"Pottage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that, Ellis pocketed the purse with nonchalance. He stood leaning on his boar-spear, and looked round upon the rest. They, in various attitudes, took greedily of the venison pottage, and liberally washed it down with ale. This was a good day; they were in luck; but business pressed, and they were speedy in their eating. The first-comers had by this time even despatched their dinner. Some lay down upon ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sense but few now believe him worthy, perhaps no thinker or reflecting man. He is a volcano rather than a sun, a destroyer more than a creator; and our sympathy is mingled with little of that which we feel for the martyr; who dies rather than sell his birthright, heaven, for any mess of earth's pottage, or for him who spends his life in the search for truth, and in speaking it to mankind, taking no heed for himself what he shall eat and wherewithal he shall be clad. No! the feeling is far more akin to that which we have for a deep-playing gambler, whom we know to have ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... Idumea. He called the country by that name from himself, for he was named Adom; which appellation he got on the following occasion:—One day returning from the toil of hunting very hungry, [it was when he was a child in age,] he lighted on his brother when he was getting ready lentile-pottage for his dinner, which was of a very red color; on which account he the more earnestly longed for it, and desired him to give him some of it to eat: but he made advantage of his brother's hunger, and forced him to resign up to him his birthright; and he, being pinched with famine, resigned ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... keep your good morrow to cool your Worships pottage; a couple of the worlds fools met together to raise up dirt ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... rubefacient effects serve instead of those produced externally by mustard. If a teaspoonful is sprinkled within the palms and its volatile vapours are inhaled through the mouth and nose, this [22] will dispel an incipient catarrh. The name Pulsatilla is a diminutive of the Latin puls, a pottage, as made from pulse, and used at sacrificial feasts. The title Anemone signifies "wind-flower." Pliny says this flower never opens but when the wind is blowing. The title has been misapprehended as "an emony." Turner says gardeners call the flowers "emonies"; and Tennyson, ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... secretaries, all dine at four tables, on the quarters of a single pullet: The victuals of the under servants were weighed out in ounces, by the Don himself; with so much garlic in the other scale: A thin slice of bacon went through the family a week together; for it was daily put into the pot for pottage; was served in the midst of the dish at dinners, and taken out and weighed by the steward, at the end of every meal, to see how much it lost; till, at length, looking at it against the sun, it appeared transparent, and then he would have whipped it up, as his own fees, at a morsel; ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... useful one, and it served its turn. I have never trusted myself to love any woman since that day, till I met the pure young creature who is to be my wife. Her truth is above all doubt; she will not sell her birthright for a mess of pottage.' ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... this misshapen thing, the world, be rolled And sphered to perfect freedom, ere the old Incrusted statutes that our God defy Be crushed in its rotation, and those die That lived defiance through them. Then man's gold No more shall manhood buy, or men be sold For pottage messes. We may not be nigh To see the glory, but if true and bold Our hands may haste what others ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... said Berry. "We know they had birthrights. And I'd sooner be a birthright than a wine-cooler any day. Besides, Jonah could go as a mess of pottage. There's an idea for you. ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... said Pigtop, with much feeling—"you shall never suppose that the old sailor sold the birthright of his honour for a mess of pottage." ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... such a cock's head In the path—and it was white! Saw Brinvilliers {334} in his pottage: Faltered, cold and ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... and stolid as her father's face was, yet the girl listened readily. She repeated the prayers after him yawning, but on the other hand, when he, hesitating and trying to express himself elaborately, began telling her stories, she was all attention. Esau's pottage, the punishment of Sodom, and the troubles of the boy Joseph made her turn pale and open ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... now, my girl! There are no chiefs, and no clans any more! The chiefs that need not, yet sell their land like Esau for a mess of pottage—and their brothers with it! And the Sasunnach who buys it, claims rights over them that never grew on the land or were hid in its caves! Thank God, the poor man is not their slave, but he is the worse off, for they will not let him eat, and he has ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... more to a clergyman of any church; but I thought you were aware that it is counted very insulting to Catholics to offer them meat on Fridays, as if they were apostates who would sell their souls for a 'mess of pottage;' and I thought you were aware that we are Catholics, and that our religion forbids us to ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... come to a man when it will, and that man renounces, in spite of himself, his little leaden gods of prosperity, and in his heart, beneath the woven garment of custom, he exchanges his birthright of respectability for a mess of Romany pottage. Under the luminous sweep and rush of this vision, Abel laughed suddenly at the thought of his marriage to Judy. Obstacles which had appeared insurmountable at sunrise, showed now as unsubstantial and evanescent ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... kingdom the servants lived very much as common sailors live now. In the reign of Edward the Sixth the state of the students at Cambridge is described to us, on the very best authority, as most wretched. Many of them dined on pottage made of a farthing's worth of beef with a little salt and oatmeal, and literally nothing else. This account we have from a contemporary master of St. John's. Our parish poor now eat wheaten bread. In the sixteenth century the labourer was glad to get ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... that he lived in the House on the Mount he never visited his friends, nor saw his native land once he had departed from her. He loved the Blessed Virgin with singleness of heart, and on the seventh day of the week he abstained from one portion of pottage out of devotion to her. In these three desires he was heard of the Lord before his death, namely, to die on an high day, and amid the Brothers—for he greatly loved them—and to have a short death struggle; which things were so brought to pass by our good Lord even as he had desired them out ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis
... fell, and he cried, "No trifling! I can't wait! beside, I've promised to visit by dinner time Bagdat, and accept the prime Of the Head Cook's pottage, all he's rich in, For having left, in the Caliph's kitchen, Of a nest of scorpions no survivor: With him I proved no bargain-driver; With you, don't think I'll bate a stiver! And folks who put me in a passion May find ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... Sheeps-heads, Wooll and all, hack, hew, and bruise them into pieces, make Pottage of it, with Oatmeal, and ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... Cf. the story of the wife of Cormac, who was barren till her mother gave her pottage. Then she had ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... ravaging the country. So he was forced to leave his wife. But as he loved her more than his life, and saw that she was beautiful beyond all beautiful things, from this love and beauty there sprang up the feeling of jealousy, which is a tempest in the sea of love, a piece of soot that falls into the pottage of the bliss of lovers—which is a serpent that bites, a worm that gnaws, a gall that poisons, a frost that kills, making life always restless, the mind unstable, the heart ever suspicious. So, calling the fairy, he ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... old and young, for the babe in arms, and the strong man from his field of toil, the provision is the same, so in all our class-work we have the sameness of provision with almost as great disparity of capacity and need. If, out of the whole mental "mess of pottage" that can be taken which builds the student up in true wisdom and knowledge, it is fortunate; but if nothing is assimilated on which the mind could truly thrive, no fault is found with the provision, nor is resultant ignorance considered to be specially worthy ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... his younger brother cooking some lentils, begged a portion of it for himself. Jacob seized the chance to make a sharp bargain. He offered his brother the food—which is called in the quaint Bible language a "mess of pottage"—making him promise in return that he would let their father give his blessing to the younger instead of the older son. Esau was a careless fellow, too hungry to think what he was saying, and so ...
— Rembrandt - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... now forbear to mention that Nature requires very large and chargeable provisions to be made for accomplishing the pleasures of the body; nor can the height of delicacy be had in black bread and lentil pottage. But voluptuous and sensual appetites expect costly dishes, Thasian wines, perfumed unguents, and varieties ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... hung round with the money her late husband had bequeathed her, Maryon's very antithesis in all that pertained to the beautiful—this sickened her. It seemed to her as though he were yielding his birthright in exchange for a mess of pottage. ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... hundred francs—in Paris. At second-hand, of course. The French government can imprison you, you know, for ten years, if you wear one without the right to do so, but they have no punishment for those who choose to part with them for a mess of pottage. ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... worth his mess of pottage wish him such a wish as that, master Heywood! What would mistress Dorothy say to hear thee? I warrant me she findeth no fault with the breadth ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... Infant are a bell, a flask, a spoon to eat pottage with, and a cape. Trowle the servant has nought to offer but a pair of his wife's old hose; four boys follow with presents of a bottle, a hood, a pipe, and a nut-hook. Quaint are the words of ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... himself brought me my platter of this pottage, and though it tasted of nothing in my experience—a kind of sweet, cloying meat—I was so tired of the fruits to which enterprise had as yet condemned me, I ate of it hungrily and heartily. Yet not so fast as that the young "Gulliver" had not finished his before me, and sat at length watching ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... at least expecting, promotion, & failing in a laudable way,—in defence of his own kindred & the home of his bosom companion!—he resorted to Yankeedom, and sold as it were his birthright for a mess of Abolition pottage. This helps confirm my view, that many take positions in Lincoln's Army with the expectation of military promotion, & the hope of an easy conquest of the South. Oh, how deluded! But as for many of them, "God forgive them, for they ...
— Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, - 1857-78 • Ulysses S. Grant
... a further paroxysm of religious despondency and grave concern for German morals. This mood eventuated in Lord Haldane's "week end" trip to Berlin. The voice was the voice of Jacob, in spite of the hand of Esau. Mr. Churchill at Glasgow, showed the real hand and the mess of pottage so amiably offered at Berlin bought no German birthright. The Kreuz Zeitung rightly summed up the situation by pointing out that "Mr. Churchill's testimony can now be advanced as showing that the will of England alone comes in ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... ingendreth naughty blood, causeth troublesome and terrible dreames, offendeth the eyes, dulleth the sight, &c." Nor does Parkinson give a much more favourable account. "Our dainty eye now refuseth them wholly, in all sorts except the poorest; they are used with us sometimes in Lent to make pottage, and is a great and generall feeding in Wales with the vulgar gentlemen." It was even used as the proverbial expression of worthlessness, as in the "Roumaunt of the Rose," where the author says, speaking of "Phiciciens ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... tragedies mingled ever with the grander passion of seeing life as a ruined thing; her birthright to aspiring cleanness sold for a mess of quick-lunch pottage. And as she walked in a mist of agony, a dumb, blind creature heroically distraught, she could scarce distinguish between sordidness and the great betrayals, so chill and thick was the fog ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... side and made itself cosey by burying its snout in his bosom. When meal-time came, the bear sat down beside Juon, for he knew that every second slice of cheese would be his. He also fetched fire-wood to put under the pot in which the maize-pottage was boiling. Then, too, he explored the woods in search of wild honey and brought back his booty to share it with Juon. When it was very hot he carried his pelisse after him, a pelt more or less made very little difference to him. Juon had nobody to speak to but ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... medicines. Indeed, I should fancy that snails must have been almost exterminated in the near vicinity of towns, so largely were they sought for and employed medicinally. There are several receipts for making snail-water, or snail-pottage; here is one of the most ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... rich as it was old and noble, and Don Ippolito was paid from its purse rather than its pride. But the slender salary was a help; these patricians were very good to him; many a time he dined with them, and so spared the cost of his own pottage at home; they always gave him coffee when he came, and that was a saving; at the proper seasons little presents from them were not wanting. In a word, his condition was not privation. He did his ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... announce himself to be the author of "Red Pottage," in the presence of a large number of people, including the late Mr. William Sharp, who related the occurrence to me. But the incident ended uncomfortably for the claimant, which one would have thought he might ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... sadly accommodated herself to "Woman's lot," or acquired a taste for satyr-society, like some of the Nymphs, and all the Bacchanals of old. But to those who could not and would not accept a mess of pottage, or a Circe cup, in lieu of their birthright, and to these others who have yet their choice to make, I say, Courage! I have some words of cheer for you. A man, himself of unbroken purity, reported to me the words of a foreign artist, that "the world would never be better till men ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... little community was already astir, and then the Angelus summoned all to the church, where mass was said, and a short time given to the religious instruction of the neophytes. Breakfast followed, composed mainly of the staple dish atole, or pottage of roasted barley. This finished, the Indians repaired in squads, each under the supervision of its alcalde, to their various tasks in workshop and field. Between eleven and twelve o'clock, a wholesome and sufficiently generous midday meal ...
— The Famous Missions of California • William Henry Hudson
... life. For one other day the two Southwestern representatives put up at the Grand Union, Copah's tar-paper-covered simulacrum of a hotel; and during that day Ford contrived to sell his birthright for what he, himself, valued at the moment as a mess of pottage. ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... practice in Germany for those who fatten bullocks for the butcher, or feed milch-cows, to give them frequently what is called a drank or drink; which is a kind of pottage, prepared differently in different parts of the country, and in the different seasons, according to the greater facility with which one or other of the articles occasionally employed in the composition of it may be procured; and according to the particular ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... Tattlesnivel, sir, remembering that our forefathers contended with the Norman at Hastings, and bled at a variety of other places that will readily occur to you, demands that its birthright shall not be bartered away for a mess of pottage. Have a care, sir, have a care! Or Tattlesnivel (its idle Rifles piled in its scouted streets) may be seen ere long, advancing with its Bleater to the foot of the Throne, and demanding redress for this conspiracy, from the orbed and ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... with those of her Allies. Nor was he deterred when Signor Salandra, the former Premier, called him Italy's evil spirit who, devoid of any patriotism, would have sold the Fatherland to the Central Powers for a mess of pottage. Giolitti, on whom 300 deputies had left their cards in the tragic hours before the declaration of war, had good reason to know that even if Giolittism had melted away, the House had secretly ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... pottage. Calves' head and bacon. Boiled beef, a clod. Goose. Two baked puddings. Pig. Three dishes of minced Plumm pottage. pies. Roast beef, sirloin. Two capons. Veale, a loin. Two dishes ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... place of slaughter Are cots and sheepfolds seen, And rows of vines, and fields of wheat, And apple-orchards green; 40 And swine crush the big acorns That fall from Corne's[18] oaks. Upon the turf by the Fair Fount[19] The reaper's pottage smokes. The fisher baits his angle; 45 The hunter twangs his bow; Little they think on those strong limbs That moulder deep below. Little they think how sternly That day the trumpets pealed; 50 How in the slippery swamp of blood Warrior and war-horse reeled; How wolves came with ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... those on which we beat hemp, and in these they beat their corn to powder with wooden beetles. The meal is kneaded into cakes, which they lay on a broad hot stone, covering it up with other heated stones, which thus serve instead of ovens. Besides these cakes, they make several kinds of pottage from their maize, and also of beans and pease, both of which they have in abundance. They have also a variety of fruits, such as musk-melons and very large cucumbers. They have likewise large vessels in all their houses, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... forth, yet not wholly depraved. How man comes by this indiscretion, seeing God made him upright, he is discreet enough not to reveal. 'Dear heart!' said I, 'but how comes it, if so be, that man shall sell his eternal birthright for a mess of sorry pottage, as over and over again you and I have seen him do? Call you this but indiscretion? Methinks you should scarce name it thus if Mrs Aletheia yonder were to cast away a rich clasp of emeralds for a ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... meantime." Mr. Vandeford placed the precious "Purple Slipper" in the hands of a man who at that very moment had two successful plays running on Broadway, his interest in both of which he had sold out for a mess of pottage to be consumed in the company of Miss Mazie Villines of ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... composed of such persons as had resorted to the arts and charms of divination and sorcery in order to protect themselves and others from diabolical influence. They were both considered as highly, if not equally, criminal. Fuller, in his "Profane State," thus speaks of them: "Better is it to lap one's pottage like a dog, than to eat it mannerly, with a spoon of the Devil's giving. Black witches hurt and do mischief; but, in deeds of darkness, there is no difference of colors. The white and the black are both guilty alike in compounding with the Devil." White witches pretended ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... heard at all, the enumeration of plants, herbs, and shrubs which his reverend conductor pointed out to him, of which this was choice, because of prime use in medicine, and that more choice for yielding a rare flavour to pottage, and a third, choicest of all, because possessed of no merit but its extreme scarcity. Still it was necessary to preserve some semblance at least of attention, which the youth found so difficult, that ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... yourselves, you doors, for mighty Wealth will enter in, and with Wealth comes jolly Mirth and gentle Peace. May all the corn-bins be full and the mass of dough always overflow the kneading-trough. Now (set before us) cheerful barley-pottage, ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... they destroyed all taste that might stir them to pleasure. Also, S. Germanus mixed ashes with his bread, that he should feel no pleasure in his meat-time. Other sauce than hunger, they took none. S. Gregory says: "bread made of bran and water, with cold or other simple pottage is good food to the well-taught stomach, with sauce of GOD'S love if he have it therewith: without this sauce, no sustenance has savour that man enjoys." Some eat no meat before the night; some only every other day; some fast three days together. Machari fasted all the Lenten-tide, ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole
... of encouragement. I will keep them near me till I have occasion to try them; when, if they prove their abilities, I will promote them; but if not, I will put them to death." He then allotted them an apartment, with an allowance of three cakes of bread and a mess of pottage daily; but placed spies over them, fearing lest ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... by a gurgling stream, and sheltered by a fair green hill. As we quit the highroad to reach the monument, we come upon pretty pastoral groups. It is supper-time-l'heure de la soupe, as French rustics say— and before every cottage-door are squatted family groups, eating their pottage on the doorsteps. Around are the dogs and cats, chickens, pigs and goats. To every humble homestead is attached orchard, garden, even a patch of corn or vineyard. All ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... undertook to order these fellows, according to that excellent way which we had seen in your lordship's most honourable actions. Some consented to go with us, though unwillingly; but most of them ran to the pottage pot, swearing it was dinner time. We went all on board this night, except our great mastiff dog, which we could not induce to follow us, for I think he was ashamed of our cowardly behaviour. The land here ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... friend," she cried, with a catch in her voice, "to do as other women do; to accept the HONORABLE MARRIAGE you offer me, as other women would call it; to be false to my sex, a traitor to my convictions; to sell my kind for a mess of pottage, a name and a home, or even for thirty pieces of silver, to be some rich man's wife, as other women have sold it. But, Alan, I can't. My conscience won't let me. I know what marriage is, from what vile slavery it has sprung; on what unseen horrors for my sister women it is reared ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... the same fire to boil their pottage, Two poor old dames, as I have known, Will often live in one small cottage, But she, poor woman, dwelt alone. 'Twas well enough when summer came, The long, warm, lightsome summer-day, Then at her door the canty dame Would sit, as any ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge
... the place of slaughter Are cots and sheepfolds seen, And rows of vines, and fields of wheat, And apple-orchards green; The swine crush the big acorns That fall from Corne's oaks. Upon the turf by the Fair Fount The reaper's pottage smokes. The fisher baits his angle; The hunter twangs his bow; Little they think on those strong limbs That moulder deep below. Little they think how sternly That day the trumpets pealed; How in the slippery swamp of blood Warrior ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... dollars, Mrs. Davis, is a considerable sum of money, but it is a small mess of pottage compared with what awaits you in the hands of the Washington Trust Company. Let me see how much the ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... There was always something very Gallic about his saltiness. "Oh, to be born a Frenchman!" he writes. "Why wasn't I born a Frenchman instead of a dour, dingy Scotsman? Oh, for the birthright of Montmartre! Stead of which I have the mess of pottage—stodgy, porridgy ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... the soft dews and rains in their season. But there was a notable difference, adapted to the characters of the two brothers. Esau was a profane man, he disregarded divine things. He was ready to sell his birthright, his privilege to be the forefather of Messiah, for a mess of pottage. He cared not for God, neither was God in all his thoughts. It was otherwise with Jacob, he regarded God, he sought God, he saw God in the visions of the night, he strove with God in prayer. He had set God always before him. And thus these several blessings ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... the Swiss Protestant minister and author, is of the opinion that coffee (and not lentils, as others have supposed) was the red pottage for which Esau sold his birthright; also that the parched grain that Boaz ordered to be given Ruth was ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... bridge; but though dignified with the name of hotel, it is only a common roadside inn. Still, it is tolerably clean, and in summer the want of carpets is not missed. The people were civil and attentive, their bread wholesome, their pottage and bouilli good—being such fare as the people of the locality contrive to live and thrive upon. The accommodation of the place is, indeed, quite equal to the demand; for very few travellers accustomed to a better style of living pass that way. When the landlady was asked if ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... Plymire might be, and pictured to myself some old attorney who had fallen into the hands of Doddridge Knapp, and had, through misfortune, been forced to sell everything for the mess of pottage to keep life in him. But there was small time for musing, and I went out to do Doddridge Knapp's bidding in the ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... a bushel of lentils and sift and crush and cook them. Then must thou fetch water in barrels and fill the four fountains; after which thou must take three hundred and threescore and six wooden platters and crumble the cracknels therein and pour of the lentil pottage over each and carry every monk and patriarch his platter.' 'Take me back to the King and let him kill me,' said Alaeddin; 'it were easier to me than this service.' 'If thou do the service that is due from thee,' ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... a time had made a good pottage, and Esau his brother had been an hunting all day and came home sore an hungred, and found Jacob having good pottage, and prayed him to give him some, for he was weary and much hungry. To whom Jacob said: ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... disdainfully doing a disagreeable task. It is said, "Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of anything that is lent upon usury"; but he evidently was not my brother, for he demanded seventy per cent. I put my signature to certain indentures, received my pottage, and fled from ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... shall be very costive may doe well to eat moistning meats, and to use mollifying hearbes, raisons stoned, corants, damascene prunes, butter, or the yolkes of egges, and the like in their broths, or pottage. If these will not be sufficient, then let a day be spared from drinking the water, and let the party take some lenitive medicine, as laxative corants, or some such like thing: whereof the Physitian hath ...
— Spadacrene Anglica - The English Spa Fountain • Edmund Deane
... right from Pease Pottage, in the recesses of St. Leonard's Forest, and two miles from the main route, is Holmbush Beacon Tower. This should be visited for the sake of the magnificent woodland views; in the distance are the south Downs visible from Butser Hill behind Portsmouth to the hills surrounding ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... fashion of them to wear cloaks when they go abroad, but especially on Sundays. They have neither good bread, cheese nor drink. They cannot make them, nor will they learn. Their butter is very indifferent, and one would wonder how they could contrive to make it so bad. They use much pottage made of coal-wort, which they call kail, sometimes broth of decorticated barley. The ordinary country-houses are pitiful cots, built of stone and covered with turfs, having in them but one room, many of them no chimneys, the windows very small holes and not glazed. The ground in the valleys ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... and can demand it from you. It stands on the basis of parental duty imposed on you by God Himself. It is a prime necessity. It is your children's birthright, which they themselves cannot sell with impunity, for the pottage of gold or silver or pleasure: neither can you neglect or abuse ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... Heaven, suh, you'll make me lose my tempah! You add insult to injury, suh, when you offeh me youh contemptible Yankee gold. When I desiah to sell my birthright for youh beggahly mess of pottage, I'll send a black boy in town to ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... therefore prescribes his patient "to go with hair-cloth next his skin, to go barefooted, and barelegged in cold weather, to whip himself now and then, as monks do, but above all to fast." Not with sweet wine, mutton and pottage, as many of those tender-bellies do, howsoever they put on Lenten faces, and whatsoever they pretend, but from all manner of meat. Fasting is an all-sufficient remedy of itself; for, as Jason Pratensis holds, the bodies of such persons that feed liberally, and live at ease, [5611]"are full of bad ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... well; why could she not be like other people? Certainly once in a while she could have the things she "loved." It was only a small mess of pottage—some chops, a cup of real coffee, some after-dinner mints. The doctor had proscribed them all, but "Once won't hurt." Her conscience did prick, but days passed; there was no spell, no chill, no headache. ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... occasion of receiving his parting blessing, which should secure the privileges and pre-eminence of the first-born. The hunter went into the fields, and Rebekah recollected that Jacob had purchased the birthright of his brother for a mess of pottage one day when he came in from the chase faint with hunger and exhaustion. She determined by a stroke of management to secure the patriarchal benediction. She sent him to the flocks after two kids, which were prepared with the savory delicacy his father ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... the Rat hotly; "I'll have none of your pottage, or your sauce, either. You don't suppose I am going to give my best buffalo, that gave quarts and quarts of milk-the buffalo I have been feeding all day-for a wee bit of rice? No! I got a loaf for a bit of stick; I got a pipkin for a little loaf; I got a buffalo ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... for pottage, sell true bliss For wealth or power, for pleasure or renown; Thus, Esau-like, our Father's blessing miss, Then wash with fruitless tears our ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... find one but Jacob that had any, And no grant would he make for ought that I could say, Yet no man alive with fairer words could him pray. But the best red pottage ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... estate or condition soever he be, shall cause himself to be served, in his house or elsewhere, at dinner, meal, or supper, or at any other time, with more than two courses, and each mess of two sorts of victuals at the utmost, be it of flesh or fish, with the common sorts of pottage, without sauce or any other sorts of victuals. And if any man choose to have sauce for his mess, he may, provided it be not made at great cost; and if fish or flesh be to be mixed therein, it shall be of two sorts only at the utmost, ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... all now," he said, "and if after this I hear of a single perversion, woe be unto that pervert, for it is better for his miserable soul that he had never been born. Is there a man here base enough to sell his birthright for a mess of Mr. Lucre's pottage? Is there a man here, who is not too strongly imbued with a hatred of heresy, to laugh to scorn their bribes and their Bibles. Not a man, or, if there is, let him go out from amongst us, in order that we may know him—that we may avoid his outgoings and his incomings—that ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... a hunter. On returning one day from hunting he was faint from hunger, and cast a greedy eye on some pottage that Jacob had prepared. But Jacob would not give his hungry brother the food until he had promised, by a solemn oath, to surrender his birthright to him. The clever man of enterprise, impulsive and passionate, thought more, for the moment, of the pangs of hunger than of his ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... the hint, and instantly turning the box, read to his astonishment, Mrs. Norton, Summerfield pottage, Wicklow, and then looked at Dandy for an explanation. The latter nodded with his usual easy confidence, and proceeded, "It's all right, sir—she was in France—own maid to Lady Cullamore—came home and got married—first to a Mr. Norton, and ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... adventurous Americans entered the Spanish-Texan Territory at Nacogdoches, going through the land buying horses, and lending their stout hearts and ready rifles to every effort for freedom which the Texans made. For though the Americans were few in number and much scattered, they were like the salt in a pottage, and men caught fire and the idea of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... in the west, by a family who have come down on a special mission from some great chief to his brethren on the Otonabee, and the squaws have cooked some in honour of the guests. That pot that sends up such a savoury steam is venison-pottage, or soup, or stew, or any name you choose to give the Indian mess that is concocted of venison, wild rice, and herbs. Those tired hounds that lie stretched before the fire have been out, and now they enjoy the privilege of the fire, some praise from the ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... mats close wove, wherewith they adorn their huts, and some earthen vessels which they are very skilful at making, and wherein they boil their flesh or roots, or sagamise, which, as has been said, is their pottage. They have also some small baskets made of canes, serving to put in their fruit and other provisions. Their beds are made of canes, raised 2 or 3 feet above the ground, handsomely fitted with mats and ...
— Prehistoric Textile Art of Eastern United States • William Henry Holmes
... "For pottage and puddings and custards and pies, Our pumpkins and parsnips are common supplies! We have pumpkin at morning and pumpkin at noon, If it was not for pumpkin we ...
— The Women Who Came in the Mayflower • Annie Russell Marble
... is the spirit of the Home Rule movement, and therefore it cannot be crushed, it cannot be destroyed, it is eternal and ever young. Nor can it be persuaded to exchange its birthright for any mess of efficiency-pottage at the hands of ...
— The Case For India • Annie Besant
... my Soul! how glad am I to find thee in my Arms again— and well— When left you Paris? Paris, that City of Pottage and Crab-Wine, swarming with Lacquies and Philies, whose Government is carried on by most Hands, not most Voices— And prithee how does ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... hardly consent to sell our birthright for so poor a mess of pottage as this petty jealousy offers. A teachable spirit in matters of which we are ignorant, is usually as profitable and respectable as abundant self-conceit, and rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, quite as honest as to pocket the coin as our own, ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... I would answer that I would not sell myself to the devil of the flesh and of this present world. What! Barter my birthright of immortality for the mess of pottage of a few brief years of union? Pay out my high hopes to their last bright coin for this dinner of mingled herbs? Drain the well of faith dug with so many prayers and labours, that its waters may suffice to nourish a rose planted in the sand, whose ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... Bonner. As to poor Clary, Sir Thomas was very decided that if there were any truth in the suspicion which had been now roused in his mind as to Ralph the heir, the thing must be put an end to at once. Ralph who had been the heir was now in possession of that mess of pottage for which he had sold his inheritance,—so said Sir Thomas to his daughter,—and would undoubtedly consume that, as he had consumed the other mess which should have lasted him till the inheritance was his own. And he told to Patience the whole story as to Polly Neefit,—the whole story, ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... friend and close comrade; yet now he walks free and lives in ease, while my poor husband is in slavery. Why is it thus? Because he over yonder was false to his oath, to his friends, and to his king. He sold them all, like Esau, for a mess of pottage. Mark him well, my child, and beware of his like; for in these days they are not a few, and woe to any who ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... the perfume and music of the fine world of good-breeding and taste—these were made for woman; they are her equitable portion. Let her keep near them if they are a part of life to her, and if she will. She is no traitor to herself, as Esau was; for she keeps he birthright and the pottage she earns is ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... a good deal of feeling into their crying of special editions when I reached the streets again; but I was not inclined to waste further pence upon the Sunday News' moralizings over the evolution of canards. I took a mess of some adulterated pottage at a foreign restaurant in Notting Hill, as I had no wish to return to Bloomsbury before the Demonstration. The waiter—either a Swiss or ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... the same fire to boil their pottage, Two poor old Dames, as I have known, Will often live in one small cottage; 35 But she, poor Woman! housed [3] alone. 'Twas well enough when summer came, The long, warm, lightsome summer-day, Then at ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... her birthright of charm and seduction for his sake sat down to eat her mess of pottage. Not that she thought even as far as that. Thought appeared to be suspended. As a typhoon has its calm center, so the mad tumult of her spirit held a false peace. She rested there in it, torpid as to emotion, ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... sacrifice, and with this view the best hunters were dispatched to the forest, in quest of those animals supposed to be most acceptable to the mighty guest. The women were directed to prepare tasmanane and pottage in the best manner. All the idols were brought out, examined, and put in order. As a grand dance was always supposed to be an agreeable entertainment to the Great Spirit, one was ordered, not only ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... quantity than is given in other cases:—viz. of the decoction, five ounces, of common oil, three ounces, of sugar, two ounces, and of cassia fistula, one ounce. But if she will not take a clyster, one or two yolks of new laid eggs, or a little peas-pottage warm, a little salt and sugar, and supped a little before meat, will be very convenient. But if her belly be distended and stretched with wind a little fennel seed and aniseed reduced to a powder and mixed with honey and sugar made after ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... 1325, in consideration of benefits received, that four masses per annum should be said for them during life, at the four chief feasts, and 300 per annum for either or both after death, for ever; on the anniversary of Hugh, the Abbot bound himself to feed the poor with bread, beer, pottage, and one mess from the kitchen, for ever. (Rot. Pat., 20 Edward the Second) In the Appendix to the companion volume, In All Time of our Tribulation, will be found an account of the petitions of the two Despensers, with the curious ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... opposed or denied, especially as it may bear upon the personal glory of our Redeemer. Love to Christ is often tested by an enlightened and firm adherence to the "truth as it is in Jesus," when "false apostles will sell it for a mess of pottage." (Prov. xxiii. 23; 2 Cor. xiii. 8.) The first promise here is of a temporal kind, of protection in time of general danger. The "temptation" thus predicted may refer to some of those "ten persecutions" waged by the Roman ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... "I will do so, dear Hans." And when he was gone, she cooked herself a nice mess of pottage to take with her. As she came to the field she said to herself, "What shall I do? Shall I cut first, or eat first? Ay, I will eat first!" Then she ate up the contents of her pot, and when it was finished, she thought to herself, "Now, shall I reap first or sleep first? ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... should bring each his butt, or whet-stone, along with him, for the entertainment of the company — My uncle says, he never desires to meet with more than one wit at a time — One wit, like a knuckle of ham in soup, gives a zest and flavour to the dish; but more than one serves only to spoil the pottage — And now I'm afraid I have given you an unconscionable mess, without any flavour at all; for which, I suppose, you will ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... one is made of parsley, pennyroyal, cheese, pine-tops, honey, brine, eggs, cucumbers, onions, and hen livers; the other is much the same as the soup-maigre of this country. Then there is a loin of veal boiled with fennel and caraway-seed, on a pottage composed of pickle, oil, honey, and flour, and a curious hachis of the lights, liver, and blood of a hare, together with a dish of roasted pigeons. Monsieur le baron, shall I help you to a plate of this ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... of hot pottage and a warm cake for thee, Naomi. Eat all of it," she commanded. "And talk not to me of robbers. In truth, there are as many robbers in the khan at Bethlehem as upon the length of Jerusalem highway. The caravan to Egypt will pay for straw for six camels and ten mules, will they, when I ...
— Christmas Light • Ethel Calvert Phillips
... according to thy Promise, in providing me such Dishes as I think fit whilst I live; and when I die, thou knowest I have left thee all!" Phansy Father talking like that! Were I not so provoked, I could laugh. And he to sell his Children's Birthright for a Mess of Pottage, who, instead of loving savoury Meat, like blind Isaac, was, in fact, the most temperate of Men! who cared not what he ate, so 'twas sweet and clean; who might have said with godly Mr. Ball of Whitmore, ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... truth and plain-speaking? Ah, where are they found? As scarce in these days as is genuine freedom! They all prate of Honour, yet Honour all round They'll sell for the first mess of pottage from Edom. Well, Madame, Punch wishes you luck with your lantern, And up, soon or late, may a true ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890 • Various
... of Edward III., in 1336, prohibited any man having more than two courses at any meal. Each mess was to have only two sorts of victuals, and it was prescribed how far one could mix sauce with his pottage, except on feast days, when three ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... than usual as she moved beside Mrs. Graham into the music-room. A wave of contempt was sweeping over her, as she reviewed the dinner, its gilding, its gluttony, and its unspeakable dulness, and she felt that she had sold her birthright of self-respect for a mess of pottage. ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... called a great step-sisterhood; and even the silent Lida Bowman, wife of Dick, came from her fastness and for once in a year met her old friends who knew her in the town's early days before she went to South Harvey to share the red pottage ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... house, or know his mother and brother and sisters? Why be visited by him at your own? Are these things material to our covenant? Leave this touching and clawing. Let him be to me a spirit. A message, a thought, a sincerity, a glance from him, I want, but not news, nor pottage. I can get politics and chat and neighborly conveniences from cheaper companions. Should not the society of my friend be to me poetic, pure, universal and great as nature itself? Ought I to feel that our tie is profane ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... face fell, and he cried: "No trifling! I can't wait, beside! I've promised to visit by dinner time Bagdat, and accept the prime Of the Head-Cook's pottage, all he's rich in, For having left, in the Caliph's kitchen, Of a nest of scorpions no survivor: 180 With him I proved no bargain-driver, With you, don't think I'll bate a stiver! And folks who put me in a passion May find me pipe ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... of this manor, in the reign of Henry III. held it by this service, viz. to make the king a mess of pottage at his coronation; and so lately as the reign of Charles II. this service was ordered by the court of claims, and accepted by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various
... them. Laban retains the white ones, as most numerous: Jacob has to put up with the spotted ones, as the mere refuse. But he is able here, too, to secure his own advantage: and as by a paltry mess (/of pottage/) he had procured the birthright, and, by a disguise, his father's blessing, he manages by art and sympathy to appropriate to himself the best and largest part of the herds; and on this side also he becomes the truly worthy ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... judgment simpliciter now as before, and appeal to the ordinary assembly of the church, for reasons before produced in write. Pity yourselves for the Lord's sake; lose not your own dear souls, I beseech you for Esau's pottage: Remember Balaam, who was cast away by the deceit of the wages of unrighteousness; forget not how miserable Judas was, who lost himself for a trifle of money, that never did him good. Better be pined to death by hunger, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... fell, and he cried, "No trifling! I can't wait! beside, I've promised to visit by dinner time Bagdat, and accept the prime Of the head cook's pottage, all he's rich in, For having left, in the Caliph's kitchen, Of a nest of scorpions no survivor,— With him I proved no bargain-driver; With you, don't think I'll bate a stiver! And folks who put me in a passion May find ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the Prior in a quivering voice, his eyes glistening and his cheeks red with anger, "dost thou prate to my very beard, sirrah? By Saint Hubert, thou hadst best save thy breath to cool thy pottage, else it may ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... the appearance of laying him under pecuniary obligation. When his first pause of joy and astonishment was over, his thoughts turned to the unworthy heir-male, who, he pronounced, 'had sold his birthright, like Esau, for a mess o' pottage.' ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... "Kail through the reek," to give one a severe reproof. Kail-brose, pottage of meal made with the scum of broth. Kale-yard, a vegetable garden. Ken, to know. Kend, knew. Kenna, kensna, know not. Kittle, ticklish. ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... master's estate, who does not know how to put on his clothes, or to eat as he should do; but when fine birds, fat sows, and hares are placed before him, falls to and eats till he bursts, of salt meat and pottage. The writer I just now mentioned describes the strangest wounds, and the most extraordinary deaths you ever heard of; tells us of a man's being wounded in the great toe, and expiring immediately; and how on Priscus, the general, bawling ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... author of Red Pottage, niece of that lovable Reginald Cholmondeley, and herself an old friend, sent greetings and urgent ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... effects. In Congress Chase, Sumner, Seward, and even moderates like Edward Everett denounced the ambitious politician from Illinois who had dared to "sell the birthright of the free States for a mess of pottage." It was a revival of the sectional hatred, as well as of the fears of the aggressive planters who had enticed Douglas to go one step ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... being very ignorant indeed, he sold himself into bondage for a mess of pottage, and was thrall for weary years. He got exactly what he paid for. And life was ashes upon his head and wormwood in his mouth, and his heart was empty in his breast, because he snatched at shadows. And then one day the door of his prison was opened by the keeper, and he said, 'Now ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... birthright, For a mess ov worldly pottage: But spend less time i'th' squire's hall An moor ...
— Yorkshire Tales. Third Series - Amusing sketches of Yorkshire Life in the Yorkshire Dialect • John Hartley
... minds, fascinatingly, notorious. But now I was hail-fellow-well-met with him, a bird of his own feather, a rogue of his own kidney, to whom he threw open the gates of his bediamonded and befrilled Alsatia. A pestilential fellow! As if I would mortgage my birthright for such a mess of pottage. ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke |
