United States or Eritrea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
When Hamlet talked of turning the clay of Alexander into the bung of a beer-barrel, he spoke the simple truth.
"What did Luther say?" "That then, on account of occasional misuse, one must kill all the women, and pour all the wine into the streets." "That was a stupid saying; but that is the result of disputing with shoemakers. Besides, it is degrading to compare women to wine! He is a coarse fellow who sets his wife on the same level with a beer-barrel."
He was perspiring freely, and did not look entirely satisfied. The next scene which was conjured up on the stage was a forest. It was wonderfully fine, with pelargoniums blooming on the ground, and a spring which was flowing out of something green. "That is a covered beer-barrel!" said Pelle, and now Lasse too could see the tap, but it was wonderfully natural.
As for sign of any haste about him, or wiping of his forehead, or fumbling with his handkerchief, or being in a stew in any sort of way as the stupid cook who let him in declared, by reason of her own having been at the beer-barrel solemnly, miss, as I hope to go to heaven, there was nothing of the sort about him.
For others there is Parliament and the election beer-barrel, and a course that leads men very high indeed; these shall shake the senate-house, the Morning Newspapers, shake the very spheres, and by dexterous wagging of the tongue disenthrall mankind, and lead our afflicted country and us on the way we are to go.
The poor fellow showed evident signs that times went hard with him; he was so finely and shabbily dressed. His coat was somewhat threadbare, and of the Lord Townly cut; single-breasted, and scarcely capable of meeting in front of his body; which, from long intimacy, had acquired the symmetry and robustness of a beer-barrel.
A short while ago, in winter, he had been much more talkative. What stories he had told of the factories down there, with their wheels and cylinders, their chimneys and kettles, their furnaces that had bellies as big as a beer-barrel at the kirmess in fact, much bigger as big as the pit of hell, with flames a yard long! He had grown accustomed to the heat, and now he was always cold, poor boy.
His body was oblong and particularly capacious at bottom; which was wisely ordered by Providence, seeing that he was a man of sedentary habits, and very averse to the idle labor of walking. His legs were short, but sturdy in proportion to the weight they had to sustain; so that when erect he had not a little the appearance of a beer-barrel on skids.
"Take your weapons!" cried one of the seconds, and each of the combatants seized a goblet in his hand. "Strike!" And the glasses rang, with a salutation like the crossing of swords. "Set to!" Each set the goblet to his lips. "Out!" And each poured the contents down his throat, as if he were pouring them through a tunnel into a beer-barrel.
We stood in awed admiration before the "Great Tun," which is the chief object of interest in Heidelberg. What there is of interest in the sight of a big beer-barrel it is difficult, in one's calmer moments, to understand; but the guide book says that it is a thing to be seen, and so all we tourists go and stand in a row and gape at it. We are a sheep-headed lot.
Word Of The Day