"Toper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the friend of Gourlay, whom everybody feared. If it ever dawned on his befuddled mind that Gourlay turned the friendship to his own account, his vanity was flattered by the prestige he acquired because of it. Like many another robustious big toper, the Templar was a chicken at heart, and "to be in with Gourlay" lent him a consequence that covered his deficiency. "Yes, I'm sleepy," he would yawn in Skeighan Mart; "I had a sederunt yestreen wi' John Gourlay," and he would slap his boot with his riding-switch ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... painted Filipino by the name of Dona Consolacion. The husband and several other people called her by a different name, but that does not matter. Anyway, the alferez was accustomed to drown the sorrows of unhappy wedlock by getting as drunk as a toper. Then, when he was thoroughly intoxicated he would order his men to drill in the sun, he himself remaining in the shade, or, perhaps, he would occupy himself ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... the heat of summer, the cold of winter, the blazing dog-star and the driving tempest, twilight with its cheerful gleam of lamps, mid-day with its sunshine—all suggest reasons for indulging in the cup. Not that we are justified in fancying Alcaeus a mere vulgar toper: he retained Aeolian sumptuousness in his pleasures, and raised the art of drinking to an ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the toper regale in his tankard of ale, Or with alcohol moisten his thrapple, Only give me, I pray, a good pipe of soft clay, Nicely tapered and thin in the stapple; And I shall puff, puff, let who will say, "Enough!" ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... chatting meanwhile, but silently, swiftly, nervously. There is a psychological reason for women knitting just now, beyond the need of socks. I know how these women feel! I, even I, have begun to crochet! I do it for the same reason that the old toper in time of stress takes to his glass. It keeps me from thinking; it atrophies the brain; and now I know why the women of the East are so slow about getting the franchise. They crochet and work in wool instead of thinking. You can't do both! When ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... blue and silver? He beats Joe Addison himself, in drinking, and pious Joe is the greatest toper in the three kingdoms," Dick ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... lair, Where is plenty, and to spare, Of her grassy feast. There she browses free On herbage of the lea, Or marsh grass, daintily, Until her haunch is greased. Her drink is of the well, Where the water-cresses swell, Nor with the flowing shell Is the toper better pleased. The bent makes nobler cheer, Or the rashes of the mere, Than all the creagh that e'er Gave surfeit to a guest. Come, see her table spread; The sorach[117] sweet display'd The ealvi,[118] and the head Of the daisy stem; The dorach[119] crested, sleek, And ringed with many a ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... hut, pipes were introduced; and, after a while, Long Ghost, who, at first, had relished the "Arva Tee" as little as myself, to my surprise, began to wax sociable over it, with Varvy; and, before long, absolutely got mellow, the old toper keeping ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... taking some kind of Sustenance, it was hard that I, a Christian, should go to bed (or into another Fox-hole, for bed I had none, and yet had slept in my time in a grand chamber in Hanover Square) with an empty belly. The Earth was beginning to drink up the dews, like an insatiate toper as she is. I passed a flock of sheep biting their hasty supper from the grass; and each one with a little cloud of gnats buzzing around it, that with feeble stings, poor insects, were trying for their supper too. And 'tis effect ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... pressed it upon him, till his reluctance was strengthened to perfect abhorrence. When he was thoroughly disgusted with every kind of wine, I allowed him, at his own request, to try brandy-and-water, and then gin-and-water, for the little toper was familiar with them all, and I was determined that all should be equally hateful to him. This I have now effected; and since he declares that the taste, the smell, the sight of any one of them is sufficient to make him sick, I have given up teasing him about them, except now and then ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... be difficult to string together gems from the Captain's Lyrics. In "The Toper's Apology," one of his most sparkling songs, occurs this brilliant version of Addison's comparison of wits ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... stupidity has not the charm of simplicity. If such a man as, say, Mr. Matthew Arnold wanted to test the accuracy of the "Silas Marner" chapter for critical purposes, he would scarcely recover the ordeal of a night spent in a haunt of the hardened toper. If the company happened to be unembarrassed, their ribaldry would sicken the philosopher; their coarse manners would revolt him; their political talk—well, that would probably stupefy him and ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... you, man! The water absolutely hisses down your red-hot gullet, and is converted quite into steam in the miniature Tophet, which you mistake for a stomach. Fill again, and tell me, on the word of an honest toper, did you ever, in cellar, tavern, or any other kind of dramshop, spend the price of your children's food for a swig half so delicious? Now, for the first time these ten years, you know the flavor of cold water. Good-by; and whenever you are thirsty, recollect that I keep a constant supply ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... knew a toper was to be offered as much free whisky as he could drink, you would be sure he would ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... become a toper and beats his wife?" chuckled Walky. "Wal—I reckon not! Maybe Hopewell takes a glass now and then—I dunno. I never seen him. But they do say he went home airly from the dance at Lem Parraday's t'other night in a slightly elevated ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... and who smoked a half-penny clay pipe, which had become as black as coal. From six to eight beer saucers were piled up on the table in front of him, indicating the number of "bocks" he had already absorbed. With that same glance I had recognized in him a "regular toper," one of those frequenters of beer-houses, who come in the morning as soon as the place is open, and only go away in the evening when it is about to close. He was dirty, bald to about the middle ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... to the family: Jam, say, from Kiev, From Astrakhan fish, And the richer among them Some silk for the lady. You see!—as he kisses Her hand he presents her A neat little packet! And then for the children Are sweetmeats and toys; 510 For me, the old toper, Is wine from St. Petersburg— Mark you, the rascal Won't go to the Russian For that! He knows better— He runs to the Frenchman! And when we have finished Admiring the presents I go for a stroll And a chat with the peasants; 520 They talk with me freely. My wife fills their glasses, My little ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... up to the counter of a grog-shop, as the proprietor was mixing a drink for a toper standing at the counter, said to the proprietor, "Can you tell me what your business is good for?" The proprietor, with an infernal ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... the subject further, may read at their leisure the pleasant paper in which an agreeable writer, Fontenelle, describes Aristotle and Anacreon contending for the prize of wisdom; and may decide with the essayist, giving the prize to the generous old toper of Scios, as we should have done, or to the beetlebrowed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... had not yet traduced his friends, nor flattered his enemies, nor disparaged what he admired, nor praised what he despised. Those who knew him well had the conviction that, even with time, these literary arts would never be his. His poem, The Bothie of Toper-na-Fuosich, has some admirable Homeric qualities—out-of-doors freshness, life, naturalness, buoyant rapidity. Some of the expressions in that poem ... come back now to my ear with the true Homeric ring. But that in him of which I think oftenest is the Homeric simplicity ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... Annette to a saloon to buy her some beer. She told her in emphatic terms she must never do so again, that she wanted her girl to grow up a respectable woman, and that she ought to be ashamed of herself, not only to be guzzling beer like a toper, but to send anybody's child to a saloon to come in contact with the kind of men who frequented such places, and that any women who sent their children to such places were training their boys to be drunkards and their girls to be street-walkers. "I am poor," she said, "but I mean to keep my ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... indiscreet talk about his love of the heiress. Bozzy was a convivial knight-errant in what was called 'Saving the ladies.' At clubs and gatherings any member would toast his idol in a bumper, and then another champion would enter his peerless Dulcinea in two bumpers, to be routed by the original toper taking off four. The deepest drinker 'saved his lady,' as the phrase ran; though, says George Thomson speaking of the old concerts in St Cecilia's Hall, at the foot of Niddry's Wynd, which were maintained by noblemen and gentlemen, the bold ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... ten o'clock,—tealess. There was not much of the Bluebeard about the squire; but he had succeeded in making it understood through the household that he was not to be interrupted by messages from his wife during the post-prandial hour, which, though no toper, he ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... this Calvinistic people, the year's anniversary falls upon a Sunday, when the public-houses are inexorably closed, when singing and even whistling is banished from our homes and highways, and the oldest toper feels called upon to go to church. Thus pulled about, as if between two loyalties, the Scots have to decide many nice cases of conscience, and ride the marches narrowly between the weekly and the annual observance. A party of convivial musicians, next door to a friend of mine, hung suspended ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Noel, left his house, still bewildered by what he had just heard. Obliged to restrain himself at the time, he now fully appreciated his liberty of action. It was with an unsteady gait that he took his first steps in the street, like the toper, who, after being shut up in a warm room, suddenly goes out into the open air. He was beaming with pleasure, but at the same time felt rather giddy, from that rapid succession of unexpected revelations, which, so he thought, ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... during one more winter at least, he would not have to tread the path to the mill for the rest of his life. Soon he heard his wife's harsh voice singing its morning song as she went about her household affairs, scolding her daughter the while. She burst open his door while he was still dressing: 'Well, Toper!' was her greeting, 'have you been drinking all night, wasting money that you steal from my ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... good thing, the dear drink's so inviting, Where each toper each care sweetly drowns; Where our friends we so cherish, so love and delight in, Except when ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... Walter Mapes, "The Jovial Toper." His famous drinking song, "Meum est prepositum ..." has been ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... Letters, that German prince describes a bout with H.R.H., who in his best time was such a powerful toper that "six bottles of claret after dinner scarce made a perceptible ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the time of the plague from London northward, tasting and criticising the ale on the road, drank so much of the Northamptonshire brewst that he fell asleep on a haycock, in one of the flat meadows. In the night time, as is often the case in this part of the country, a sudden flood arose, and our toper awaked to find himself floating on a great tide of water, which at length brought him to a bridge, upon which, hailing the passengers, he asked, "Where am I?" in full expectation of having floated to France or Spain; whereupon they answered, "at Wansford." "What!" he exclaimed in ecstacy, ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... returned—by her who had inspired it? Both, both. He thought, wise youth! that while he was swallowing draught after draught of this delicious poison, no one perceived the deep intoxication he was revelling in. Just as wisely some veritable toper, by putting on a grave and demure countenance, cheats himself into the belief that he conceals from every eye that delectable and irresistible confusion in which his brain is swimming. His love was seen. How could it be otherwise? That instantaneous, that complete delight ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... home, and call it "wax and ile;" Unguentum resinosum—change its name, The "drawing salve" of many an ancient dame; Argenti Nitras, also Spanish flies, Whose virtue makes the water-bladders rise— (Some say that spread upon a toper's skin They draw no water, only rum or gin); Leeches, sweet vermin! don't they charm the sick? And Sticking-plaster—how it hates to stick Emplastrum Ferri—ditto Picis, Pitch; Washes and Powders, Brimstone for the—which, Scabies ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... beer-cellars and drinking-booths with an assumption of firmness and resolution that oozed slowly away toward nightfall, when the animal body of the late Hans Kraut would contrive to get the better of the animating principle of Ronald Wyde; the refined nature would yield to the toper's brute-craving, with an awful sense of its deep degradation in so succumbing, and, before midnight, Hans was gloriously ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... like a ship Left without a sailor, Like a bird that through the air Flies where tempests hale her; Chains and fetters hold me not, Naught avails a jailer; Still I find my fellows out, Toper, gamester, railer. ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... that he did not sink under those temptations and become the besotted wreck conventional biography has attempted to make him? If those who raise this plaint mean to insinuate that Burns became a confirmed toper, then they are assuredly wrong; if they be only drawing attention to the fact that drinking was too common in Scotland at that time, then they are attacking not the poet but the social customs of his day. It would be easy if we were to accept 'the general impression of ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... this sentiment with an icy disdain. Walker had always been a heavy drinker, he was proud of his capacity to see men half his age under the table when he spent a night in Apia, and he had the sentimentality of the toper. He could cry over the stories he read in his magazines and yet would refuse a loan to some trader in difficulties whom he had known for twenty years. He was close with his money. Once ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... ashamed to "drain the bowl" all to myself: a solitary toper is a horrid creature, unless he makes ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sitting still, with folded hands, for any length of time; and when the stress of her attention to household work, and her devotion to neighborly good deeds relaxed, she turned to knitting wash-rags as a sportsman turns to his gun, or a toper to his cups. She seemed to find more stimulus for thought and more helpful diversion in the production of one wash-rag than most persons find in ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... his person has undergone a similar metamorphosis. He has been credited with a full moon of a face, the rubicund nose of an incorrigible toper, and thick coarse lips always apart because always laughing. The picture would have surprised his friends no less than himself. There have been portraits painted of Rabelais; I have seen many such. They are all of the seventeenth ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais |
