"Polka" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... quarto volume under his arm . . . an early copy of his forthcoming 'Female Poets of America'"; or as Lewis Gaylord Clark, the "sunnyfaced, smiling" editor of the Knickerbocker Magazine, "who don't look as if the Ink-Fiend had ever heard of him," as he stands up to dance a polka with "a demure lady who has evidently spilled the inkstand over her dress"; or as "the stately Mrs. Seba Smith, bending aristocratically over the centre-table, and talking in a bright, cold, steady stream, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... commenced playing a polka, and the ladies went into the ballroom; the old butler and two footmen brought wax candles and basins of water, and the old ladies began to tell fortunes. A troupe of mummers tumbled in, a bear performed tricks, a Little Russian dulcimer-player ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... now. The last long-drawn-out notes have ceased to occupy the air. As far as we are concerned, the ball is over, for we have quitted it. We have at length removed the gene of our presence from the company, and have left them to polka and schottische their fill until the morning. We have reached our own part of the house. My cheeks are burning and throbbing with the quick, unwonted exercise. My brain is unpleasantly stirred: a hundred thoughts in a second run galloping through it. I leave the others in the warm-lit drawing-room, ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... closing 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
... some of the children tried the three-step polka, and found it very fascinating. A little after ten, the plates of cream came in, and at half-past, they ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... 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
... had 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
... stairs, Mulligan," says I, and led the noble Irishman to the upper apartments, which were in a profound gloom, the candles not being yet illuminated, and where we surprised Miss Fanny, seated in the twilight at the piano, timidly trying the tunes of the polka which she danced so exquisitely that evening. She did not perceive the stranger at first; but how she started when ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the back ones being reserved for the sumptuous collation which Rachel and her juniors are preparing. The musicians are mustered,—the young belles and beaux, and not a few old bachelors, gather into the front room, commence the ftes with country dances, and conclude with the polka and schottische. ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... represent "impressions," though one would be shy of meeting, beyond the bounds of an insane asylum, the individual whose impressions could take so questionable a shape; lastly, the centre of the collection, a "polka mazurka harmony in yellow," by Sardanapalus Stiggins, the great impressionist painter of the day. Chrysophrasia paid five hundred pounds for this ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... careless or slapdash from the first bar to the last. She would play the same piece a hundred times without varying the performance by a hair's-breadth. Nor did she affect anything but classical music. She was one of those young ladies who, when asked for a waltz or a polka, freeze the impudent demander by replying that they play no dance music—nothing more ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... Book in a Bustle Punch Stanzas for the Sentimental. Punch 1. On a Tear which Angelina observed trickling down my nose at Dinner-time 2. On my refusing Angelina a kiss under the Mistletoe 3. On my finding Angelina stop suddenly in a rapid after-supper-polka at Mrs. Tompkins' Ball Soliloquy on a Cab-stand Punch The Song of Hiawatha Punch Comfort in Affliction Aytoun The Husband's Petition Aytoun The Biter Bit Aytoun A Midnight Meditation Aytoun The Dirge of the ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... write to the Colonel of the Grenadiers and order it. Anyhow, you can play the Goblin polka if ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... are the Polka, suitable for Ballet work. The "Pizzicato Polka" is a very good example of this type. The Gallop and Can Can are in ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... like we need the polka-dot fever," Rodney Maxwell said. "If they get in it, they'll claim the spaceport themselves, and we'll have ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... 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 ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... in spirit at least, a million leagues removed from that unhappy man of another nationality, who had chosen to thrust an inexpert finger into the workings of an alien life. The machinery was dragging him up and down the sunlit platform. The two men seemed to be learning polka-mazurkas together, and the burden of their song, borne by one deep voice, was: "What did you give me ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... 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
... three 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 ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... 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 in ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... since, fill'd with a crowded mass of the worst wounded of the war, brought in from second Bull Run, Antietam, and Fredericksburgh. To-night, beautiful women, perfumes, the violin's sweetness, the polka and the waltz; then the amputation, the blue face, the groan, the glassy eye of the dying, the clotted rag, the odor of wounds and blood, and many a mother's son amid strangers, passing away untended there, (for the crowd of the badly hurt was great, and much for ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... fortune, was looking 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 spite ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... later, my fiancee; and ultimately my wife. Such a relationship would help me, of course, to keep tab more easily on Raymond during the long course of his life. For instance, at this very party I see her doing a polka with Johnny McComas, while Raymond (who had been sent to dancing-school, but had steadfastly refused to "learn") views Johnny with a mixture of envy and contempt. A year or two later, I see Elsie seated in the twilight at the head of her grandfather's grandiose ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... their manes and tails and decorate their bridles. Beautiful black-haired girls dress up like gypsies, something they would not be allowed to do at any other time. As the girls ride in the saddles behind their young men, the long, flounced, polka-dotted skirts of red, green or blue fall down over the horse's side. Black lace mantillas are draped over very tall combs in their hair, and a gay flower is usually pinned behind one ear. Every carriage, every farm cart, every house and every ...
— Getting to know Spain • Dee Day
... the new and modern square dances and tabulated forms for the guidance of the leader or others in calling them. Full and complete directions for performing every known square dance, such as Plain Quadrilles, Polka Quadrilles, Prairie Queen, Varieties Quadrille, Francaise, Dixie Figure, Girl I Left Behind Me, Old Dan Tucker, Money Musk, Waltz Lanciers, Military Lanciers, Columbian Lanciers, Oakland Minuet, Waltz Quadrilles, etc. The "German" introduces ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... the pressure brought to bear upon him by the princesses and ladies of his court to revive the waltz, taking the ground that it is more conducive than any other dance to ridiculous mishaps on the highly polished and parqueted floors of the royal and imperial palaces. Even with the polka, the schottische and the mazurka, to which the round dances are now limited, there are so many accidents that some time ago the kaiser summoned the generals commanding the various troops stationed in and around Berlin, and instructed them to direct those ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... consciousness in the manner in which the man handled 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 ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... 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 ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... to fade from her cheeks as the notes before her ran together, and the keys assumed the form of one huge key which Maddy could not manage. There was a blur before her eyes, a buzzing in her ears, and just as the dancers were entering heart and soul into the merits of a popular polka, there was a sudden pause in the music, a crash among the keys, and a faint cry, which to those nearest to her sounded very much like "Mr. Guy," as Maddy fell forward with her face upon the piano. It was hard telling which carried her from the room, the doctor ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... numbers, with a fine introduction, and containing some very bright and sweetly-flowing melodies. These waltzes had a good sale, and added much to the composer's reputation. Besides the above, Mr. Williams has composed eight or ten polka-redowas, and several mazurkas and quadrilles (some of these have been published); and he is the author of ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... ancient polka struck up, a tune remembered at children's parties. Then a waltz, a very old one too. The T.B.'s were ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... 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
... were both there also. Boche had heard of a cabinetmaker who had danced the polka until he died. He had ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... 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 ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... 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 could plainly ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... 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 dots of ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... firmament. The tall man gazed until the last remnant of trousers disappeared from the sky. Then he wrapped himself up in his quilt and lay down. The freckled man was puffing contentedly, swathed like an infant. The yellow polka-dots rose and fell on the vast ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... I could dance a polka," he replied, getting up, and to prove his stability he got onto the chair, made a pirouette and jumped onto the bed, where his thick, muddy ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... 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
... 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 taken ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... A man should dance easily and gracefully, and look as if he were enjoying himself. He should be careful about guiding and not running into people. Swinging the hands is vulgar and unsightly. The waltz seems to survive all other forms of dancing, but there is every now and then a revival of the polka. Two steps and fancy dances are the vogue at summer hotels, but ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... in his studies, translating his hard passages in Virgil, working out his problems in mathematics, and even writing, or at least revising and correcting, his compositions, while he in return gave her lessons in etiquette as practiced by the Boston girls, teaching her how to polka a waltz gracefully, so he would not be ashamed to introduce her as his cousin, he said, at the children's parties which they attended together. It was not strange that Frank Van Buren should admire a girl as bright ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... strength and his memory, lost in a polka of his own composition, beginning it again and again, unable to remember its conclusion, the unfortunate Stoltz had gone to sleep while playing, and with him all the ladies on the Rigi, nodding, as they slumbered, romantic curls, or those peculiar lace caps, in shape ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... 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 but that their owners can perfectly ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... exhortations, and his own prophecies, of which one cannot say all have come true. But he poured them forth from the mighty heart of one who loved his country, and sat down with a sense of duty fulfilled and wiped his pale forehead while the band played a polka. ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... 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, ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... his Country led the van of as sorry a band of patriots as not often comes within one's experience to see. General Marion was playing a dummy game of poker with General Lafayette; Governor Morris was having a set-to with Nathan Lane, and James Madison was executing a Dutch polka with Madam Roland on one arm and Luicretia Borgia on the other. The next moment the advancing ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... and grieved to see what's waitin' for one of our plutiest directors outside the brass rail. In fact, I almost gasps. Lady! More like one of the help from the laundry. The navy blue print dress with the red polka dots was enough for one quick breath, just by itself. How was that for an afternoon street costume to blow into the Corrugated general offices with on a winter's day? True, she's wearin' a gray sweater and what looked like a man's ulster over it; but there's no disguisin' ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... dark man, dressed in the usual costume of the ricos of Mexico: dark cloth polka-jacket, blue military trousers, with scarlet sash around his waist, and low-crowned, broad-brimmed hat upon his head. He appeared about thirty years of age, whiskered, moustached, and, after a fashion, handsome. It was not his age, nor his personal ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... a lively polka, and Monsieur Tournevau started off with the handsome Jewess, whom he held without letting her feet touch the ground. Monsieur Pinipesse and Monsieur Vasse had started off with renewed vigor, and from time to time one or other couple would stop to toss off a long draught of sparkling wine, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... bride, and offered to dance with 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, ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... 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 ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... entered, several hours later, the rooms were filled with warmth and laughter and the vague perfume of women's dresses mingled with the odour of American Beauty roses. An old-fashioned polka was in the air, and beyond the furthest doorway he saw young people dancing. The red candles were burning down, and drops of wax lay like flecks of blood upon the floor. Near the entrance, a small, dark woman was leaning upon a marble table, and as she saw him she ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... 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 ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... 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 ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... sailors; 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
... 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
... 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: ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... 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 ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... and the best thing you can do is to follow her example. What would you think of some light refreshment? Let's go to the dining-room and drown our sorrows in strawberry ice. Then we can have a waltz, and try a vanilla—and a polka, and some lemonade! That's, my idea of enjoying myself. Come along, ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... 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 ears ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... 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
... There was an unspoken sentiment among the men that "The Sweet By and By" was not quite the best tune in the world for a quadrille. A Sunday-school hymn, no matter how rapidly it was rendered, seemed to fall short of the necessary vivacity for a polka. Besides, the wheezy little organ positively refused to go faster than a certain gait. Hose Ransom expressed the popular opinion of the instrument, after a figure in which he and his partner had been half a bar ahead of the music from start to ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... happier than our own peasantry." * * * "The dancing itself, even in those tents frequented by the poorest peasants, is quite as good, and is conducted with quite as much decorum, as that of the first ballrooms of London. The polka, the waltz, and several dances not known in England, are danced by the German peasants with great elegance. They dance quicker than we do; and, from the training in music which they receive from their childhood, and for many years of their lives, the poorest peasants dance in much ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... faites-vous ici? Cordieu, Madame! Que faites-vous ici? Je danse le polka avec tous mes amis! Je danse le ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... is a sportive pumpkin vine, At other times the lily and the ivy intertwine: And then again the ground is white with purple polka dots Or else a dainty lavender with red congestive spots— In short, there is no color, hue, or shade you could suggest That doesn't in due time occur in a Will J. ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... 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 ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... a bed, had been amusing herself, despite her fourteen years, in making a doll out of a few rags. She was now talking to it, so happy, so absorbed in her play, that she laughed quite heartily. "Hold yourself up, mademoiselle," said she. "Dance the polka, that I may see how you can do it! One! two! dance, turn, kiss the one you ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... before. Tall, good-looking, a fine form, and not a sparkling face, I am inclined to believe that his chief merit lies in his legs. Certainly when he dances he puts his best foot forward, and knows it, too. Miriam, who adores dancing, is flirting openly with this divinity of the "Deux Temps" and polka, and skims around with his arm about her (position sanctified by the lively air Lydia is dashing off on the piano) with a grace and lightness only equaled by his own. And Lieutenant Duggan, with his good, honest, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... 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
... 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
... 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 looked on as though ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... 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 never ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... no one to separate me from Esther. We started the second dance together, but no sooner did I see her sister, Mrs. Martin, whirl by us in the polka with Dan Happersett, than I suggested that we drop out and take a stroll. She consented, and we were soon out of sight, wandering in a labyrinth of lover's lanes which abounded throughout this live-oak grove. On reaching the outskirts of the picnic grounds, ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... 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
... the dust from his tan shoes with a polka-dotted handkerchief, while rosy dreams, full of ambition and success ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... while, to the infinite excitement of the audience, especially of the hyah-hyah-hyahing negroes, whose faces, under the flicker of lowered calcium-carbide lights, made a segregated strip of yellow-black polka-dotted with ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... cheroots and beating time to the music, which was excellent. Lighting our cigars, we strolled lazily along, and, by dint of lamp-light and impudence, managed to form a very tolerable idea of the beauty of the senoras. At ten o'clock, the band struck up a lively polka, which was the signal for a general dispersion. This is considered one of the principal and ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... 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 ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... to many nice consciences to know that our Chief Magistrate would not regard with eyes of approval the (by many esteemed) sinful pastime of dancing, and I own myseif to be so far of that mind, that I could not but set my face against this Mexican Polka, though danced to the Presidential piping with a Gubernatorial second. If ever the country should be seized with another such mania pro propaganda fide, I think it would be wise to fill our bombshells with alternate copies of the Cambridge Platform ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... said Beatrice, laughing, "I do not know what you would do if you were me, when there is Matilda St. Leger polka-ing away half the days ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Many hundred had gone so far as to bet that the three horses he had named would finish as he had foretold. But, in spite of Carter's tip, Delhi still was the favorite, and when the thousands saw the Keene polka-dots leap to the front, and by two lengths stay there, for the quarter, the half, and for the three-quarters, the air was shattered with jubilant, triumphant yells. And then suddenly, with the swiftness of a moving ...
— The Man Who Could Not Lose • Richard Harding Davis
... 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 Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 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
... "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 ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... known as 'ladies' and 'gentlemen' 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 ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... 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
... music in the street. Looking up from his book, he saw a little girl, with large eyes, playing an organ, while a monkey begged for alms from a crowd of idlers who had nothing in their pockets but their hands. The girl was playing, but she was also weeping. The merry notes of the polka were ground out to a silent accompaniment of tears. She looked very sad, this organ-girl, and her monkey seemed to have caught the infection, for his large brown eyes were moist, as if he also wept. The poor hunchback was struck with pity, and called the little girl over to give her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... 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 a note of ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... Christmas and New Year's parties; and more especially for the dance on Twelfth Night, the anniversary of my brother Charlie's birthday. Just before one of these celebrations my father insisted that my sister Katie and I should teach the polka step to Mr. Leech and himself. My father was as much in earnest about learning to take that wonderful step correctly, as though there were nothing of greater importance in the world. Often he would practice gravely in a corner, ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... sprinkling of tarts and soldiers, more soldiers, everywhere soldiers... and not a single "Teur" in sight except for him... so he found walking across the square a bit embarrassing. Everyone stared.... The military band stopped playing and the Offenbach polka came to a halt with one ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... same as ours, with some small differences: the rigodon is a variation of the quadrille, and the lancers are slightly curtailed. There was a decided fancy for the polka and a species of mazurka, which I remembered having learned from a dancing-master in the dawn of life, under some strange and forgotten name. Spaniards dance divinely—nothing less. They waltz as ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... lovely thing to me. I had supper with him, and Lord Valmond was near with Lady Doraine, and she was being so nice to him, Mamma, leaning over and looking into his eyes, and I don't think it good form, do you? Two or three dances afterwards, when we went back to the ballroom, there was a polka; I danced it with some idiot who almost at once let yards and yards of my gauze frills get torn, so I was obliged to go to the cloak-room to have it ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... a brief and exceedingly banal interview with Helen, and another with Andrew. And an interval having elapsed, Andrew was observed to approach Helen and ask her for a polka. Helen punctiliously accepted. And he led her out. The outraged gods of social decorum were appeased, and the reputations of Mrs. Prockter and her parties stood as high as ever. It ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... voice, looking down from the oven] That's the Polka-Mazurka. You fools don't understand what dancing is. The ...
— Fruits of Culture • Leo Tolstoy
... if you don't step lively. Come here!—See how he crawls.—Come here! You must go to town and buy me two pounds of soft soap, here's the money for it. But see here, if you're not back on this very spot inside of four hours, Master Eric will dance the polka on your back. ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... 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, ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... not seem very anxious to claim our acquaintance, after all, and I think better of him on that account. Has he spoken to you to-night, Dora?" asked Mrs. Carroll, as Debby dropped down beside her after a "splendid polka." ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... first place, they never lifted their feet, but pushed them along like skates. The women were dressed in gray polka-dot dresses with huge poke bonnets that almost hid their fat, sleepy, wide-mouthed faces. Most of them had pet snails on strings, and so slowly did they move that it looked as though the snails ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... 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
... new 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 the most absurd manner. And O Valentine, whom can one trust, ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... pleasant account of it. "There were various booths for eating and drinking, and the selling of trinkets and sweetmeats; and in one place there was a great circle cleared, in which the common people waltzed and polka'd, without cessation, to the music of a band. There was a great roundabout for children (oh my stars what a family were proprietors of it! A sunburnt father and mother, a humpbacked boy, a great poodle-dog possessed of all sorts ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... look for the greatest donkey in the entire collection, it is obvious that we shall find him in the middle-aged party of 1936, who is gadding about in inflated trunks and with a fan in his hand. If it were not for the gloves and polka-dot neck-wear we should assume that this costume was a particularly fantastic bathing-suit. The youth of the ensuing year, in the next plate, is probably a son of the foregoing personage, for it is not difficult to detect ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... sight that you felt inclined to pray for his safety; on the other hand, Roosevelt, mounted high on horseback, and charging the rifle-pits at a gallop and quite alone, made you feel that you would like to cheer. He wore on his sombrero a blue polka-dot handkerchief, a la Havelock, which, as he advanced, floated out straight behind his head, like a guidon. Afterward, the men of his regiment who followed this flag, adopted a polka-dot handkerchief ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... 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 ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... oil" over "David Copperfield," "Dombey and Son," "Jane Eyre," "East Lynne," "Endymion" and other popular volumes as they gain fame. She can sing snatches from all the finest operas, in Italian, German or French. She can dance the Boston and Rush Polka with unrivalled grace, she can flirt and affect the most becoming airs, she never misses a matinee or evening performance at the Grand Opera House; she can do the "grape-vine" exquisitely on her silver-plated ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... sprightly polka. A triangle marked the measures, and Reginald's red shoe tapped the floor beneath ...
— Dorothy Dainty's Gay Times • Amy Brooks
... counting on her fingers; "that's two; one cracovienne, that's three; les lanciers, that's four; one galop, that's five; and one polka quadrille, that's six. Six dances, round and square, with Sir Victor Catheron. Edith," cried Miss Stuart, triumphantly, ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... tripped a waltz, while the plait kept up an accompanying polka. Certainly Peter Klausson did press her ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... 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, ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... voices in the anteroom reached his ears. They were that of M. de Nonancourt, an old beau with the air of a mummy preserved in cold cream, and that of Madame de Larsillois, the wife of a prefect of Louis Philippe. She was terribly frightened, for she had just heard an organ playing a polka which was a signal amongst the insurgents. Many of the wealthy class of citizens had similar apprehensions; they thought that men in the catacombs were going to blow up the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Some noises escaped ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... 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 the French and Italian schools of painting; ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... 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 ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... continued with a certain Professor Herke. At the age of twelve he played in public a Rondo de concert by Herz. In 1852 he matriculated at the school for ensigns, and the same year had his first composition, a polka, published. In 1856, while serving as an officer in the Preobrajensky Guards, he made the acquaintance of Borodin. Soon after, he met Dargomyjski. It was with him that, in his own words, "he for the first time lived the musical life." Later, he became ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... shy, or whether they were bold; whether they romped with their sweethearts, and laughed at their own jokes like bulls of Bashan, or whether they wore their best clothes as though the garments burnt them, and danced the polka in a perspiring and anguished silence! No; she was not of their class, thank Heaven! She never wished to be. One man had asked her to put a pin in his collar; another had spilt a cup of coffee over her white dress; a third had confided to her that his young lady was "that luvin" ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 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 would be to ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton |
