"Small beer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were resolved to treat Mr. Polly very well, and to help his exceptional incompetence in every possible way, and after a simple supper of ham and bread and cheese and pickles and cold apple tart and small beer had been cleared away, they put him into the armchair almost as though he was an invalid, and sat on chairs that made them look down on him, and opened a directive discussion of the arrangements for the funeral. After all a funeral is a distinct social opportunity, and rare when ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... is Latin for "tame." Ex., "domestic fowl," "domestic drama," "story of domestic intereet," "or chronicle of small beer," ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... Winchester school, or New College; had Brownlow North been doomed to celibacy, he would not have had ten sons and sons-in-law to share twenty-four rich livings, besides prebends and other preferments; and perhaps he would not have sold small beer from his episcopal palace at Farnham. Cobbett's main doctrine is that when the Catholic church flourished, the population was actually more numerous and richer, that the care of the priests and monks made pauperism impossible, and that ever since the hideous blunder perpetrated by the reformers ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... and such as they Grew like asparagus in May, And Dukes were three a penny: Lord Chancellors were cheap as sprats, And Bishops in their shovel hats Were plentiful as tabby cats - If possible, too many. On every side Field-Marshals gleamed, Small beer were Lords-Lieutenants deemed, With Admirals the ocean teemed, All round his wide dominions; And Party Leaders you might meet In twos and threes in every street Maintaining, with no little heat, ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... advancement from the Dragon; and of Saint Thomas, who was a gentleman of coat-armor, who would understand and help a person of gentle blood. Then, much comforted by his naive orisons he enjoyed the sleep of youth and health until the entrance of the lay brother with the bread and small beer, which served as breakfast, in ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... "I buy my sugar, and have nothing to do with the man's manner of sending it." Lamb at once perceived the character of the purchaser, and taking off his hat, said, humbly, "Then I hope, ma'am, you'll give me a drink of small beer." This was of course refused. He afterwards called upon the grocer, on the boy's behalf—with what ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... Bobadil, he had only twenty men to back him, yet in the short space of six months he had conquered and utterly annihilated sixty oxen, ninety hogs, one hundred sheep, ten thousand cabbages, one thousand bushels of potatoes, one hundred and fifty kilderkins of small beer, two thousand seven hundred and thirty-five pipes, seventy-eight pounds of sugar-plums, and forty bars of iron, besides sundry small meats, game, poultry, and garden stuff: an achievement unparalleled since the days of Pantagruel and his all-devouring ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... living population in "fine linen," if not in purple. If they had been equally diligent in brickmaking, they might have built ten Babels; or if they had devoted similar energies, on Iago's hint, "to suckle fools, and chronicle small beer," they might have tripled the population, or anticipated the colossal vats of Messrs Truman & Co. What myriads of young faces have grown old over worsted parrots and linsey-wolsey maps of the terrestrial globe! What exquisite ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... accordingly, sent her great quantities of sack whey and thin mutton broth, than which no physician could have prescribed better, and thus drenched the poor woman for ten days together, till she grew tired of her medicines, and sent her daughter again to Miss Blandy to beg a little small beer. "No, no small beer," the prisoner said, "that was not proper for her." Most plainly, then, she knew what it was the woman had taken in her father's tea. She knew its effect. She knew the proper antidotes. Having now experienced the strength of the ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... with a comfortable liquor for nearly the same expense that will procure a quantity of Geneva sufficient for intoxication; for it cannot be supposed that a poor wretch will expend his last penny upon a draught of small beer, without strength or the least satisfactory operation, when for the half of that sum he can purchase a cordial, that will almost instantaneously allay the sense of hunger and cold, and regale his imagination with the most agreeable illusions. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... The strong cheese for supper was even more horrible. He lived for the most part on the tough sea biscuit of mixed wheat and pea flour, and on the occasional duffs of flour boiled with fat, which did duty as pudding. For drink he had nothing but small beer; the water in the wooden casks was full of green, grassy, slimy things. But the fresh sea air seemed to be a food itself; and though Desmond became lean and hollow cheeked, his muscles developed and hardened. Little deserving Captain Barker's ill-tempered abuse, he became handy in many ways on board, ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... wine; nor is there any to be had, unless you have recourse to the British wine-merchants here established, who deal in Bourdeaux wines, brought hither by sea for the London market. I have very good claret from a friend, at the rate of fifteen-pence sterling a bottle; and excellent small beer as reasonable as in England. I don't believe there is a drop of generous Burgundy in the place; and the aubergistes impose upon us shamefully, when they charge it at two livres a bottle. There is a small white wine, called preniac, which is very agreeable ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... greater than ever. It is the penitential season of Lent; some excellent persons renounce all worldly amusements; others, not quite so excellent, and both lots thinking, it may be, no small beer of themselves, we may term the first lot Treble Excellent and the second Double Excellent—the latter division think that concerts possibly, sacred concerts certainly, and certain other forms of mild and non-theatrical entertainments, are ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 21, 1891 • Various
... he is the mouthpiece of Shakespeare and not the roistering Prince: yet on his first appearance there are traces of characterization, as when he declares that his "appetite is not princely," for he remembers "the poor creature, small beer," whereas in the last act he is merely the poetic prig. Let us give the ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... under, and under the age of forty, but it was extremely her fault if he were not intimately acquainted with her. This made him very popular, always speaking kindly to the husband, brother, or father, who was to boot very welcome to his house whenever he came. There he found beef pudding and small beer in great plenty, a house not so neatly kept as to shame him or his dirty shoes, the great hall strewed with marrow bones, full of hawks' perches, hounds, spaniels, and terriers, the upper sides of the hall hung with the fox-skins of this and ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... a fair countenance;" and his face, though clouded then, bore the expression of general amiability. He was the eldest son in a large young family, and was being educated at one of the best public schools. He did not, it must be confessed, think either small beer or small beans of himself; and as to the beer and beans that his family thought of him, I think it was pale ale and kidney-beans ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... asked his advice, and his replies were alike courteous and witty, although sometimes ironical. "Friend Franklin," said a noted Quaker lawyer, "thou knowest everything,—canst thou tell me how I am to preserve my small beer in the back yard? for I find that my neighbors are tapping it for me." "Put a barrel of Madeira beside ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... laborers frequently let themselves to their employers during the harvest month at from 20s. to 24s. per week, which is just about double their usual wages. In addition to this pay, they are often allowed two quarts of ale and two quarts of small beer per day; not the small beer of New England, made only of hops, ginger, and molasses; but a far more stimulating drink, quite equal to our German lager. This gallon of beer will cost the farmer about 10d., or 20c. Where ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... Pork, and bone it, then roul it up, and tie it hard with a Tape, then boil it water and Salt till it be very tender, then make Souce drink for it with small Beer, Water and Salt, ...
— The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet • Hannah Wolley
... thought in this country to be a trifle unsympathetic; in particular in its patronizing way of dwelling upon the thinness of the American social environment and the consequent provincialism of Hawthorne's books. The "American Note Books," in particular, seem to Mr. James a chronicle of small beer, and he marvels at the triviality of an existence which could reduce the diarist to recording an impression that "the aromatic odor of peat smoke in the sunny autumnal air is very pleasant." This peat-smoke entry has become proverbial, and is mentioned by nearly everyone who writes ...
— Four Americans - Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman • Henry A. Beers
... hours after their departure, that Chiffinch lounged into the room in which they had supped, in a brocade nightgown, and green velvet cap, turned up with the most costly Brussels lace. He seemed but half awake; and it was with drowsy voice that he called for a cup of cold small beer. His manner and appearance were those of a man who had wrestled hard with Bacchus on the preceding evening, and had scarce recovered the effects of his contest with the jolly god. Lance, instructed by his master to watch ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... Mills, where his life could have been much worse. He fell in love with Ann Markham; and although she was the daughter of the wickedest man in Fentown, she was—according to the phraseology of the place—"a lady." She kept a small beer-shop that was neat and clean; she lived so that no man dared to say an uncivil word to her or to the sister whom she protected. She did for her father very much what Bart's father did for him: she ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... There was, indeed, little else to talk about. When you are billeted in a small town in Flanders with no amusements and few amenities—neither theatres, nor sport, nor books—and with little prospect of getting a move on, you can but chronicle the small beer of your quotidian adventures. And these be engaging ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... brisket, with four pounds of stewing beef, cut into pieces; put these into a stewpan, with a little salt, pepper, a bunch of sweet-herbs and onions, stuck with cloves, two or three pieces of carrots, two quarts of water, and half a pint of good small beer. Let the whole stew for four hours; then take some turnips and carrots cut into pieces, a small leek, two or three heads of celery, cut small, and a piece of bread toasted hard. Let these stew all together one hour longer; then put the whole into ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury
... a water-bottle capacious enough to wet your toothbrush. The huts are wretched and miserable beyond all description. The food (for those who can pay for it) 'not bad,' as M. would say: oat-cake, mutton, hotch-potch, trout from the loch, small beer bottled, marmalade, and whiskey. Of the last-named article I have taken about a pint to-day. The weather is what they call 'soft'—which means that the sky is a vast water-spout that never leaves off emptying ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... of the race would strenuously prepare herself for it beforehand from childhood upward. She would not be ashamed of such preparation; on the contrary, she would be proud of it. Her duty would be no longer "to suckle fools and chronicle small beer," but to produce and bring up strong, vigorous, free, able, and intelligent citizens. Therefore, she must be nobly educated for her great and important function—educated physically, intellectually, morally. Let ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... Greenleaf, shaking his head, "that this good- natured and gallant young knight is somewhat drawn aside by the rash advices of his squire, the boy Fabian, who has bravery, but as little steadiness in him as a bottle of fermented small beer." ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... chronicler of the Bernards, as well as of something better than small beer, soon handed me a large glassful of ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... cold, their barley did not ripen well, and the cabbages never half closed in the garden. So the brothers were poor that winter; and when Christmas came, they had nothing to feast on but a barley loaf, a piece of musty bacon, and some small beer of their ...
— Granny's Wonderful Chair • Frances Browne
... Ministers and such as they Grew like asparagus in May, And Dukes were three a penny. Lord Chancellors were cheap as sprats. And Bishops in their shovel hats Were plentiful as tabby cats— If possible, too many. On every side Field-Marshals gleamed, Small beer were Lords Lieutenant deemed With Admirals the ocean teemed All round his wide dominions; And Party Leaders you might meet In twos and threes in every street Maintaining, with no little heat, ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... have so good a chance of stopping his client's mouth effectually, my father ordered some cold meat; to which James Wilkinson, for the honour of the house, was about to add the brandy bottle, which remained on the sideboard, but, at a wink from my father, supplied its place with small beer. Peter charged the provisions with the rapacity of a famished lion; and so well did the diversion engage him, that though, while my father stated the case, he looked at him repeatedly, as if he meant to interrupt ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... Fridays, when he had the best of fish. He never wanted a London pudding, and he always sang it in with "My part lies therein-a." He drank a glass or two of wine at meals; put syrup of gilly-flowers into his sack, and had always a tun glass of small beer standing by him, which he often stirred about with rosemary. He lived to be an hundred, and never lost his eyesight, nor used spectacles. He got on horseback without help, and rode to the death of the stag till he was past fourscore." Gilpin's Forest Scenery, vol. ii., pp. ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... that blue breech, now playes he the Devil. So get ye home, drink small beer, and be honest; Call in ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... the planks were torn up by a sea, and several bags of coal, a barrel of small beer, and a few casks containing lime and sand, were all swept away. The men would certainly have shared the fate of these, had they not clung to the beams until the ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... flippancy is also the third. With the dull it will pass for wit, with some it will pass for scorn, and even the witty will not be enabled to point out the difference, without running the risk of being considered invidious. It will cover every defect with a defect still greater; for who can call small beer tasteless when it is sour, or dull when it is bottled and ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... poverty and cold, if they had not good cheer, warm fires, and Christmas gambols to support them. I love to rejoice their poor hearts at this season, and to see the whole village merry in my great hall. I allow a double quantity of malt to my small beer, and set it running for twelve days to every one that calls for it. I have always a piece of cold beef and a mince-pie upon the table, and am wonderfully pleased to see my tenants pass away a whole evening in playing their innocent tricks, and smutting one another. Our friend Will Wimble is as ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... down to the river again, and he hesitated in front of a small beer-shop whose half open door and sanded floor offered a ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... may be stew'd gently with a little White Wine, Spice, and a little Butter, which will make an agreeable Sauce for it. Or else it may be eaten with a very good Sauce, which I have often met with, and have lik'd as well; which is made with small Beer and Water, equal quantities, an Onion slic'd, some Pepper and Salt, and about an Ounce of Flesh, either of Mutton or Beef, to boil till it comes to about half, supposing at first 'tis not above half a Pint; and at some places, instead of Mutton, &c. this Sauce ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... of our docility and respectability will have been set by men no better and no worse than we are. We shall be sober by act of Parliament, and moral—if it be morality—because we have lost the notion of being anything else. We shall be of no use whatever to God, and precious small beer for the devil. ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... and thirty shillings upon the produce of a quarter of malt. In the country brewery for common country sale, a quarter of malt is seldom brewed into less than two barrels of strong, and one barrel of small beer; frequently into two barrels and a-half of strong beer. The different taxes upon small beer amount to one shilling and fourpence a-barrel. In the country brewery, therefore, the different taxes upon malt, beer, and ale, seldom amount to less than twenty-three shillings and fourpence, frequently ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... completeness of its self-revelation, but to which it is as much inferior in historic interest as "the petty province here" was inferior in political and social importance to "Britain far away." For the most part it is a chronicle of small beer, the diarist jotting down the minutiae of his domestic life and private affairs, even to the recording of such haps as this: "March 23, I had my hair cut by G. Barret." But it also affords instructive glimpses of public events, such ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... an ignorant peasant who had served him as cook, thinking this a more economical alliance than one with a person of refined mind and habits. He and his wife usually dined on brown bread, salt herrings, and small beer. He occasionally took portraits at a high price, and in this way became acquainted with the Burgomaster Six, a man of enlarged mind and unblemished character, who yet continued faithfully attached to the avaricious painter. His friendship was sometimes ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... two o'clock. He ate heartily, but was no epicure, nor critical about his food. His beverage was small beer or cider, and two glasses of old Madeira. He took tea, of which he was very fond, early in the evening, and retired for the night about ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... compared with her. Many a time since have I noticed, in persons of Ginevra Fanshawe's light, careless temperament, and fair, fragile style of beauty, an entire incapacity to endure: they seem to sour in adversity, like small beer in thunder. The man who takes such a woman for his wife, ought to be prepared to guarantee her an existence all sunshine. Indignant at last with her teasing peevishness, I curtly requested her "to hold her tongue." The ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... solitary days the worst by any means. I dine, when I like, on soup or broth, and drink a glass of porter or ginger-beer; a single tumbler of whisky and water concludes the debauch. This agrees with me charmingly. At ten o'clock bread and cheese, a single draught of small beer, porter, or ginger-beer, and ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... air of Sandy's Mull, preserved among the infinitesimal occurrences recorded. Some people work, in this manner, with even a strong touch. Mr. Trollope's inimitable clergymen naturally arise to the mind in this connection. But even Mr. Trollope[16] does not confine himself to chronicling small beer. Mr. Crawley's collision with the Bishop's wife, Mr. Melnette dallying in the deserted banquet-room, are typical incidents, epically conceived, fitly embodying a crisis. Or again look at Thackeray. If Rawdon Crawley's blow were not delivered, Vanity Fair would cease to be a work ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that Count Gustavus Adolphus, far from wishing to pick the wing of a fowl, had risen with a horror and loathing for everything in the shape of food, and for any liquor stronger than small beer. Of this he had drunk a cup, and said he should ride immediately to Stratford; and when, on ordering his horses, he had asked politely of the landlady "why the d—— SHE always came up, and why she did not send the girl," Mrs. Score informed the Count that her Catherine was ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Take small beer and vinegar, and parboil your beef in it, let it steep all night, then put in some turnsole to it, and being baked, a good judgment shall not discern it from red ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May
... interred a Hampshire Grenadier, Who got his death by drinking cold small beer. Soldiers, take heed from his untimely fall, And if you drink, drink strong, or none ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... soon as possible. If one has to suffer poverty, one had best suffer alone. But to get discomforts grudgingly and as a charity is the extremity of shame. I prefer to look on it from the other side; M—— grudging me his small beer belongs ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... days the gentlemen who visited the springs slept in rooms hardly as good as the garrets which he lived to see occupied by footmen. The floors of the dining-room were uncarpeted, and were coloured brown with a wash made of soot and small beer in order to hide the dirt. Not a wainscot was painted. Not a hearth or chimney piece was of marble. A slab of common freestone, and fire-irons which had cost from three to four shillings, were thought sufficient ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... utmost impatience from week to week; and as long as its tattered folio hung together, its contents formed a never ending subject of conversation. On the day of its arrival, therefore, the "club" invariably met many hours before their wonted time, to discuss politics and pigtail, revolutions and small beer. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... spectacles. The steady champ of resolute jaws sounds in a rhythm which is almost majestic; the fearsome destruction wrought on solid joints would rouse the helpless envy of the dyspeptics of Pall Mall, and the playful consumption of ale—no small beer, but golden Rodney—might draw forth an ode from a teetotal Chancellor of the Exchequer. August winds up in a blaze of gladness for the reaper. On ordinary evenings he sits stolidly in the dingy parlour ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... preserve eggs for twelve months, see N.B. to No. 547. Snow, and small beer, have been recommended by some economists as admirable substitutes for eggs; they will no more answer this purpose than as ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... for your captain is brave, and vows reformation. There shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves sold for a penny; the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops; and I will make it felony to drink small beer. All the realm shall be in common; and in Cheapside shall my palfry go to grass; and when I am king, as ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... beaked nose, what may be called a distinguished mouth, and was always dressed in fashionable attire. The fact was, that Mr Mortimer Gazebee, junior partner in the firm Gumption, Gazebee & Gazebee, by no means considered himself to be made of that very disagreeable material which mortals call small beer. ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... intolerance. Our establishments are so enormous, and so utterly disproportioned to our population, that every second or third man you meet in society gains something from the public; my brother the commissioner,—my nephew the police justice,—purveyor of small beer to the army in Ireland,—clerk of the mouth,—yeoman to the left hand,—these are the obstacles which common sense and justice have now to overcome. Add to this that the King, old and infirm, excites a principle of very amiable generosity in his ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... to do anything really in that line, a man ought to have notions different from mine—rather. Why don't you advise me to set up a kindergarten? That would suit as well as chronicling ecclesiastical small beer. Cudgel your brains, and ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... chief, the fibres were carefully picked up and taken away by one of his servants. On my asking what he intended to do with it, I was told he would put water to it, and strain it again. Thus he would make what I will call small beer. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... then I stayed the blow, for I spied a wallet that hung to the driving-seat, a large wallet of plump and inviting aspect. Reaching it down I opened it forthwith and found therein a new-baked loaf, a roast capon delicately browned and a jar of small beer. And now, couched luxuriously among the hay, I fell to work (tooth and nail) and though I ate in voracious haste, never before or since have I tasted aught so delicate and savoury as that stolen fowl. I was yet busied with what remained ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... Markers, and were catechised by them, and under their sole authority during prayers, etc. All other authority was in the Monitors; but, as I said, the same boys were ordinarily both the one and the other. Our diet was very scanty. Every morning a bit of dry bread and some bad small beer. Every evening a larger piece of bread, and cheese or butter, whichever we liked. For dinner,—on Sunday, boiled beef and broth; Monday, bread and butter, and milk and water; Tuesday, roast mutton; Wednesday, ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... victuals: so away he hops with his crutch, and buys four or five great pieces of bacon, as many of hung beef, and two or three loaves; and borrowing a sack at the inn (which I suppose he never restored), he loads his horse, and getting a large leather bottle, he filled that of aqua-vitae instead of small beer; my woman comrade did the like. I was uneasy in my mind, and took no care but to get out of the town; however, we all came off well enough; but 'twas well for me that I had no provisions with me, as ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... all, it was a ticklish bit, and I should have guessed that your experience was not up to it quite. I've seen many a man in my day who wouldn't ha' done it half so slick, an' yet ha' thought no small beer of himself; so you needn't be ashamed, Mr. Charles. But Wabisca beats you for all that," continued the hunter, glancing hastily over his shoulder at Redfeather, who followed closely in their wake, he and his modest-looking wife guiding their little craft through ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... Fielding's staircase in the Temple, and after helping him up to bed perhaps, and opening his door with his latchkey, to have shaken hands with him in the morning, and heard him talk and crack jokes over his breakfast and his mug of small beer. Who would not give something to pass a night at the club with Johnson, and Goldsmith, and James Boswell, Esq., of Auchinleck? The charm of Addison's companionship and conversation has passed to us by fond tradition—but Swift? If you had been his inferior in parts (and that, with ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to do in society? I may be asked, but to loiter with easy grace; surely you would not condemn them all to suckle fools, and chronicle small beer! No. Women might certainly study the art of healing, and be physicians as well as nurses. And midwifery, decency seems to allot to them, though I am afraid the word midwife, in our dictionaries, will soon give place to accoucheur, and one proof ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... deplorable result of trying to ferment the small beer of cousinly affection into the Maronean wine of passionate love," thought Lord Mallow. "Idiotic parents have imagined that these two people ought to marry, because they were brought up together, and the little girl took kindly to the little boy. What little girl does not take ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... of misused wine," and wrought havoc with one's nerves, digestion, and circulation. It certainly had this single advantage, that when one grew to man's estate, and passed from "that poor creature, small beer," to the loaded port and fiery sherry of a "Wine" at the University, it was impossible to make one drunk. And thereby hangs a tale. I was once writing the same sentiment in the same words for a medical journal, and the compositor substituted "disadvantage" ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... a herb of some sort that grows wild in the mountains"?... A very satisfactory feature of the past year has been the migration of 7000 Montenegrins to more fertile parts of Yugoslavia. And as for Nikita's partisans, they were such small beer that when they wished to hold a meeting at Cetinje the Government had not the least objection; it also allowed them to sing the songs that Nikita wrote, but that was more than the population of Cetinje would stand. It is only ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... observed very little was done, except one or two Acts of extreme justice, which I then thought might as well have been spared: and I have found the Court of Assistants usually taken up in little brangles about coachmen, or adjusting accounts of meal and small beer; which, however necessary, might sometimes have given place to matters of much greater moment, I mean some schemes recommended to the General Board, for answering the chief ends in erecting and establishing ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... yet, in the early state of the operations, this could not be continued for more than three or four hours at a time, and as their rations were large—consisting of one pound and a half of beef, one pound of ship biscuit, eight ounces oatmeal, two ounces barley, two ounces butter, three quarts of small beer, with vegetables and salt—they got into excellent spirits when free of sea-sickness. The rowing of the boats against each other became a favourite amusement, which was rather a fortunate circumstance, as it must have ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of malt, and two pounds of hops, and would make of it one barrel of strong, and two barrels of small beer. ...
— The Practical Distiller • Samuel McHarry
... to-morrow and take my chance, &c., but they dissuaded me from so rash a step, as I really think on consideration it would have been; for if the Pearsons were not at home, I should inevitably fall a sacrifice to the arts of some fat woman who would make me drunk with small beer. ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... these two Volatile Pounds in my Constitution. In my ordinary Meals I fetch my self up to two Hundred Weight and [a half pound [3]]; and if after having dined I find my self fall short of it, I drink just so much Small Beer, or eat such a quantity of Bread, as is sufficient to make me weight. In my greatest Excesses I do not transgress more than the other half Pound; which, for my Healths sake, I do the first Monday in every Month. As soon as I find my self duly poised after Dinner, I walk till I have ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... immediately I repaired; and was introduced to one Mr. Launcelot Crab, a surgeon in town, who was engaged with two more in drinking a liquor called pop-in, composed by mixing a quartern of brandy with a quart of small beer. Before I relate the occasion of this message, I believe it will not be disagreeable to the reader, if I describe the gentleman who sent for me, and mention some circumstances of his character and conduct which ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... relates, that 'For a lady of quality, since dead, who received us at her husband's seat in Wales with less attention than he had long been accustomed to, he had a rougher denunciation:—"That woman," cried Johnson, "is like sour small beer, the beverage of her table, and produce of the wretched country she lives in: like that, she could never have been a good thing, and even that bad thing is spoiled."' [Anec. p. 171.] And it is probably of her, too, that another anecdote is told:—'We had been visiting at a lady's house, whom, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... pitcher made of leather. Taylor quotes Old Mortality, chap. viii.: "The large black-jack filled with very small beer." ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... he was dry, and desired a little tea; which Barnabas reported to Mrs Tow-wouse, who answered, "She had just done drinking it, and could not be slopping all day;" but ordered Betty to carry him up some small beer. ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... houses. Incessant reports from drawing the corks of beer bottles resound on all sides. The ordinary people are fond of this beverage; and for four or six sous they get a bottle of pleasant, refreshing, small beer. The draught is usually succeeded by a doze—in the open air. What is common, excites no surprise; and the stream of population rushes on without stopping one instant to notice these somniferous indulgences. Or, if they are not disposed to ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... diverted by the appearance of Molly, carrying a large jug, two small mugs, and four drinking-cans, all full of ale or small beer—an interesting example of the prehensile power possessed by the human hand. Poor Molly's mouth was rather wider open than usual, as she walked along with her eyes fixed on the double cluster of vessels in her hands, quite innocent of the ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... even the exaltation of a previous orgy to ransom it,—mere spleen and sulks and naughty-childishness,—seem to me not great things at all. You may not be able to help your spleen, but you can "cook" it; you may have qualm and headache, but in work of some sort, warlike or peaceful, there is always small beer, or brandy and soda (with even, if necessary, capsicum or bromide), for the ailment. The Renes who can do nothing but sulk, except when they blunder themselves and make other people uncomfortable in attempting to do something, who "never do a [manly] thing and never say a [kind] one," are, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... and gumptious! Gumption is knowing; but when I say that sum un is gumptious, I mean—though that's more vulgar like—sum un who does not think small beer of hisself. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... to the butler to be saving of an excellent cask of small beer, and asked him how it might be best preserved. "I know no method so effectual, my lady," replied the butler, "as placing a barrel of good ale ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... Is to be thought a Poet fine and fair; Small beer and gruel are his meat and drink, The diet he prescribes himself to think; Rhyme next his heart he takes at morning peep, Some love-epistles at the hour of sleep; And when his passion has been bubbling long, The scum at last boils Up into ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... Guile small Beer from fresh Malt, and the ill Effects of that made from Goods after strong Beer or Ale; I have here exposed, for the sake of the Health and Pleasure of those that may easily prove their advantage by drinking of the ...
— The London and Country Brewer • Anonymous
... airs, and when, at first, my father (who as coxswain was constantly up at the house) offered to speak to her, she turned away from him in most ineffable disdain. Now my father was at that time about thirty years of age, and thought no small beer of himself, as the saying goes. He was a tall, handsome man, indeed, so good-looking that they used to call him "Handsome Jack" on board of the "Druid," and he had, moreover, a pigtail of most extraordinary size and length, of which he was not ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... for your leader is brave, and vows reformation; there shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves sold for a penny; and the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops. I will make it felony to drink small beer: all shall eat and drink on my score, and I will apparel them all in one livery,that they may agree like brothers; and they shall all worship me as their ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... England, seven halfpenny loaves sold for a penny: the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops; and I will make it felony to drink small beer: all the realm shall be in common, and in Cheapside shall ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... says wrathful Charles Lamb in one of his letters, "I would not move out of a kilderkin into a hogshead, though the first had nothing but small beer in it, and the second reeked claret." I fancy this loathing of the transitionary state came in great part from the rude and elemental nature of the means of moving in Lamb's day. In our own time, in ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... nooks and filthy corners; sweep offices and oyster cellars! 'I have sworn brother to a leash of drawers, and can drink with any tinker in his own language during my life,'—faugh! I shall not be able to bear the smell of small beer and tobacco for a month to come.... Truly this saving one's country is a nauseous piece of business, and if patriotism is such a dirty virtue,—prythee, no more ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... my aid—all the spirits 'twixt Heaven and Earth over whom necromancy has any power have I made subject to my will and have commanded them to help me—to what end? There stands the elixir and is hardly more valuable than the small beer with which the servant down-stairs quenches his thirst, indeed it is less useful for who derives any benefit from it? I shall quit this world an unhappy man who has wasted his life and talents in untold efforts from his school-days until now—and yet, if the spirit would only reveal to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... for your captain is brave and vows reformation. There shall be in England seven half-penny loaves sold for a penny; the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops, and I will make it a felony to drink small beer. All the realm shall be in common, and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass. And when I am king asking ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... appetite was quite gone, I resolved to force down as much as I could, and desired the leg of a pullet. "Indeed, Mr. Bickerstaff," says the lady, "you must eat a wing to oblige me," and so put a couple upon my plate. I was persecuted at this rate during the whole meal. As often as I called for small beer, the master tipped the wink, and the servant brought me a brimmer of October. Some time after dinner, I ordered my cousin's man who came with me to get ready the horses; but it was resolved I should not stir that night; and when I seemed pretty much ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... then, you must know a young gentleman courted me. I forget whether I liked him or not; but you will fancy I hated him, for I promised to marry him. You must understand, gentlemen, that I was sent into the world, not to act, which I abominate, but to chronicle small beer and teach an army of little brats their letters; so this word 'wife,' and that word 'chimney-corner,' took possession of my mind, and a vision of darning stockings for a large party, all my own, filled my heart, ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... are divided into small beer, strong beer, ale, and porter. Small beer is best calculated for common use, being less heating and stimulating than other malt liquors. When used soft and mild, after having been thoroughly fermented and purified, it forms an excellent diluent with food, more especially at ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 277, October 13, 1827 • Various
... and most famous Snail water.—Take a peck of garden Shel Snails, wash them well in Small Beer, and put them in an oven till they have done making a Noise, then take them out and wipe them well from the green froth that is upon them, and bruise them shels and all in a Stone Mortar, then take a Quart ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... to be a comfort. Old Jolyon, in whom a desperate honesty welled up at times, would allude to his ancestors as: "Yeomen—I suppose very small beer." Yet he would repeat the word 'yeomen' as ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Turning from the niggardly surgeons, he enrolled his name as a student of divinity, and was frequently in Edinburgh attending the lectures at Divinity Hall. Wonderfully cheap was the living in those days, when, at the Edinburgh ordinaries, a good dinner could be had for fourpence, small beer included. John Witherspoon, years after a member of the American Congress, then a frank, generous young fellow, was a companion of Carlyle at this period, and they often went fishing together in ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... people danced there also, and others played at cards, and there were various refreshments, such as tea and coffee, and butter and bread, and I believe, but I am not sure, porter and negus, and likewise small beer. And it was at one of these assemblies that Mrs. Douglas called Mrs. Chalmers very improper names. And Mrs. Chalmers brought an action of defamation before the Commissaries, and it came by advocation into this Court, and your Lordships allowed a proof of the veritas convicii, and ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay |
