I have received delegations of working men who, apparently speaking with the utmost sincerity, have declared that they would regard it as a genuine hardship if they were deprived of their beer, for example.
We live thetime that a match flickers; we pop the corkof a ginger-beer bottle, and the earthquake swallows us on the instant. Is it not odd, is it not incongruous, is it not, in the highest sense of human speech, incredible, that we should think so highly of the ginger-beer, and regard so little the devouring earthquake?
For all we know that English people are/ Fed upon beef - I won't say much of beer/ Because 'tis liquor only, and being far/ From this my subject, has no business here;/ We know too, they are very fond of war,/ A pleasure - like all pleasures - rather dear;/ So were the Cretans - from which I infer/ That beef and battle both were owing her
IAGO: She that was ever fair and never proud, Had tongue at will and yet was never loud, Never lack'd gold and yet went never gay, Fled from her wish and yet said 'Now I may,' She that being anger'd, her revenge being nigh, Bade her wrong stay and her displeasure fly, She that in wisdom never was so frail To change the cod's head for the salmon's tail; She that could think and ne'er disclose her mind, See suitors following and not look behind, She was a wight, if ever such wight were,-- DESDEMONA: To do what? IAGO: To suckle fools and chronicle small beer.
But if at church they would give some ale. And a pleasant fire our souls to regale. We'd sing and we'd pray all the live long day, Nor ever once from the church to stray.
I suspect states are going to realize there's money to be made, and they'll start to change laws so people can distil to sell. It happened with wine, it happened with beer.
And it occurs to me that if I were aboard a rowboat floating in the middle of all the beer I've drunk in a lifetime, I'd never be able to see the shore.
After tea, we discussed a variety of topics before the fire; and Mrs. Micawber was good enough to sing us (in a small, thin, flat voice, which I remembered to have considered, when I first knew her, the very table-beer of acoustics) the favourite ballads of "The Dashing White Sergeant", and "Little Tafflin".
I am sure of this, that if everybody was to drink their bottle a day, there would be not half the disorders in the world there are now. It would be a famous good thing for us all.
It was darkly rumoured that the butler, regarding him with favour such as that stern man had never shown before to mortal boy, had sometimes mingled porter with his table beer to make him strong.