"Small beer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 has a froth ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... pumpkins"—though now she looks sober— She's brilliant; she is "no small beer." No, no, Cinderella, my dear! Your envious "sisters" may jeer, And sit on you yet, for a year; Redtape your advancement may fear, And Monopoly's patrons look queer; But, as sure as the month of October Is famous for sound British beer, Vested Interest ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, April 2, 1892 • Various
... word, you don't think small beer of yourself! Hamper has had a loss of you. How came he to let you ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... 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 ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... 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
... for an ornamental shrub of New Zealand, Macropiper excelsum. In Maori, Kawa "unpleasant to the taste, bitter, sour." (Williams.) The missionaries used to make small beer ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... occasioned. We are proud to state, although massive buildings quivered and great cities were scared, that Mr. PUNCHINELLO was not in the least shaken. At the moment of the quake (11h. 26m. A.M.) he must have been seated upon his drum partaking of a lunch of sandwiches and small beer. He did not perceive the slightest reverberation, nor did the drum give the least vibratory sign. Mr. PUNCHINELLO has prepared a most elaborate and scientific paper, giving a full and elaborate and intensely ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... to be in an uneasy situation at his own table; but I was far more miserable. I was mute, and seldom dared to lift up my eyes from my plate, or turn my head to call for small beer, lest by some aukward posture I might draw upon me a whisper or a laugh. Sancho, when he was forbid to eat of a delicious banquet set before him, could ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... was here 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 expression ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... playing with another little gorilla, and forgot to keep a look-out. I have kept a good look-out ever since I got that wound, I assure you. I licked it often, and so did my mother with her delicious mouth. It soon left off bleeding and healed. We gorillas have no brandy, no whisky, no wine, not even small beer, to inflame our blood. We sleep, too, among the trees, clear off the ground, where there are dangerous vapours, so that we are free from all miasmata. West Africa is my lovely home, and I am big and beautifully ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... attention from his sister, and thus peace was restored. Mrs. Davis and I spent the evening, till nine o'clock, in mending stockings. Then her husband came in, and we sat down to our supper of bread and cheese and small beer. ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... of the Bernards, as well as of something better than small beer, soon handed me a large glassful of this prince ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... 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 the streams ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... been wet and 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 ...
— Granny's Wonderful Chair • Frances Browne
... as well as because he was wise. Everybody 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 ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... me that, though the sorrows of the world are great, its wickedness—that is, its ugliness—is small. Much cause to pity man, little to distrust him. I myself have known adversity, and know it still. But for that, do I turn cynic? No, no: it is small beer that sours. To my fellow-creatures I owe alleviations. So, whatever I may have undergone, it but deepens my confidence in my kind. Now, then" (winningly), "this book—will you let me ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... Sayings.'...He almost beats "Samivel," that prince of heroes. Goodnight, my dear Lyell; you will think I have been drinking some strong drink to write so much nonsense, but I did not even taste Minerva's small beer to-day. ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... 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 ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... to say, sir," roared the General, whose eyes were protruding from his head, "that my plan will be carried out if every pestilent political in Granthistan is opposed to it. It's high time you came back to duty, sir. You seconded subalterns think no small beer of yourselves, I know, but you'll learn better here, I can tell you, and you'll ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... 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 such a poor-house, and endowing it with so considerable a revenue: ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... a humble mood, drank quantities of small beer. In other words, he told his story of Sanchia, of Ingram, and of Mrs. Wilmot. He was so steered by questions from Senhouse that he came, towards the end, to see that if any one had driven his mistress into a life of bondage to Ingram it was himself ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... 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 ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... strove in vain to ape Wood Park. Two bottles call'd for, (half her store, The cupboard could contain but four:) A supper worthy of herself, Five nothings in five plates of delf. Thus for a week the farce went on; When, all her country savings gone, She fell into her former scene, Small beer, a herring, and the Dean. Thus far in jest: though now, I fear, You think my jesting too severe; But poets, when a hint is new, Regard not whether false or true: Yet raillery gives no offence, Where truth has not the least pretence; Nor can be more securely placed Than on ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... ne'er drink small Beer more, that's positive; I'll burn all's Books too, they have help'd to spoil him; and sick or well, sound or unsound, Drinking shall be his Diet, and Whoring his ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... 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, and keep it ...
— The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet • Hannah Wolley
... to take somethin' for the stomach's sake and thine awful infirmities. Aqua fortis, says he, —because you know that'll eat your insides out, if you get it too strong, and so you always mind how much you take. Next to that, says he, rum's the safest for a wise man, and small beer for a fool. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... at the loom, they might have clothed half the 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 fingers have been ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... 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 of Earthworms, scowre them with salt, slit them, and wash well ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... decently, when they were allowed to go on to Anstey's, about one hundred and fifty yards below. Here there was a hole about six feet deep and twelve feet across, over which the puffing urchins struggled to the opposite side, and thought no small beer of themselves for having been out of their depths. Below the Planks came larger and deeper holes, the first of which was Wratislaw's, and the last Swift's, a famous hole, ten or twelve feet deep in parts, and thirty yards across, from which there was a fine swimming ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... of nature I have called to 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 ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... above-mentioned Feast of the Assumption, small beer having been served to the novices in the proportion of one quart to each four, the said brother John did drain the pot at one draught to the detriment of brother Paul, brother Porphyry and brother Ambrose, who could scarce eat their none-meat of salted ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... most illustrious Lord and Prince, Abbot of Fulda, Archchancellor of the most Serene Empress, Primate of all Germany and Gaul, and Prince of the Holy Roman Empire.' Developed, certainly: and not altogether in the right direction. For instead of the small beer, which they had promised St. Boniface to drink to the end of the world, the abbots of Fulda had the best wine in Germany, and the best table too. Be that as it may, to have cleared the timber off the Aihen-lob, and planted a Christian colony instead, ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... That's the kind they mostly make parsons of now, I hear. My boy, 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 start ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... nicht small beer, Mit Boers und such she interfere; She'll learn none owns dis hemisphere But ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... of Coleridge's scanty and suffering commencement of life. At that time, it may be premised, the dietary of Christ's Hospital was of the lowest: breakfast consisting of a "quarter of penny loaf, moistened with attenuated small beer in wooden piggins, smacking of the pitched leathern jack it was poured from," and the weekly rule giving "three ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... invidious distinction, which was denied to us. The present worthy sub-treasurer to the Inner Temple can explain how that happened. He had his tea and hot rolls in a morning, while we were battening upon our quarter of a penny loaf—our crug—moistened with attenuated small beer, in wooden piggins, smacking of the pitched leathern jack it was poured from. Our Monday's milk porritch, blue and tasteless, and the pease soup of Saturday, coarse and choking, were enriched for him with a slice of "extraordinary bread and butter," from the hot-loaf ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... 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 |
