"Small beer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... manner of Tisiphone, frowning upon him, "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 effect ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... at hand, as they are about many Farms in England, they 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; ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... younger 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 rooms 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 a chimneypiece was of marble. A slab of common free-stone and fire irons which had cost from three to four shillings were thought sufficient for any fireplace. The best-apartments ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and before long it became putrid. 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 ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... wear, or enjoy, that is not there loaded with a tax; even the light from heaven is only permitted to shine into their dwellings by paying eighteen pence sterling per window annually; and the humblest drink of life, small beer, cannot there be purchased without a tax of nearly two coppers per gallon, besides a heavy tax upon the malt, and another on the hops before it is brewed, exclusive of a land-tax on the earth which produces them. In short, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... young and old, grandparents and children and dogs all at once, eating, drinking, smoking, piano-playing, and pistol-firing (in the garden), all going on at the same time. It is one of those establishments where every earthly thing that can be eaten or drunk is offered you; porter, soda water, small beer, champagne, burgundy, or claret are about all the time, and everybody is smoking the best Havana ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... introduced into England in 1492; into Scotland as early as 1482. By the statute of King James I. one full quart of the best beer or ale was to be sold for one penny, and two quarts of small beer for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various
... Tom - Tom was one of those who can persuade themselves to anything they like - "I've often thought I wasn't the small beer I ...
— The Lamplighter • Charles Dickens
... conformation of the sublimest effort of poetic genius, the construction of an "Epic Poem," are numerically three; viz., a beginning, a middle, and an end. The incipient characters necessary to the beginning, ripening in the middle, and, like the drinkers of small beer and October leaves, falling in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... 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," ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... understanding, does not illuminate them. The movements of her imagination are cumbered by a too narrow—however charming—cage. Her excellence belongs to the hours when, not trying to transcend her little Pennsylvania universe, she brings accuracy and shrewdness and felicity to the chronicles of small beer in Old Chester Tales and Dr. Lavendar's People. These strictures and this praise she earns by her adherence to the parochial cult of ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... 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 Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... task on behalf 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 us forecast her future. She will ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... 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 and very cheap. All the brandy which ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... her most tenderly. She complained of feeling somewhat faint, and said we must now go to the house to get some wine. We put ourselves in order, and all radiant at the thoughts of paternity, I strutted along as proud as a peacock, and thinking no small beer of myself. I hardly knew whether I stood on my head or my heels, and was quite extravagant in my conduct. Dear Mrs. V. was obliged seriously to caution me before I could come to a proper reserved behaviour ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... 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 such a poor-house, and endowing it with ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... Take two quarts of small beer and one ounce of isinglass; boil them together five or six minutes; put it into a can or pail, and whisk it till it comes to the consistence of yest; let it stand an hour after, then put it to your wort in the same manner you were used to do the natural yest; this will ...
— The Cyder-Maker's Instructor, Sweet-Maker's Assistant, and Victualler's and Housekeeper's Director - In Three Parts • Thomas Chapman
... 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 ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... 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
... Chronicles small beer — things about books and little Indian beasts and natives, and there is another digression to the subject of "English v. British Union, and the Imperial Idea," and a sail over the Bay with a piratical (looking) crew, to the ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... 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 ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... all that bowing and scraping; he don't like officers or men to touch their hats, but to take them right off their heads when they speak to him. You see, he's a sprig of nobility, as they call it, and what's more he's also a post-captain, and thinks no small beer of himself; so don't forget what ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... quite boiling, on eight bushels of malt; cover, and let it stand three hours. In the mean time infuse four pounds of hops in a little hot water; and put the water and hops into the tub, and run the wort upon them, and boil them together three hours. Strain off the hops, and keep for the small beer. Let the wort stand in a high tub till cool enough to receive the yeast, of which put two quarts of ale, or, if you cannot get it, of small-beer yeast. Mix it thoroughly and often. When the wort has done working, the second or third day ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various
... gumption 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
... poor People would suffer very much from their [Poverty and Cold, [3]] 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 a running for twelve Days to every one that calls for it. I have always a Piece of cold Beef and a Mince-Pye upon the Table, and am wonderfully pleased to see my Tenants pass away a whole Evening in playing ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... 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 ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... a small glass of beer! He was a foreigner and he probably knew no better, so I suppose I shouldn't have judged him too harshly. But it was Christmas Eve and snowing outside—and he took a small beer! ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... and wash them well in two or three waters, and then in small Beer, bruise them shells and all, then put them into a gallon of red Cows Milk, red Rose leaves dried, the whites cut off, Rosemary, sweet Marjoram, of each one handful, and so distil them in a cold still, and let it drop upon powder of white ...
— A Queens Delight • Anonymous
... extraordinary power of making anything interesting—of entirely transcending the subject—which belongs to the letter-writer in probably a greater measure than to any man-of-letters in the other sense, except the poet. The matter which these letters have to chronicle is often the very smallest of small beer. The price, conveyance and condition of the fish his correspondents buy for him or give him (Cowper was very fond of fish and lived, before railways, in the heart of the Midlands); one of the most uneventful of picnics; ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... in again bearing an additional chair, and Mrs. Chaffery appeared behind her, crowning the preparations with a jug of small beer. The cloth, Lewisham observed, as he turned towards it, had several undarned holes and discoloured places, and in the centre stood a tarnished cruet which contained mustard, pepper, vinegar, and three ambiguous dried-up bottles. The bread was on an ample board with a pious rim, and ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... stretched out in our hickory chairs, and only kept awake by the flies, when our landlord returned and set before us what food he had. The fare was scanty enough, but we ate hungrily, and drank deeply of the fresh small beer which he ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... half a pound of beef and a gill of barley, one pound and a half of bread, for five days in the week, and one pound of cod fish, and one pound of potatoes, or one pound of smoked herring, the other two days; and porter and small beer were allowed to be sold to us.—Boats with garden vegetables visited the ship daily; so that we now lived in clover compared with our former hard fare and cruel treatment. Upon the whole, I believe that we fared as well as could be expected, ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... Jamieson, "is the weakest kind of small beer, sold at a penny per bottle;" and muslin-kail is a common kind of broth. The proverb expresses that ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... 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 as King Philip's War, the ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... Diogenes," 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 Charlesbridge at least, everything ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... his wife, "stop banging the table and getting hot about nothing. Remember how thee hadst the colonies ruined in Stamp Act times, and again during the Association, and it all went over, just as this will. Pour thy father another tankard of small beer, Janice." ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... 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 felony, to drink small beer."—Jack Cade. ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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 itself; and the liquor has no more effect ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... as 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
... believe, to 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 his statement, yet he always found more agreeable employment ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... determined to go with Frank 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
... 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 a ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... its destructive properties, voracity, and sagacity, which set at nought "all the contrivances of the farmer to defend his barns; the trailer his warehouse; the gentleman his land; or the inferior people their cup-boards and small beer cellars. No bars or bolts can keep them out, nor can any gin or trap ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 185, May 14, 1853 • Various
... 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
... 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 rebuff did her good, and it was observable that she ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... breed good positions, and the Pope he best concludes against in plum-broth. He is often drunk, but not as we are, temporally; nor can his sleep then cure him, for the fumes of his ambition make his very soul reel, and that small beer that should allay him (silence) keeps him more surfeited, and makes his heat break out in private houses. Women and lawyers are his best disciples; the one, next fruit, longs for forbidden doctrine, the other to maintain forbidden titles, both which ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... ever feel as a woman does about such things! Men,—they would as soon marry Tabitha as Juliana. They could call her "Wife." It made no matter to them. What did any man care, provided she chronicled small beer, whether she had taste, feeling, sentiment, anything? Here I was wrong, as most passionate people are at some time in their lives. Some ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... vintages must pass lightly over small beer. I will not dwell on his leisurely progress in the bright weather, or on his luncheon in a coppice of young firs, or on his thoughts which had returned to the idyllic. I take up the narrative at about three o'clock ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... all but beef and mutton, except on 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. 23, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... 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 drown ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... 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
... 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
... shall 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 Study. [Aside, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... 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 ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... resolution about my boy's livery. Here I spent an hour walking in the garden with Sir W. Pen, and then my wife and I thither to supper, where his son William is at home not well. But all things, I fear, do not go well with them; they look discontentedly, but I know not what ails them. Drinking of cold small beer here I fell ill, and was forced to go out and vomit, and so was well again and went home by and by to bed. Fearing that Sarah would continue ill, wife and I removed this night to our ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... 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 ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... all impure spirits retire, taking off their hats, and bowing down to the very ground, but apprehending Small Beer. ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... mother, took her 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
... house, as he could do nothing else for us, suggested his youngest sister, who became the comfort of my life, for she was the widow of a small farmer, and could give me plenty of sound counsel as to how much pork to provide for the labourers, and how much small beer would keep them in good heart, and not make them too merry. And she had too much good sense to get into rivalry with Susan Sisson, the hind's wife, who lived in a kind of lean-to cottage opening into the farm-yard, and was the chief (real) manager ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wait all day in sight of that towered city, exposed to the full fury of the interviewer. When I ventured to ask the two reporters in question whether they did not think it was perfectly absurd and ridiculous to print the chronicles of small beer, or, rather, of small slops, such as appeared in their columns, they readily, and I believe perfectly honestly, agreed, but said in defence that they had to obey their editor's orders. To me, at any rate, they acted most ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... and of 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 ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... drink for them that had 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... before, when he had gone to the pig-market in Gnesen, he had brought gin back with him, a whole keg of clear gin, some bad stuff made of potatoes, like that given to reapers at harvest-time. And he drank it off as if it were small beer. "Tell me how it is that father has so changed," he continued, in a voice that sounded quite rough. "He used to be so lively formerly. He has always been fond of a drink—who wouldn't be?—but still he never took more than he could stand. But now!" He shook his head, and his glance ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... artfulness of this, nevertheless she could not help being touched. The care of the still-room was hers, because, though my grandmother could go through twice the work in the day that her daughter could, the brewing of the family small beer and other labours of the still-room were of too exact and methodical a nature for a ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... 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
... that skill which he possessed, and of forgetting, in the occupations of his art, the pangs of love. It was then that the large footmen were too much employed at Clavering Park to be able to bring messages, or dally over the cup of small beer with the poor little maids at Fairoaks. It was then that Blanche found other dear friends than Laura, and other places to walk in besides the river-side, where Pen was fishing. He came day after day, and whipped the stream, but the "fish, fish!" ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Roger replied, "for though I broke my fast on black bread and small beer, down in the village, 'tis but poor nourishment for a man who has travelled far, and who has a large frame ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... 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 ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... the poorer class of labourers to refresh themselves 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. Malt was at this time sold cheaper than it was ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... father treats him like a boy; if he talked about marrying, he'd get a cuff on the ear. Oh, I know all about old Lord,' Ada proceeded. 'He's a regular old tyrant. Why, you've only to look at him. And he thinks no small beer of himself, either, for all he lives in that grubby little house; I shouldn't wonder if ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... 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 ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... eminent and wealthy presbyterian parson, of whom he begged relief, in the most earnest manner he was able, for God's sake, with uplifted eyes and hands, and upon his bended knee; but could not with all his importunity and eloquence obtain a crust of bread, or a draught of small beer. Mr. Carew, not accustomed to be unsuccessful in his applications, could by no means brook this churlishness of the parson, and thought it highly necessary, for the benefit of his community, that it should not ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... all 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 best ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... great length they would yawn, stamp, make noises, and perhaps go straightway out of church; and yet with this text I protest I could go on for hours. What multitudes of men, what multitudes of women, my dears, pass off their ordinaire for port, their small beer for strong! In literature, in politics, in the army, the navy, the church, at the bar, in the world, what an immense quantity of cheap liquor is made to do service for better sorts! Ask Serjeant Roland his opinion of Oliver Q.C. "Ordinaire, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... another day of rather small beer in the Commons. There were, however, one or two dicta of note. Thus Sir BERTRAM FALK, who was concerned because Naval officers received no special marriage allowance, was specifically assured by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 11, 1920 • Various
... Whitelocke ate very little, and drank only one glass of Spanish wine, and one glass of small beer, which was given him by a stranger, whom he never saw before nor after, and the beer seemed at that instant to be of a very bad taste and colour; nor would he inquire what it was, his own servants being taken forth by the Resident's people in courtesy to entertain them.[371] ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... were asleep in the sun. Immediately beyond the tower the men were loading another cart, and the women and children were chattering as they raked the scattered remnants up to the rows. Under the shadow of the old tower, but in sight of Clara as she sat in the porch, there lay the small beer-barrels of the hay-makers, and three or four rakes were standing erect against the old grey wall. It was now eleven o'clock, and Clara was waiting for her father, who was not yet out of his room. She had taken his breakfast to him in bed, ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... so sparing and temperate, that he never eats nor drinks beyond his set proportion, so as to satisfy only his natural appetite; he makes but one meal a day, at which he drinks two good glasses of small beer, one about the beginning, the other at the end thereof, and a little glass of sack in the middle of his dinner; which glass of sack he also uses in the morning for his breakfast, with a morsel of bread. His supper consists of an egg and ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... with that blue breech, now playes he the Devil. So get ye home, drink small beer, and be ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... put on home-spun garbs, And make tea of our garden herbs; When we are dry we'll drink small beer, And FREEDOM shall our ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... 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 in ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... nearer to the goal. All the elements 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
... leave off girding at the poor lad. He is a boy, and his mother is a widow woman, who loves him with all her might. There is a famous sneer about the suckling of fools and the chronicling of small beer; but remember it was a rascal ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... mouth of the Elbe, respecting which the following particulars may be interesting. They are taken from an old letter-book. "The passage-money to the office is 12s. 6d. for whole passengers, and 6s. 6d. for half passengers, either to or from England; 6d. of which is to be paid to the Captain for small beer, which both the whole and half passengers are to be informed of their being entitled ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... entire 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 former and refusing ...
— The London and Country Brewer • Anonymous
... poems about. Lord Byron wrote more cant of this sort than any poet I know of. Think of "the peasant girls with dark blue eyes" of the Rhine—the brown-faced, flat-nosed, thick-lipped, dirty wenches! Think of "filling high a cup of Samian wine;" small beer is nectar compared to it, and Byron himself always drank gin. That man never wrote from his heart. He got up rapture and enthusiasm with an eye to the public; but this is dangerous ground, even more dangerous than to look Athens ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Strategem'";' ding!—'Wednesday, "The Provoked Wife";' ling!—'Thursday, "The Way of the World."' So I made my debut in a noisy part and have since played no role more effectively than that of the small boy with the big bell. Incidentally, I had to clean the lamps and fetch small beer to the leading lady, which duties were perfunctorily performed. My art, however, I threw into the bell," concluded the manager with ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... finished dinner, was enjoying some good claret in the cabin, with his wife and her friend—a cheerful moment, when conversation 'is most agreeable,' when Tom, the captain's general factotum, burst in on them and began, without saying a 'by your leave', to bottle half a hogshead of small beer. After requests and protests, equally unavailing, this functionary found himself, says Fielding, threatened "with having one bottle to pack more than his number, which then happened to stand empty within my reach." Thereupon Tom ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... 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 ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... 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
... who lived four months among these Indians, describes their method of making "corn drink." "It tastes like sour small Beer, yet 'tis very intoxicating."] ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... tranquil geniality began to prevail. The sour Medoc was sparingly drunk, mixed with sugar and water; some drank home-brewed small beer, ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... these past pages, I find that I have been unpardonably egotistic, unconscionably prolix and diffuse; and with such small beer to chronicle! ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... I'm on the reserve for the Eleven. I suppose you know young Brown is coming here; though I'm sorry to say as a day boy. His people are going to live in the town, so he'll be able to come on the cheap. I shall do what I can for him, but I expect he'll have a hot time, for the day boys are rather small beer. The exhibitioners have the best time of it. If Brown could get a junior exhibition and live in school, he could fag for me and have a jolly time. But poor Dicky hasn't got it in him. I got rather lammed after I got home from Plummer's; but it was all right when Plummer wrote to say that a ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... occupies the other. The places, where these chairs are found, are usually flanked by coffee 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 sleep, they sit ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... it fell back to their dug-outs, and shortly afterwards to their billets—there to spend the few odd francs which their separation allotments had left them, upon extremely hard-earned glasses of extremely small beer. ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... 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 at Cetinje, ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... 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 ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... to the river again, and he hesitated in front of a small beer-shop whose half open door and sanded floor offered a standing invitation ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... people would suffer very much from their 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 ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... brave, then; 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, ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... 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 ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... Henry Jenkins lived to one hundred and sixty-nine years on a low, coarse, and simple diet. Thomas Parr died at the age of one hundred and fifty-two years and nine months. His diet was coarse bread, milk, cheese, whey, and small beer; and his historian tells us, that he might have lived a good while longer if he had not changed his diet and air; coming out of a clear, thin air, into the thick air of London, and being taken into a splendid family, where he fed high, and drank plentifully of the best wines, and, ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... 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 the last year's skinning, ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... be presumed that this old version will not be much read after the elegant translation of my friend, Mr. Hoole." I endeavour'd—I wish'd to gain some idea of Tasso from this Mr. Hoole, the great boast and ornament of the India House, but soon desisted. I found him more vapid than smallest small beer sun-vinegared. Your dream, down to that exquisite line—"I can't tell half his adventures," is a most happy resemblance of Chaucer. The remainder is so so. The best line, I think, is, "He belong'd, I believe, to the witch Melancholy." ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... is essential for the representing of men; and there were times, doubtless, when the complexion of Agamemnon's greatness was discoloured, like Prince Henry's, by remembering, when he was weary, that poor creature—small beer—i.e. if ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... 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 scientific description of the various phenomena ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... you know it is a part of the privilege of a free-born Englishman to delight in hunting 'rats and mice and such small beer,' as much or more than the grand chasse? I have not the smallest doubt that all the old cavaliers were fine old farm-loving fellows, who liked a rat hunt, and enjoyed turning out a barn with all ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... discint up to Adam, Who was once parish priest in Kildare; And uncle, I think, to King David, That peopled the county of Clare. Sure his heart was as light as a feather, Till his wife threw small beer on his joy By falling in love with a pippin, Which intirely murder'd the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... 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 ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May
... Thackeray left no deep impression on my mind; in no way did he hold my thoughts. He was not picturesque like Dickens, and I was at that time curiously eager for some adequate philosophy of life, and his social satire seemed very small beer indeed. I was really young. I hungered after great truths: "Middle-march," "Adam Bede," "The Rise and Fall of Rationalism," "The History of Civilisation," were momentous events in my life. But I loved ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... 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 been attended ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... proceeding that excited no surprise on the musician's part. Supper was served in the kitchen, where Mavis partook of a rabbit and moorhen pie with new potatoes and young mangels mashed. She had never eaten the latter before; she was surprised to find how palatable the dish was. Mr and Mrs Trivett drank small beer, but their guest was regaled with cowslip wine, which she drank out of deference to the wishes of her kind ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... of 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 Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... have women 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 of the former delicacy ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... 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 does not confine himself to chronicling small beer. Mr. Crawley's collision with the Bishop's wife, Mr. Melnotte 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 ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... seem a sharp fellow, and certainly no fool. I have a son, a good smart chap, but stuck up; crows it over us all; thinks no small beer of himself. You'd do me a service, and him too, if you'd let him down a peg ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... thirteenth of August, two days before the Feast of the Assumption (on which we had intended to hear mass again at Standon) my Cousin Dorothy came down a little late, and found us already over our oatbread and small beer which we were accustomed to take upon rising—and which was called ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... baskets with bread and curry. They were followed by others carrying huge jugs, filled with tedj, a beverage manufactured from fermented honey. Each guest was expected to drink several flasks, but as it tasted somewhat like bad small beer, they had no great satisfaction in performing the necessary ceremony. Shortly afterwards a band of six musicians, playing on long pipes, performed a wild piece of music; then a minstrel sang a war song, in ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... down to think what he should do for Lady Mabel's safety. To refresh himself and sharpen his wits, he took more than one draught from the bottle. The wine being old, mild and delicate in flavor, he classed it in the same category with small beer, far underrating its beguiling potency. This vinho maduro, the vino generoso of the Spaniard, was that which maketh glad the heart of man, being of a choice vintage from a famous vineyard. It ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... existence you are wounded by some piece of animal life that nobody has over seen before, except Swammerdam and Meriam. An insect with eleven legs is swimming in your teacup, a nondescript with nine wings is struggling in the small beer, or a caterpillar with several dozen eyes in his belly is hastening over the bread and butter! All nature is alive, and seems to be gathering all her entomological hosts to eat you up, as you are standing, out of your coat, waistcoat, and breeches. ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... nine in one of the King's barges that came from Greenwich to take musicians back that night at four. He had breakfasted with the Lady Mary's women at six off warm small beer and fresh meat, but it was eleven already, and he had spent all his money upon ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... was a law of the twelve tables, and De mortuis nil nisi bonum is an excellent injunction—even if the dead in question be nothing but dead small beer. It is not my design, therefore, to vituperate my deceased friend, Toby Dammit. He was a sad dog, it is true, and a dog's death it was that he died; but he himself was not to blame for his vices. They grew out of a personal defect in his mother. She did her best in ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... 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
... 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 ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... turban? What was it made of? He says his mother brought it from Grand Cairo. Didn't he just look like the Saracen's Head? Here are some Dons. That's Hallam! We'll give him a cheer. I say, Townshend, look at this fellow. He doesn't think small beer of himself. I wonder who he is? The Duke of Wellington's valet come to say his master is engaged. Oh! by Jove, he heard you! I wonder if the Duke will come? Won't ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... man had aroused a passing interest in the case, bringing it up from paragraph value on the back page to a "two-heading item" on the "splash" page, but that interest soon died away, for, after all, the son of a Berkshire baronet was small beer in war's levelling days, when peers worked in overalls in munition factories, and personages of even more exalted rank sold pennyworths of ham ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... the ever-smouldering irritability which compelled Carlyle to slash right and left of him at the people whom he met, at everything that he disliked, and every one whom he despised. Nor was he born to chronicle the small beer of everyday life in that spirit of contemplative quietism which is bred out of abundant leisure and retirement. A few lines from one of Cowper's letters may serve to indicate the circumstances in which 'our best letter-writer,' as Southey calls him, lived and wrote ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... 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 ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... and always singing. There were six children in the house, and she knitted and sewed and baked and brewed for us all. I used to toddle along at her side when she carried each day the home-made bread and the bottle of small beer for father's dinner at the mill. I worshiped my mother, and wanted to be like her. And that's why I went in for singing. I have sung more songs in my life than did Caruso. But my voice isn't quite up to his! So my singing has brought ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... Spare, and went to the new cobbler. The season had 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
... 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, ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... replied Bags, looking at Jack supping up the fat porridge, and wondering how the lie would go down with Harry, who was then discussing his master's merits and a horn of small beer with the lad who was ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... like, as a young man, to have lived on Fielding's staircase in the Temple, and after helping him up to bed perhaps, and opening his door with his latch-key, 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 ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... 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
... 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
... chapter to chronicle small beer; taking a hasty glance at some ten years of married life and of professional struggle; and reserving till the next all the more interesting matter of his cruises. Of his achievements and their worth, it is not for me to speak: his friend and partner, Sir William Thomson, ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... inside the hall. We do not brew at home nowadays. Even such old-fashioned Conservatives as old Mr. Peregrine, senior, have at length given up the custom, so we cannot, like Sir Roger, allow a greater quantity of malt to our small beer at Christmas; but we take good care to order in some four or five eighteen-gallon casks at this time. Let it be added that we never saw any man the worse for drink in consequence of this apparent indiscretion. But then, we have a butler of the ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... peace a Hampshire grenadier Who kill'd himself by drinking poor small beer; Soldier, be warned by his untimely fall, And when you're hot, drink strong, or ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... gave herself ten times more 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 a little proud, as it hung ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... 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 ...
— Four Americans - Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman • Henry A. Beers |
