"Strike up" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gay, Strike up the merry drums, And drink the Bourbons long, long life Whatever fortune ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... You may strike up your sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer; for Mr. Pitt(967) comes in, and Lord Temple does not. Can I send you a more welcome affirmative or negative? My sackbut is not very sweet, and here is the ode I have made ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... for hours together he would howl Varlamov's songs, 'The Solitary Pine,' or 'No, doctor, no, don't come to me,' in the most distressing manner, and his eyes seemed to disappear altogether, his cheeks were so puffed out and tense as drums.... Then he would suddenly strike up: 'Be still, distracting passion's tempest!'... Tatyana Borissovna ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... nine o'clock, and time for the first waltz to strike up. The wide, empty floor of the Falcon Hotel lounge gleamed with a waxen glaze under the brilliant lights, and the dancers' feet were tingling to begin. Michael Walsh, who always played at the Wankelo dances, sat down at the piano and struck two ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... very difficult for anyone who is not either a Junker or a successful barrister to get into an English Cabinet, no matter which party is in power, or to avoid resigning when we strike up the drum. The Foreign Office is a Junker Club. Our governing classes are overwhelmingly Junker: all who are not Junkers are riff-raff whose only claim to their position is the possession of ability of some sort: mostly ability to make money. And, of course, the ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... at the idea. By ending up with "God save the Queen" any performer, however poor, could retire in a whirlwind of applause. Niggers, having bored us with tiresome songs about coons and honeys and Swanee Rivers, would, as a last resource, strike up "God save the Queen" on the banjo. The whole house would have to rise and cheer. Elderly Sisters Trippet, having failed to arouse our enthusiasm by allowing us a brief glimpse of an ankle, would put aside all frivolity, ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... This is the third day I have eaten here, and I am wearied by this terrible lonesomeness. There is not a decent man in the whole town, so I have had to strike up an acquaintance with newspaper men. They're a gay lot, although at first they played the aristocrat and kept sneering at me. After awhile we all got dead drunk. They'll be here again today—I swear by the fortune of my father! I'll introduce you to ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... sounds;" they are too fond of humming tunes, solfaing, and rehearsing graces in society; they have plenty to sing, but nothing to say for themselves; they chime the quarters like "our grandmother's clock," and at every revolution of the minute index, strike up their favourite tune. This is as bad as being half-smothered ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various
... receiving this pleasing message; and ordered his bards to strike up a lay, the words of ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... officer proved to be a young lieutenant—Lieutenant William T. Sherman, Third Artillery, now Adjutant General of the Division of the Pacific, with headquarters at San Francisco, whither he was returning. Mr. Adams managed to strike up a conversation with him, for the lieutenant was affable, especially with anyone like Mr. Adams, who had been ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... I confess that I'm a little suspicious of all kinds of mud banks. They're the easiest things to strike up an acquaintance with, and a little the hardest to say goodbye to, of anything I ever met. Give her a little twist to the left, Gusty. That place dead ahead don't strike me as the channel. That's the ticket. I guess we missed another slam into a ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... rare fun. "Well! don't you like my second, Dun? Two parts sound better sure than one," Said he, with queer grimace: "Come sing away, indeed you shall; Strike up a spicy madrigal, And hear me ...
— The True Legend of St. Dunstan and the Devil • Edward G. Flight
... moments, and his eyes rested on his stretched-out legs and boots. "Yes," he said at length; "that's true. I've been down in spirit for weeks; some of ye know the cause. I am better now, but not quite serene. I want you fellows of the choir to strike up a tune; and what with that and this brew of Stannidge's, I am in hopes of getting altogether out of my ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... "Come, Gaffer, strike up a merry trowl," said a thin, squeaking voice, from a personage almost hidden behind a copious supper of broken meat and pastry. But whether the party thus addressed was too much alarmed to let the current of his spirit run bubbling from the spring of either mirth or minstrelsy, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... among the Yadavas, stay in the city, taking every care, and know that I go to slay Salwa! I return not to the city of Dwaravati without slaying him. I will again come to ye having compassed the destruction of Salwa together with his car of precious metals. Do ye strike up the sharp and middle and flat notes of the Dundhuvi so dreadful to foes!" And O thou bull of the Bharata race, thus adequately encouraged by me, those heroes cheerfully said unto me, "Go and slay the enemies!" And thus receiving the benedictions of those warriors with glad hearts, ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... Strike up cymbals, gongs, and tabours, Clarions, double-flutes, and drums; All that bellows, or belabours, ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... places, and the young people were beginning to wonder why the signal was not given for the orchestra to strike up, when Mabel Ashton, her sweet face flushed and pale by turns, took her stand near the musicians. After closing her eyes for a moment, during which the room became perfectly still, in a voice at first trembling, but clear and ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... such partners as may best suit both the present proprieties and the future possibilities of the case. Without a trifle of coquetry there is no dancing even in Circassia. The pipers then having taken their places, strike up a merry measure, to which moves gracefully round the whole circle. The beaux are expected to look grave as judges or the council ring itself, but the movement allows of a good deal of jamming and squeezing; so much so, indeed, that the fair ones are not unfrequently taken off their ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... her shoulder on him, and he could never manage to speak to her all through the day. He even stepped forward once to lead her out to dance, but she refused him flatly before all the company, many of whom heard her. And immediately afterwards another gentleman came, who bade the minstrels strike up, and she stepped down from her dais in full view of Gerard and went to dance with him. And so did the disloyal ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury |
