"Polka" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a march, then a quadrille, a polka, a waltz, a galop, and so on, with two or three round dances to each quadrille, until fourteen dances are completed, when another march announces supper. Seven to ten dances may follow supper. Each guest must be provided with a ball-card with a printed programme ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... a quilt so admired and praised. Of all the odds and ends the girls had brought in, Ruth Elliot had rejected nothing, not even the polka-dotted orange print in which Mrs. Jones delighted to array her baby or the gorgeous green-and-red gingham ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... 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 compelled ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... other small items. I take one at random. While the Duke of Wellington danced the polka in Brussels the Prince of Orange with a small Dutch army stopped Napoleon's progress at Quatre Bras, and by disobeying the orders of the British commander saved the army of the allies and made the victory of ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... danced to the waltzes of the Debain, and were obliged to tread a very spasmodic measure. The Prince Imperial asked me for a polka, and I had to clutch his shoulder with one hand and beat time with the other on his arm to keep any kind of rhythm in his evolutions. It is nice to see him circulating about and chatting with all ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... 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, ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... mandolines and guitars, and sat in a corner playing their rapid tunes, while all danced on the dusty brick floor of the little parlour. No strange women were invited, only men; the young bloods from the big village on the lake, the wild men from above. They danced the slow, trailing, lilting polka-waltz round and round the small room, the guitars and mandolines twanging rapidly, the dust rising from the soft bricks. There were only the two English women: so men danced with men, as the Italians love ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... fredaine^, escapade, echappee [Fr.], bout, espieglerie [Fr.]; practical joke &c (ridicule) 856. dance; hop, reel, rigadoon^, saraband^, hornpipe, bolero, ballroom dance; [ballroom dances: list], minuet, waltz, polka, fox trot, tango, samba, rhumba, twist, stroll, hustle, cha-cha; fandango, cancan; bayadere^; breakdown, cake-walk, cornwallis [U.S.], break dancing; nautch-girl; shindig [U.S.]; skirtdance^, stag dance, Virginia reel, square dance; galop^, galopade^; jig, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... parade. It was the annual turnout of Good Hope Lodge, No. 72, of the Patriotic Order of American Rosicrucians. The cured patient, marching as Supreme Worthy Archon, wore a lavender baldric, a pea-green sash, an aluminum helmet and scarlet gauntlets, and carried an ormolu sword and the blue polka-dot flag of a rear-admiral.... ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... 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 ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... leather chaps of a cowpuncher, gray-shirted, and a polka dot kerchief circled the brown throat. Life rippled gloriously from every motion of him. Hermes himself might have envied the perfect grace of ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... Thquire!' said 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 air and ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... to the Colonel of the Grenadiers and order it. Anyhow, you can play the Goblin polka if ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... nia! No va l a divertirse? Pues yo quiero divertirme tambin. Nos divertiremos juntos. Bailaremos la polka, la galop infernal. Y tan infernal como ser el bailecito que bailemos los dos! (Vase corriendo por ...
— Ms vale maa que fuerza • Manuel Tamayo y Baus
... I would like to inform the correspondents that I will answer all of them in due time. Now I am very busy. I am getting a new book and fixing it up, my school has commenced, and I am taking music lessons on the piano. I can play familiar tunes like the "Racquet Polka," "Fatinitza," "Pinafore," and others. I am also taking ...
— Harper's Young People, September 21, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... 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 the ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... [in a hoarse voice, looking down from the oven] That's the Polka-Mazurka. You fools don't understand what dancing is. The way ...
— Fruits of Culture • Leo Tolstoy
... 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 ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... a revolver with the other, and made fearless jests the while, to the infinite excitement of the audience, especially of the hyah-hyah-hyahing negroes, whose faces, under the flicker of lowered calcium-carbide lights, made a segregated strip of yellow-black polka-dotted with white eye-balls. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... for suspecting me of talking hyperborean language— hyperbolical, I mean,' cried Lord Rotherwood; 'I'll make you dance the Polka with ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the introduction of what they called the "shuffle" or the "bunny-hug," "turkey-trot," and other ungraceful and unworthy dances. It was decided that the Castles should, through Bok's magazine and their own public exhibitions, revive the gavotte, the polka, and finally the waltz. They would evolve these into new forms and Bok would present them pictorially. A series of three double-page presentations was decided upon, allowing for large photographs so that the steps could be easily seen and learned ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... are nowhere better illustrated than among these people. Their ready ear quickly catches a new tune, and it is not uncommon to hear, in a Mexican town, a senorita giving vent to a negro melody or a favorite polka which she has heard some American sing or whistle. At Santa Fe there are several noted players on the violin and harp who cannot read a word of music, yet they can play on their respective instruments with taste and skill. A New Mexican female, in preparing herself for these balls, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... for the Christmas and New Year's parties; and more especially for the dance on Twelfth Night, the anniversary of my brother Charlie's birthday. Just before one of these celebrations my father insisted that my sister Katie and I should teach the polka step to Mr. Leech and himself. My father was as much in earnest about learning to take that wonderful step correctly, as though there were nothing of greater importance in the world. Often he would practice gravely in a ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... quadrille. No one looks ridiculous dancing a quadrille. It is decidedly easier than the German, makes a break in a t^te-...-t^te conversation, and enables a gentleman to be polite to a lady who may not be a good dancer for waltz or polka. The morality of round dances seems now to be little questioned. At any rate, young girls in the presence of their mothers are not supposed to come to harm from their enjoyment. Dancing is one of the oldest, the most historical, forms of amusement. Even Socrates learned to dance. There is no longer ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... de Marville are scarcely turned fifty, Cecile's expectations are bills that will not fall due for fifteen or twenty years to come; and no young fellow cares to keep them so long in his portfolio. The young featherheads who are dancing the polka with lorettes at the Jardin Mabille, are so cankered with self-interest, that they don't stand in need of us to explain both sides of the problem to them. Between ourselves, I may say that Mlle. de Marville scarcely sets hearts throbbing so fast ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... beside the 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 a small white parasol, bordered with pink, and deeply fringed, ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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 ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... polka, schottische, waltz, etc., there are many who strongly object, but, danced in private homes and in most cases under the eye of the young girl's mother, there can be found nothing dangerously objectionable in this favorite amusement. The minuet is a stately, ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... 'I must have a dance; blest if I don't! First chop music—good room this—three gals and the missus—course we must. I'm regular shook on the polka. You play us a good 'un, Polly, or whatever yer name is. Dan Moran's goin' to enjoy himself this night if he never sees another. Come on, Burke. Patsey, stand up, yer blamed fool. Here goes ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... served?" she asked, and without waiting for any reply she sat down to the piano and struck the first notes of a polka. ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... her, I did not mind expense; I bought her two gold ear-rings, They cost me fifty cents. And a-a-away, you santee! My dear Annie! O you New York girls! Can't you dance the polka! —Shanty, ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... The 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 in the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... learn, though, and the raggiest ever! In the winter we're going to attend the Merchants' Assemblies. You just watch us, ma'am! I'm going to dance the polka. ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... husband. Neither of 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 ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... 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 ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... 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 arrange ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... which achieve a turn and a half per minute, and during which the dancers hold each other as far apart as their arms will permit,—such is the usual fashion of the balls attended by the aristocratic society of Quiquendone. The polka, after being altered to four time, had tried to become accustomed to it; but the dancers always lagged behind the orchestra, no matter how slow the measure, and it ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... '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 only some few months ago—it is now all over the country. ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... anything?" 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? ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... country-dances: the men hold their knives erect during the performance, the women extend their arms only when turning partners, and then their hands are not given, but the palms are held opposite. The step is a sort of polka and balancez, very graceful and lively. A bar of music is always played first, and at the end the spectators applaud with two short shouts. Their ear for music, and the nature of their dance, are as Tibetan as their countenances, and different from those of the Indo-Chinese ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... "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 put in ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... 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 ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... father was dead, and her brother away; and as there was no papa to consult in their case, they got married quietly at home, and asked all their neighbours to a ball, when Jack Hare and Grace Marten (that was) led off the polka in grand style, greatly to the admiration of all the young folks in ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... the dust from his tan shoes with a polka-dotted handkerchief, while rosy dreams, full of ambition and success filled ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... ready—that is the way he put it to himself—to sacrifice him in defense of her father. But the flame went out, and never attained either height or intensity as a flame of repute and standing among flames. Richard was too normal, too healthy, too much in love. Besides, Dorothy's note was warped and polka-dotted with small round scars where her poor tears had fallen as she wrote; and with that the flame of anger was quenched by the mere sight of those tear-scars; and Richard kissed them one by one—the ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... Preparatory Schools could be established, in which the pupils might be fitted for the useful, as well as the ornamental parts of life, and where the fact of there being a kitchen as well as a drawing-room to every house would not be altogether lost sight of. If the world could be got through in a Polka, to the accompaniment of a cornet-a-piston, the boarding-schools of the present day would be well enough; but as there is a sort of every-day walk to be gone through, we should greatly appreciate any system of female education that should fit women to get through the world ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... 1903, the decennial class, with some samples of their male children marching with them, and a banner inscribed "515 Others. No Race Suicide"; 1898, carefully arranged in an H-shaped formation, dancing along to their music with a slow polka-step, each with his hands on the shoulders of the man in front, and at the head of all their leader, dancing backwards in perfect time, marshalling them; 1888, middle-aged men, again with some children, and a Highland regiment ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... a polka," decided Liuba in a capricious tone. "Isaiah Savvich, play a little polka, please. This is my husband, and he is ordering fox me," she added, embracing the pedagogue by the neck. ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... 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 ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... thoughts, in a way that surprised and annoyed her, sorted, and snipped, and pasted, and decided weighty questions as to whether a goitred robin on a twig should be placed next to a smiling plum-pudding, dancing a polka with a turkey, or whether a congealed cross, with "Christian greeting" in icicles on it, should ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... ice-smooth, pasted back without parting. When he went to school he would add a cap with a long vizor like a shovel-blade. Proudest of all was his waistcoat, saved for, begged for, plotted for; a real Fancy Vest of fawn with polka dots of a decayed red, the points astoundingly long. On the lower edge of it he wore a high-school button, a class button, ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... 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 curls, or those peculiar lace caps, in shape like the crust of a vol-au-vent, ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... a real swell—that's what none of the others are. [The music is heard again.] Ah, they're starting. That's a polka! [Dancing again.] I'd like to dance with Mr. Siebenhaar this minute. D'you know what I'd do? I'd just kiss him before he knew what ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... chair, but James had things to himself up there, and played The Spring Chicken through three times during dinner, with Miss Cobb glaring at the gallery until the back of her neck ached, and the dining-room girls waltzing in with the dishes and polka-ing out. ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... eager to gain 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 ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... you are very kind, but that she cannot. I said everything I could; I told her she should wear Sophy's muslin mantle, or my second best polka.' ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... rich purplish-chestnut 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 ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... works of the moderns. It will have to be removed in pieces from the foundry where it is cast to its place of destination, and each piece will require sixteen horses to draw it. The great toes are each half a metre in length. In the head two persons could dance a polka very conveniently, while the nose might lodge the musician. The thickness of the robe, which forms a rich drapery descending to the ankles, is about six inches, and its circumference at the bottom about two hundred metres. The Crown of Victory which the figure holds in her hands weighs one ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... a polka. The man Si McGinty had called French Charlie came up behind the girl and said something. She shook her head, turned on her heel, and began circling about in the narrow space till she found another partner, French Charlie scowling after them, as they whirled away ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... a polka differ from a schottisch?"—"A schottisch is a lazy polka. A polka is the worst thing in the world: the next worst is a schottisch. A schottisch is so lazy, so slow, that a fire would hardly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... 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 soul, with meadow dews. Am I at the end of my ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... spirit-world comes into play, there is a display of tone-effects of great beauty, which are perhaps too elaborate for the simple subject, but the Cottage scene, and the simple Tirolean-songs of the peasants are all the more graceful by contrast; one of the most charming songs in the Polka-air in f: "Fair are ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... world would sometimes pause in its amusement, and, after dwelling with statistical accuracy on the number of times Mrs. Coningsby had danced the polka, on the extraordinary things she said to Lord Eugene de Vere, and the odd things she and Lady Theresa Lyle were perpetually doing, would wonder, with a face and voice of innocence, 'how Mr. Coningsby liked all this?' There is no doubt what was the anticipation by the good-natured world ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... not know any of the ancient Gaelic dances, nor did any one in Ballymartin. She knew how to waltz and she could dance the polka and the schottishe. "An' that's all you need!" she said. There were two old women in the village who danced a double reel, and Paddy Kane was ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... Lord Valmond was near with Lady Doraine, and she was being so nice to him, Mamma, leaning over and looking into his eyes, and I don't think it good form, do you? Two or three dances afterwards, when we went back to the ballroom, there was a polka; I danced it with some idiot who almost at once let yards and yards of my gauze frills get torn, so I was obliged to go to the cloak-room to have it ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... 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
... man of a brick red countenance and he wore loosely round his neck the best polka dot silk handkerchief that could be bought in Gimlet Butte, also such gala attire as was usually reserved only for events of importance. Sitting his horse carelessly in the plainsman's indolent fashion, he asked his question of McWilliams ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... successful costume balls ever given in New York—the crinoline ball at the old Astor House—spoke of how our unromantic Wall Street men fell to the spell of stocks, ruffled shirts and knickerbockers, and as the evening advanced, were quite themselves in the minuette and polka, bowing low in solemn rigidity, leading their lady with high arched arm, grasping her pinched-in waist, and swinging her beruffled, crinolined form in quite ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... very scanty supply of the beloved tobacco,—beside 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 are conversazioni ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... a polka, and Nils convulsed Joe Vavrika by leading out Evelina Oleson, the homely school-teacher. 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 ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... dark man, dressed in the usual costume of the ricos of Mexico: dark cloth polka-jacket, blue military trousers, with scarlet sash around his waist, and low-crowned, broad-brimmed hat upon his head. He appeared about thirty years of age, whiskered, moustached, and, after a fashion, handsome. It was not his age, nor his personal appearance, nor yet his costume, ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... 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 to go so far as to lead to the report that they were ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... 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, ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... of a little plump, bald-headed bourgeois with his wife and two children—the wife stout and rosy; the children noisy and authoritative. They were discussing a dish of poached eggs and a bottle of red wine, to the music of a polka close by. ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... outrageously popular piano pieces ever published in America was Homer N. Bartlett's "Grande Polka de Concert." It was his opus 1, written years ago, and he tells me that he recently refused a lucrative commission to write fantasies on "Nearer My God to Thee" and "The Old Oaken Bucket"! So now that he has reformed, grown wise and signed the musical pledge, one must forgive ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... 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 ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... 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
... I put him under your protection! Nephew, you escort Madam Piepenbrink. (MRS. PIEPENBRINK takes a firm grip on BELLMAUS'S arm and holds him securely. Polka behind the scene.) Farewell, gentlemen, it's beyond your power to spoil our good humor. There, the music is striking up! We march off in a jolly procession, and again I cry in ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... playing a sprightly polka. A triangle marked the measures, and Reginald's red shoe tapped the floor beneath his long ...
— Dorothy Dainty's Gay Times • Amy Brooks
... transactions, With a very 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, ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... sisters, it means that 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 should have been preening his feathers ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... he draws the bow To suit his changing will; A march, a waltz, a polka, and An intricate quadrille, Each in its turn is rendered ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... hour the sedate and the older took leave; the governor and the procureur turned into the Cercle Militaire for whist or ecarte and a glass of wine, the carriages withdrew, and the band's airs and manner of playing took on a new freedom and abandon. A polka was begun, and couples danced upon the grass, the ladies in their peignoirs, their black hair floating, and their lips chanting, their wreaths and flowers nodding to ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... give me the repertoire of the dancing school. When he began to polka and upset the furniture he dropped his cologned handkerchief. I tossed it up on the ventilator, for somebody had ordered ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... 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 delight in prolonged conversation. Her fault, if she had one, was ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... 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, ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... shrubbery around its edges. Her manners were a little shy, for her parents had wisely forborne an early introduction to society. But she entered pleasantly enough into some small talk with Fitzgerald about the skating parties of the winter, and a new polka that he thought she ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... but 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 fur, sat down in an ...
— Selected Polish Tales • 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
... 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 appeal of a single voice that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... 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. Billy ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... 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
... plants in the other I felt that I loved the man. I used to think that stock-brokers were mere sordid calculating machines. Now that I have seen whole firms of them busy at the hoe, wearing old trousers that reached to their armpits and were tied about the waist with a polka dot necktie, I know that they are men. I know that there are warm ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... nose dis long time? How him feel, spose now again?" he inquired, with a deferential grin. "Young massa ebber able take a pinch of good snuff? He! he! missy berry heavy den? Missy no learn to dance de nose polka den?" ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... Reinecke and Liszt. At her debut, in Leipsic, she scored a great success, and since then has been steadily before the public. Her compositions are mostly for piano, including some excellent Liszt and Scarlatti transcriptions. Among her own works are a Polonaise Heroique, Polka Caprice, Gems of Scotland, and many other ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... the pier. After pacing up and down between the briny gulls and a polka-band, he made his way forethoughtfully to the glass-sheltered seats fronting East: where, as his enthusiasm for the solemnity of the occasion excited him to say, 'We have a view of the terraces and the cliffs'; and where not more than two enwrapped invalid figures were ensconsed. Then it was, that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... not know how we have settled that," said Caroline, beginning to be hopeful now that she had something tangible to attack. "The dresses for the morning will be nothing,—only a white skirt and green polka, which will do to wear for ever after, and a little ruff, very pretty, and no expense at all; and a little alteration will make our court dresses perfectly suitable for Queen Elizabeth's ladies. You need not be at all afraid ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... up from his book, he saw a little girl, with large eyes, playing an organ, while a monkey begged for alms from a crowd of idlers who had nothing in their pockets but their hands. The girl was playing, but she was also weeping. The merry notes of the polka were ground out to a silent accompaniment of tears. She looked very sad, this organ-girl, and her monkey seemed to have caught the infection, for his large brown eyes were moist, as if he also wept. The poor hunchback was struck with pity, and called the little girl over ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... in those halcyon days. One Represented things—Parties in Parliament—Benevolent Societies, and British Hospitality in the form of astounding long dinners at which one drank healths and made speeches. In roseate youth one danced the schottische and the polka and the round waltz which Lord Byron denounced as indecent. To recall the vigour of his poem gives rise to a smile—when one chances to sup ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... 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 ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... rooms Of old yclept "The Argyle," Where to the deep Drum-polka's booms We hopped in standard style? Whither have danced those damsels now! Is Death the partner who doth moue Their wormy chaps and bare? Do their spectres spin like sparks within The smoky halls of the Prince of Sin ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... 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 ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... 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 fat and over ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... middle of the pious harmony that had stirred her soul, some blaring trumpet had played a polka, in another key, it could hardly have jarred more upon her devotional frame, than did this earthly line, that glared out between two gigantic yule candles, just lighted in honor of Him, whose mother was in trade when ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... is but 132 French feet—about 150 English. Think only—you who have been in Switzerland,—the Staubbach falls nine hundred! Nay, Dover cliff under the castle, just at the end of the Marine Parade, is twice as high; and the little cockneys parading to military polka on the asphalt below, think themselves about as tall as it, I suppose,—nay, what with their little lodgings and stodgings and podgings about it, they have managed to make it look no bigger than a moderate-sized limekiln. ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... that is, for a country dance. It was after nine o'clock when, riding Comet, he saw the schoolhouse lamps winking at him through the oaks and heard the merry music of fiddle and guitar in the frolic of a heel-and-toe polka. Already he made out here and there the saddle horses which had brought so many "stags" so many miles to the dance, and which stood tied to tree and shrub. Also there were the usual spring wagons that had brought their family loads of father, mother, son, daughter, hired man ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... judge, whose name I can't remember. O Valentine, I cannot live with him; I cannot sit down to dinner day after day with such a man as that. And to think that I should have known him when I was the merest girl, and have danced my very first polka with him when it first came in, and people wore polka boots and polka jackets, and wrote their notes of invitation upon polka paper, and sang polka songs, and worked polking peasants in Berlin wool, and went on altogether in ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... 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
... 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 ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, February 4, 1893 • Various
... it. Then Mr. Oakhurst 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, ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... 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
... dazzled lawyers crowded Simaise's studio. To the sounds of a hired piano, all this little world danced the polka, waltzed, schottisched,—they still schottische in Normandy. "I shall end by marrying off one," thought old Simaise; and the fact is if one had gone off, all the others would have followed suit. Unluckily the first never went off, but it was a near touch. Amongst the numerous ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... impulse, the 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 ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... 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 for ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... that it made the water come to Harry's eyes. But it changed suddenly to something that had all the sway and lilt of the rosy South. Men sprang to their feet and clasping arms about one another began to sway back and forth in the waltz and the polka. ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... says I, and led the noble Irishman to the upper apartments, which were in a profound gloom, the candles not being yet illuminated, and where we surprised Miss Fanny, seated in the twilight at the piano, timidly trying the tunes of the polka which she danced so exquisitely that evening. She did not perceive the stranger at first; but how she started when the Mulligan loomed ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... bootmakers, dancing-masters, and Mr. Brown. They are a corps-de-ballet, for the 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, and doze on desks until dinner-time. ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... like Lord Byron's 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 ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... one eye, examined me and the portrait critically. Then whistling a polka, he answered recklessly: "The devil knows you, ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... its uniform step and more graceful style, had been already introduced by instructors, who had found short engagements under the severe reprobation of the Orthodox churches; but the waltz was unknown, except in name, and the polka, schottische, etc., had then never been ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... theater, the glitter of the lights, the brilliancy and variety of the costumes, the enlivening strains of music, the mirth of the browd, and, above all, the the untiring velocity with which the dancers whirl themselves through the mazes of the waltz, polka and mazourka, present an appearance of bewindering gayety not to be described. * * * * On some occasions of special enthusiasm the crowd take up the leader of the orchestra with the most frantic plaudits, and in more than one instance have carried him in triumph round the theater. It is scarcely ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... 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 of '61—she ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... feet, excepting that magical slipper named before, which they managed to admiration, 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
... leaned on a pair of foils. The feminine attraction, a rose in her hair, with a man's overcoat protecting her against the freshness of the evening air over her ballet-dancer's dress, played at the same time the cymbals and the big bass-drum a desperate accompaniment to three measures of a polka, always the same, which were murdered by a blind clarionet player; and the ringmaster, a sort of Hercules with the face of a galley-slave, a Silenus in scarlet drawers, roared out his furious appeal in a loud voice. Mixed with the crowd of loafers, soldiers, and women, I regarded the abject ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... the sufferer to his feet and they staggered off together, Jellicoe hopping, Dunster advancing with a sort of polka step. Mike watched them start and then ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... of the country is called the jenka. It is more like a schottische perhaps than anything else; and really it was extraordinary to see how well these peasants danced, and how they beat time. Thoroughly they entered into the spirit of the thing, the polka, waltz, and jenka being all danced in turn, until ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... Tommy could not resist trying to paint too. Seizing a brush she began laying about her, sending the paint into her hair, over her clothes and spattering her companions until they threatened to throw her overboard if she did not desist. Tommy's impish face already was decorated with polka ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... a jolly good fellow' was still buzzing in his head; he thrust his hands deep down in his trouser pockets, and began to polka round the ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... very clever, is Jinx; you never saw any one so clever in all your life. I'll be bound he can make 'em do anything. We might just as well shut up, if we hadn't Jinx; it's a deal more popular than Lord Fatimore is—folks say they never saw such a sight as when Jeremiah and Skirrywinks dance the polka together; and it's all ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... 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, ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... memorable at the Villa 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 put ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... 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 Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... parties and magic lanterns. "Never such magic lanterns as those shown by him," she says. "Never such conjuring as his." There was dancing, too, and the little ones taught him his steps, which he practised with much assiduity, once even jumping out of bed in terror, lest he had forgotten the polka, and indulging in a solitary midnight rehearsal. Then, as the children grew older still, there were private theatricals. "He never," she says again, "was too busy to interest himself in his children's occupations, ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... bed, had been amusing herself, despite her fourteen years, in making a doll out of a few rags. She was now talking to it, so happy, so absorbed in her play, that she laughed quite heartily. "Hold yourself up, mademoiselle," said she. "Dance the polka, that I may see how you can do it! One! two! dance, turn, kiss ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... remarking after hearing it that it was more like the slow tunes her niece played than the quick ones. The player said with unmoved gravity this was andante. Mrs. Bailey said that her niece, on the contrary, had been christened Selina. She could play the Polka. So could Mr. Torrens, rather to the good woman's surprise and, indeed, delight. He was so good-humoured that he played it again, and also the Schottische; and would have stood Gluck over to meet her taste indefinitely, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... they were sliding down a muddy toboggan which they had revived by splashing water upon the incline made and provided by the town boys for scudding. Ten minutes afterward they were covering themselves with coats of mud, adorned—one with stripes made with the point of a stick, another with polka-dots, another with checks, and Mealy with snake-like, curving stripes. Then the whole crew dashed down the path to the railroad bridge to greet the afternoon passenger train. When it came they jumped up and down and waved their striped and spotted arms like the barbarian ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... of Montezuma, but they were rather 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 ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... 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. ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... voice, looking down from the oven). That's the Polka-Mazurka. You fools don't understand what dancing is. The way ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... thought 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
... 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 ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... 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, ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... 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 ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... hands, as 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; his white cuffs were ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... look as if he were enjoying himself. He should be careful about guiding and not running into people. Swinging the hands is vulgar and unsightly. The waltz seems to survive all other forms of dancing, but there is every now and then a revival of the polka. Two steps and fancy dances are the vogue at summer hotels, but ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... it were being hauled up from an abyss some 1000 or 1500 fathoms deep; then it would quicken and get more lively, as it came nearer to the surface. At last the excitement rose to such a pitch that Pettersen and I had to get up and have a dance, a waltz and a polka or two; and we really executed some very tasteful pas de deux on the limited floor of the saloon. Then Amundsen also was swept into the mazes of the dance, while the others played cards. Meanwhile refreshments were served in the form of preserved peaches, dried bananas, figs, honey-cakes, etc., ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... lightning was 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 ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... the next room; and, as the quadrille closed in a roistering polka and a waltz struck up, he clapped in time to the couples that were circling before him, their hands on each other's shoulders, and their voices joining merrily ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... spent a whole afternoon in dancing. We made our own music, singing as we danced, or somebody blew on a comb with a bit of paper over its teeth; and comb music is not to be despised when there is no other sort. We knew the polka and the waltz, the mazurka, the quadrille, and the lancers, and several fancy dances. We did not hesitate to invent new steps or figures, and we never stopped till we were out of breath. I was one of the most enthusiastic dancers. I danced till ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... who seemed to be pining for admiration. At the conclusion of the waltz that was going on when Helen entered, Vavasour brought his partner a whisky and soda and a cigarette. He passed Helen twice, but ignored her, and whirled one of the Wragg girls off into a polka. Again he failed to see her when parties were being formed for a quadrille. Even to herself she did not attempt to deny a feeling of annoyance, though she extracted a bitter amusement from the knowledge that she had been slighted by such a ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... 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 dress, making a speech at the ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... whisking and whirling round in Captain Lake's brain, to the roar and clatter of the Joinville Polka, to which fifty pair of dancing feet were hopping and ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... her ran together, and the keys assumed the form of one huge key which Maddy could not manage. There was a blur before her eyes, a buzzing in her ears, and just as the dancers were entering heart and soul into the merits of a popular polka, there was a sudden pause in the music, a crash among the keys, and a faint cry, which to those nearest to her sounded very much like "Mr. Guy," as Maddy fell forward with her face upon the piano. It was hard telling which carried her from the room, the doctor or Guy, or which face of the ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... me to do it, but I seized her round the waist, and we were silly enough to be executing a wild kind of polka when Sarah entered, grinning, and said: "There is a man, mum, at the door who wants to know if you want any good coals." Most annoyed at this. Spent the evening in answering, and tearing up again, the reply to the Mansion House, having left word with Sarah if Gowing or Cummings called ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... rider, coming to a gingerly halt in order not to jar an arm bandaged roughly in a polka-dot bandanna, swore roundly. He was a large, heavy-set man, still on the sunny side of forty, imperious, a born leader, and, by the look of him, not one lightly to ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... dollars for one of his cabinet pictures. In a word, orders flowed in upon him; he could hardly paint fast enough to supply the demand. He became rather fastidious in his dress—patronized the first tailors and boot makers, cultivated the graces, and took lessons in the waltz and polka. At Mr. Greville's, and some of the other houses he visited, he was remarked as being somewhat of a dandy. And this was Montfort the misanthrope—Montfort the socialist—Montfort ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... 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
... Father here just now. But for this, I should have been on the Union Coach this day. The children here are most delightful; the best company in all the world, to my mind. If you could see the little girl dance the Polka with her sisters! Not set up like an Infant Terpsichore, but seriously inclined, with perfect ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... waded into the Secretary's other trunks, two-stepped over his negligee shirts, waltzed through his waist-coats and did a polka amidst the ruins of ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... 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
... does not seem very anxious to claim our acquaintance, after all, and I think better of him on that account. Has he spoken to you tonight, Dora?" asked Mrs. Carroll, as Debby dropped down beside her after a "splendid polka." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... 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 ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse |
