And admirably he danced, as indeed they all did—in excellent time, and ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... 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 affected ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... 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 ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... perhaps, my 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 stand on ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... interval of from one to two hours, the dancing commences in the yard. Cotillons and the easier dances are here performed, but the sport closes in the hall with the Polka and other fashionable steps. The Seniors again form, and make the circuit of the yard, cheering the buildings, great and small. They then assemble under the Liberty Tree, around which with hands joined they run and dance, after singing ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... on board all the way from Smyrna. A German commis-voyageur, with a guitar, who had passed unnoticed until that time, produced his instrument about mid-day, and began to whistle waltzes. He whistled so divinely that the ladies left their cabins, and men laid down their books. He whistled a polka so bewitchingly that two young Oxford men began whirling round the deck, and performed that popular dance with much agility until they sank down tired. He still continued an unabated whistling, and as ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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. ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... 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 one you ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... He was literally 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. Why ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... would 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 ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... 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
... How does she dance? Is it a valse, a polka, a quadrille?" "No. Would that it were!" And Mr. Greyne, unable further to govern his desire for full expression, gave Mademoiselle Verbena a slightly Bowdlerised description of the dances of the desert. She heard him ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... 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 perfection of ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... piastres a yard in the bazaar of Stamboul, curious water-colors 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 ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... is quite well,'trudging miles together in the snow,' when the snow was, and in great spirits. Wordsworth is to be in London in the spring. Tennyson is dancing the polka and smoking cloud upon cloud at Cheltenham. Robert Browning is meditating a new poem, and an excursion on the Continent. Miss Mitford came to spend a day with me some ten days ago; sprinkled, as to ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... then;' and he took her on his arm, ran down-stairs with her, and before she well knew where she was, or what was going on, she found herself in his great grasp passive as a doll, dragged off into the midst of a vehement polka that took her breath away. She trusted to him, and remained in a passive, half-frightened state, glad he was so happy; but in the first pause heartily wishing he would let her go, instead of which she only heard, 'Well ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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
... peculiarities of the Jim Crow school. The principal measures are those of Ugadayn and Batar; these again are divided and subdivided;—I fancy that the description of Dileho, Jibwhayn, and Hobala would be as entertaining and instructive to you, dear L., as Polka, Gavotte, and Mazurka ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... the Girl 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
... 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 ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... 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
... I used ter go to school the gals used to have me a-dancin'—this is the way it goes Miss Lottie," and instantly Mr. Spriggins was performing sundry evolutions to his own accompaniment of "I've got a polka trimmed with blue." ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... "hands-all-round" he invariably started with the wrong hand; and if in the set there were girls big enough to wear long dresses, he never failed to tear such out at the gathers. If anybody fell down in the polka it was always The Boy; and if anybody bumped into anybody else, The Boy was always the bumper, unless his partner could hold him up ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton
... brightly lighted lamps lent an additional lustre 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
... a moment to say a word or two to me, and I noticed that the first person whom his glance lighted on was, not his betrothed, but Flora Bellasys. The latter was resting after her first polka, with her usual staff of admirers round her. Guy watched the circle paying their homage, and I heard him mutter to himself the formula of the Roman arena—Morituri te salutant. Then he passed on; and, after retaining Constance for her first disengaged turn, he began talking ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... 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 ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... 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 ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... how Ellen Montgomery looked in The Wide, Wide World," Mollie said to herself. "She would be rather pretty if she were properly dressed; she looks about my age. I wonder what sort of time she had—horribly dull, probably. No hockey, no Guiding, no fox-trots—I expect she danced the polka, and recited 'Lives of great men all remind us', and got pi-jawed ten times a day. I can't imagine how children endured life in those days. Thank goodness I wasn't born till 1907! She does look rather nice, though—and oh! I wish you could talk, my ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... gloomed dark and deserted under the tall 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, ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... 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 ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... as 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
... dismissed, but already a large group of women were waiting in the library room. 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, as she sat apart, and Camille ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... 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, ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... or from idle reading, or from mammon-hunting, one strong, passionate man or boy, and to set him to work investigating, arranging, teaching. It is an honest task to shame the 'broidered youth from meditation on waistcoats and the display of polka steps into manly pursuits. It is an angel's mission (oftenest the work of love) to startle a sleeping and unconscious genius into the spring and victory of a roused lion. But it is worse than useless to establish new associations and orders without well considering first whether the same machinery ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... dance; the plain waltz and hop waltz came in for their share of favor. The polka was new, and hardly yet danced. What fun, what pleasure was there then in that old dining hall among the blue tunics! There the General loomed above the rest, not in tunic, however, but staggering about with ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... in so often a man must go to the barber for what, with contemptuous brevity, is called a haircut. He must sit in a big chair, a voluminous bib (prettily decorated with polka dots) tucked in round his neck, and let another human being cut his hair for him. His head, with all its internal mystery and wealth of thought, becomes for the time being a mere poll, worth two dollars a year to the tax-assessor: ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... philosophy problem, had wholly disappeared. It was especially noticeable that tufts of white hair found their way through the holes in his coon-skin cap. Across his shoulder he carried a bundle knotted into an old red handkerchief with a polka spot. ...
— A Lost Hero • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward and Herbert D. Ward
... half a dozen charges with the 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 ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... 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
... 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 wilfulness ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... 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 of ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... the first 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 ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... or navy should dance any of these dances or should go to the house of any person who, at any time, whether officers were present or not, had allowed any of these new dances to be danced. This effectually extinguished the turkey trot, the bunny hug and the tango, and maintained the waltz and the polka in their old estate. It may seem ridiculous that such a decree should be so solemnly issued, but I believe that the higher authorities in Germany earnestly desired that the people, and, especially, the officers of the army ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... modernized by the necessity of wearing various articles of dress which would have been superfluous in old times. They stationed themselves in the middle of the church, opposite the high altar, and, to our unspeakable astonishment, began to dance the polka. Then came a waltz, then a schottisch, then another waltz, and finally a quadrille, set to unmitigated English tunes. They danced exceedingly well, and behaved as though they had been used to European ball-rooms all their lives. The spectators looked on as though it were all a matter ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... "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, lessons, amusements, and general welfare." Clearly not one of those brilliant ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... to 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... broke away from Miss Forsyth and went and asked Miss Satterly for the next waltz; but she opened her big eyes at him and assured him politely that she was engaged. He tried for a quadrille, a two-step, a schottische—even for a polka, which she knew he hated; but the schoolma'am was, apparently, the most engaged young woman in Dry Lake ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... lady. Her hat was black chip, edged and tied with rose-coloured ribbon, and adorned with a real bird, with glass eyes, black plumage, except the red crest and wings. She wore a neatly-fitting little fringed black polka, beneath which spread out in fan-like folds her flounced pink muslin, coming a little below her knees, and showing her worked drawers, which soon gave place to her neat stockings and dainty little boots. She held ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... won't clash with mine too awfully. That's the worst of fancy dress balls; they really ought to be stage-managed by a painter, and the period ought to be limited. One's never safe. Our dance, Mr. Copal? Number six? Yes, I think it must be! A polka? Then we'll waltz!" ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... but somewhat faint-hearted laugh from 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 ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... 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 ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... others, telling stories and shouting with laughter over the broadest mimicry, in which they excel, and in which the officers come in for a full share. The everlasting "shout" is always within hearing, with its mixture of piety and polka, and its castanet-like clapping of the hands. Then there are quieter prayer-meetings, with pious invocations, and slow psalms, "deaconed out" from memory by the leader, two lines at a time, in a sort of wailing chant. Elsewhere, there ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... name was Abdullah, he had a jovial face and a beaming smile, cooked well, and was funny to look at. He wore a slouch hat with a red band around it, a khaki suit and heavy shoes. When on the march he carried his shoes and when in camp he wore a blue jersey and a polka-dotted apron which took the place of trousers. He was good-natured, which atoned somewhat for his slowness. The suggestion may be made that he might not have been slow, but that our appetites might have been so ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... 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 conclusion, Long ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... them is shap'd for sportive tricks: But look upon them when the music starts! Hand in hand upon the line, as is proper for married folk, heel and toe together, one, two, and a one, two, three. It is the hurdy-gurdy that calls to life such revelry. The polka has come to ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... on 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 black ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... 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 conversation. Her fault, if she had one, ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... 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 Aytoun Francesca da Rimini ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... wringer.... [Plays softly] My concertina's damp, and so there's no music for you, my Orthodox brethren, or else I'd give you such a concert, my word!—Something marvellous! You can have a quadrille, or a polka, if you like, or some Russian dance for two.... I can do them all. In the town, where I was an attendant at the Grand Hotel, I couldn't make any money, but I did wonders on my concertina. And, I can ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... old cowpoke took off his ten-gallon hat and plumped it on the creature. Then he removed his polka-dotted red bandanna and knotted it like a neckerchief just ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... for housekeeping, gardening, flowers, 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 ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... 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
... write to the Colonel of the Grenadiers and order it. Anyhow, you can play the Goblin polka if ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... through the 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
... 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 ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... sat there and played—no carouse could one see— The Polish Queen's Polka—G-major the key: The best kind of people were gathered around, And each drank his schoppen 'down to the ground.' I don't know just how Began freshly the row, But some one from my head Knocked my hat, and thus said: 'What is Poland to thee?'—Pling plingeli ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... "Lady Baughton at obe, dadsig! By eyes! what a tip-top swell you're a gettid to be, Newcome! I guess this is a different sort of business to the hops at old Levison's, where you first learned the polka; and where we had to pay a shilling ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... inquired the gay lady on her arm. "I am a useless creature; I can only fire a pistol, and leap a fence on horseback, and dance a polka. What can you do? I dare say you are worth a great deal more than me. Can you make butter and bread and pudding and pies and sweetmeats and pickles, and all that sort of thing? I dare say ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... nature; and to inculcate, at a tender age, the love of raw flesh, train oil, new rum, and the acquisition of scalps. Wild and outlandish dances are also in vogue (you will have observed the prevailing rage for the Polka); and savage cries and whoops are much indulged in (as you may discover, if you doubt it, in the House of Commons any night). Nay, some persons, Mr. Hood; and persons of some figure and distinction too; have already succeeded in breeding wild ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... the Creole music that was so popular there, and at the ball we danced Les Varietes four times; the last was at the request of Lieutenant Joyce, with whom I always danced it in the South. It is thoroughly French, bringing in the waltz, polka, schottische, mazurka, and redowa. Some of those Creole girls were the personification ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... 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, set up a leggy ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... 'The polka. Young people, who always dance, are ecstatic about it, and old people, who have not danced for years, have begun to dance again, on its account. All share the excitement. It arrived in London ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... 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
... 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, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... in silence. The night air was delightful after coming out of that furnace. The cheering had ceased, and the orchestra was playing a polka. Micheline had ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... 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 ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... being a very fat person, was seen, at the last accounts, seated in a rocking-chair, fanning herself violently, and calling in vain for ice-cream. After a while we reached the dancing-room, where, in a very confined circle, a number were waltzing and Polka-ing. As this is a forbidden dance to Alice and me, we had a fine opportunity of taking notes. Mrs. S. was making a great exhibition of herself; she puffed and blew as if she had the asthma; her ringlets ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... 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 ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane
... 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 takes good building, ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... at her eagerly and with curiosity, and because every one was in good spirits—she suddenly felt joyful, and when the train started and the officers of her acquaintance saluted her, she was humming the polka the strains of which reached her from the military band playing beyond the trees; and she returned to her compartment feeling as though it had been proved to her at the station that she would certainly be happy in ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... polka there an but two principal steps, all others belong to fancy dances, and much mischief and inconvenience is likely to arise from their improper introduction ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... Budlong. Mrs. Budlong ran the letters together so that strangers often had the impression she was calling her husband "Seedy," though the name was as unsuitable as well could be, since Mr. Budlong in his neat blue serge suit, blue polka-dot scarf, silk stockings, and polished tan oxfords was well groomed and ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart |
