"Pottage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cabbage greens; broth. "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. ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... 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
... Piper's 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 after ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... finding 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 ...
— Rembrandt - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... shade, that it does not know how to distinguish fornication from adultery, and still less the milder kinds of fornication from the more grievous, and in like manner of adultery; thus it mixes evils, and of different evils makes one pottage, and of different goods one paste. In order therefore that the love of the sex may be distinctly known as to that part by which it inclines and makes advances to adulterous love altogether opposite to conjugial love, it is expedient to examine its beginning, which ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... tone absorbed from the environment even in childhood, as when the mother makes more of table etiquette than of kindness, and the child, instead of condemning Jacob's refusal to feed his hungry brother with the red pottage, as all natural children do condemn, says: "No, Esau shouldn't have got it, 'cause he ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... a Protestant av he paid for it by settlin' wid the priest that for certain considerations he would be contint wid a seat on the boord. An' thin he must renounce his political ideas, or promise never to mintion thim in public. But, begorra, he'd have to sell his birthright for a mess of pottage by makin' a ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... various adages, such, as, "The weeds o'ergrow the corn," while the tenacity with which evil holds its ground is further expressed in such sayings as this—"The frost hurts not weeds." The poisonous effects, again, of evil is exemplified thus—"One ill-bred mars a whole pot of pottage," and the rapidity with which it spreads has, amongst other proverbs, been thus described, "Evil weeds grow apace." Speaking of weeds in their metaphorical sense, we may quote one further ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... that I would fail if I persisted in attending the little Unitarian church; but I preferred failure to hypocrisy, and would not sell my birthright of conscience for a mess of pottage. Two of my ancient, sour-faced assistants were bigoted members of the fashionable church, and at once set me down as a corruptor of youth because I was an advocate of the liberal faith. The venomous spite of one of these forcibly suggested the ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... 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 ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... rather the chief ingredient, of many of these 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
... our company, who thought only of his own comfort, but now he sent his servant to take a mantle to the mother because she looked like his daughter at home, who had named her boy for him. And there was a peevish clerk who had paid for the last bowl of pottage they had, who gave it to the little family ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... Soul?" Better hardship and freedom, than luxury and thraldom. This 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
... sweet Sir, keep your good morrow to cool your Worships pottage; a couple of the worlds fools met together to raise ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... 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
... "I can show you the very bed on which he slept, if you desire to see it. He retired soon after sunset—slept soundly, as he always sleeps—and arose as I have told you. I lighted a fire, and made him some hot pottage myself." ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... 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
... his god for worldly gain! The hand of Judas burned with "thirty pieces of silver," the earthly value of the Divine One. Pilate, for personal profit, said: "Let Him be crucified." And millions to-day sell Him for "a mess of pottage." ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... alacrity in carrying burdens—one, rather, who recognizes a moral and physical unfitness for such, and indeed all other dorsal and manual operations—one who has been born a Briton, and would not, therefore, sell his birthright for a mess of pottage; but, on the contrary, holds that his birthright entitles him to as many messes of pottage as there may be days to his mortal span, though time's fingers stretched beyond the distance allotted to extreme Parr or extremest Jenkins. "Elegant desires" are gratified to the extent I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... 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! housed alone. 'Twas well enough when summer came, The long, warm, lightsome summer day, Then at her door the canty dame Would sit, as any ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... 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. "It didn't hurt me" was her triumphant conclusion; and again she ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... enough," Fischer replied drily. "England would sell her soul, but not for a mess of pottage. To proceed, however, Japan has practically kept out of the war. She is enjoying a prosperity never known before, and for every million pounds' worth of munitions she exports to Russia, she puts calmly on one side twenty-five per cent, to accumulate for her own use. At the conclusion ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "the one whom you've had threatened with arrest because he harangued too freely on the street corner." He paused to finish impressively: "I see now that the man who throws away his spiritual birthright for a mess of pottage hates the one who keeps his in ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... divine truth which may come to be 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 emperors against the Christians, as that of ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... 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, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... ourselves to be true to their memories and to the country they loved, and to those principles of honour that are eternal! God helping, we will do so, whether strangers help or hinder! We do not think so meanly of our country that we are willing to sell it for a mess of pottage. I know Canada well, from ocean to ocean; from the rich sea pastures on the Atlantic all the way across to Vancouver and Victoria. Every province and every territory of it, I know well. I know the people, too, a ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... the truth and sell it not." "He who buys the truth," said he, "makes a good bargain. Can any of you recollect any instance of a bad bargain, mentioned in Scripture?" "I do," replied one of his scholars:—"Esau made a bad bargain, when he sold his birth-right for a mess of pottage." Another said, "Judas made a bad bargain, when he sold his Lord for thirty pieces of silver." A third observed, "Our Lord tells us that he makes a bad bargain, who, to gain the whole world, loses his own soul." Alas! how many such bad bargains are ...
— Anecdotes for Boys • Harvey Newcomb
... him venison, and prepare for the solemn 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 loved, dressed him up in Esau's apparel, ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... in the pursuit. It was once thought a venial offence in very many countries of Europe to destroy an enemy by slow poison. Persons who would have revolted at the idea of stabbing a man to the heart, drugged his pottage without scruple. Ladies of gentle birth and manners caught the contagion of murder, until poisoning, under their auspices, became quite fashionable. Some delusions, though notorious to all the world, have subsisted for ages, flourishing as widely among civilized and ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... gone. All that raged; all that threatened; all the cowards that yielded; truckled, sold their country for a mess of pottage; all the men that stood and bore infamy and scorn for the truth; all are silent in dust; the fight is over, but eternity will never efface from their souls whether they did well or ill— whether they fought ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... corresponding wine-presses; now the master keeps flocks of peacocks, and causes his doors to be inlaid with African cypress-wood.—Formerly the housewife turned the spindle with the hand and kept at the same time the pot on the hearth in her eye, that the pottage might not be singed; now," it is said in another satire, "the daughter begs her father for a pound of precious stones, and the wife her husband for a bushel of pearls.—Formerly a newly-married husband was silent and bashful; now the wife surrenders ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the story of the wife of Cormac, who was barren till her mother gave her pottage. Then she had a ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... besides my family, without any trouble; and whatever their fare was, they were sure to have a hearty welcome. Twice a week, a certain number of old people, widows and indigent persons, were served at my gates with bread and good pottage made of beef, which I mention that those which succeed may follow the example.' Not content with merely benefiting the aged folk of his town, Sir Hugh took great pains to extend the piers, and in 1632 went ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... being dismissed, the great proprietors were no longer capable of interrupting the regular execution of justice, or of disturbing the peace of the country. Having sold their birth-right, not like Esau, for a mess of pottage in time of hunger and necessity, but, in the wantonness of plenty, for trinkets and baubles, fitter to be the playthings of children than the serious pursuits of men, they became as insignificant as any substantial burgher ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... 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 ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... front room, my child; leave Anna to prepare our pottage of lentiles, and I will tell you my dream," said Hadassah, leading the way into what might, in a European dwelling, have been called the sitting-room. This, with the place which they had just quitted, ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... once, for the secure, and as it is called, fortunate dependance of the slave: the indignation with which he would spurn the offer will prove that he possesses one good beyond all others, and that his birthright as a man is more precious to him yet than the mess of pottage for which he is told to exchange ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... the 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
... drive liberty from out the land; but when a brave people, like the Americans, from their infancy us'd to liberty (not as a gift, but who inherit it as a birth-right, but not as a mess of pottage, to be bought by, or sold to, ev'ry hungry glutton of a minister) find attempts made to reduce them to slavery, they generally take some desperate successful measure for their deliverance. I should not be at all surpris'd to hear of independency proclaim'd throughout their land, of ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock
... only be deferred until Kittie is twenty-one. After all, Prince, when you bartered your name and became a Darrington, for sake of this fair heritage, you only accomplished early in life that into which sooner or later all men are betrayed, the sale of a birthright for a mess of pottage; the clutching at the shadowy present, thereby ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... arch beneath its canopy, Ere 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 ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... peace to an inward life. This policy may change its opposition from the tyrannical to the insidious; it can know no other change. Yet do I meet persons who call themselves Americans,—miserable, thoughtless Esaus, unworthy their high birthright,—who think that a mess of pottage can satisfy the wants of man, and that the Viennese listening to Strauss's waltzes, the Lombard peasant supping full of his polenta, is happy enough. Alas: I have the more reason to be ashamed of my countrymen that it is not among the poor, who have so much, toil that there is little ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... sayings not your own! Lessons learned by heart! They've already put their uniform on you too. You, too, are rejoicing; you, too, are basking in the sunshine. Chere, chere, for what a mess of pottage you ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... was my father's as much as it was Disbrowe Erne's father's. Disbrowe Erne's father entrapped mine, and got the other half. It was the old story of Esau's pottage, with thrice the villany. My father made me promise him on his death-bed, that, come fair means, The Rim should be mine again. I was twenty, Erne was fifty. Fair means came. Nevertheless, if I had known how things stood, I might have broken ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... 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? Well, I think I will have a ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... 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 ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... even the blood of Christ. And the soul which cost that, we are ready to sell any day in the open market for a little more pleasure or a little more pelf. The birthright is bartered for the sorriest mess of pottage, and the jewel which the King covets to wear in His crown our own feet trample in the mire of the streets. The pity of ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... the women get a fad for you they'll work you like a galley-slave. You'll have to do your round of 'copy' every morning. What becomes of inspiration then? How are you going to loaf and invite the soul? Don't barter your birthright for a mess of pottage! Oh, I understand the temptation—I know the taste of money and success. But look at me, Stanwell. You know how long I had to wait for recognition. Well, now it's come to me I don't mean to let it knock me off my feet. I don't mean ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... 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 ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... us,—though Jacob and Esau quarrelled already in the womb, yet, so long as the weaker and more politic brother can get the elder brother's portion, and simple Esau hunts his whales and pierces his untrodden forests, content with his mess of pottage,—honestly abiding by his bargain, though a little puzzled at its terms,—we think that fratricide, or the sincere thought of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... March 24, 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 ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... 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 ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge
... with Romance: French, Italian, and Spanish are the Latin—and one might add the Greek—of today. But to return to our theme: to deny our interest in the past is to throw away our heritage, to sell our mess of pottage to the lowest bidder. If the Romance languages have one function in our American colleges, it is this: To keep alive the old humanistic lesson: nihil humani a me alienum puto; to the end that the modern college graduate ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... Lawrence and other popular artists who sometimes patronisingly visited him, "They pity me, but 'tis they are the just objects of pity, I possess my visions and peace. They have bartered their birthright for a mess of pottage." The strength of his illumination at times intoxicated him with joy, as he writes to Hayley (October 23, 1804) after a recurrence of vision which had lapsed for some years, "Dear Sir, excuse my enthusiasm or rather madness, for I am really drunk with ...
— Mysticism in English Literature • Caroline F. E. Spurgeon
... hair all tied on the tops of their heads with red, green, and blue ribbons. One teacher asked a row of eight children, "Where does rice grow?" The whole eight opened their mouths wide, filled as they were with the pottage, and replied in concert, in a sing-song, "It grows in the water." Then the teacher gave the order, "Hands up!" and it was pretty to see all those little arms fly up, which a few months ago were all in swaddling-clothes, and all those little hands flourishing, ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... Union was immense; the number estimated at fifty thousand. Thirty thousand of them, at least, expectants, or thinking themselves worthy of office. But, alas! for the ingratitude of man, they were, almost to a man, sent home without getting their share of the pottage.... There has yet been no change in the head of the Indian Bureau, although there are three ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... my forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I am sure, that, for me, there would be nothing left worth living for. I trust that I shall never thus sell my birthright for a mess of pottage. I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living. All great enterprises are self-supporting. The ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... 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 barley, and was often forced to ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 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 Belvile ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... alien and hostile, a crowd of threatening ghosts, the outraged witnesses of their own humiliation. "For what are you selling us?"—they seemed to say. "Because some one, who was already overfed, must needs grab at a larger mess of pottage—and we must pay! ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 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
... Now there was in Jewry a prophet, called Habbacuc, who had made pottage, and had broken bread in a bowl, and was going into the field, for to bring ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... stew'd Prunes, a race of green Ginger, a Flap-jack, a Kan of fresh water brewed with a little Cynamon and Sugar be not better than a little poor John, or salt fish, with Oil and Mustard, or Bisket, Butter, Cheese, or Oatmeal-pottage on Fish-dayes, or on Flesh-dayes, Salt, Beef, Pork and Pease, with six shillings beer, this is your ordinary ship's allowance, and good for them are well if well conditioned [not such bad diet for a healthy man if of good quality] which is not alwayes ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... crooned, "he has sold his birthright for a mess of pottage! Don't touch that paper, Crewe, or you ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... treasures of this early experience. It had been rendered worthless, perhaps rather contemptible by a later one—that of falling in love with Rachel, and the astonishing discovery that he was in love for the first time. He had sold his birthright for a mess of red pottage, as surely as any man or woman who marries for money or liking. He had not believed in his birthright, and holding it to be worthless, had given it to the first person who had offered him ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... pleasure, and a thief a thief for his own profit; and there is something honorable and philosophical in being a rascal for one's own sake: that is doing things upon principle—upon a grand scale. But a pimp is a thing that defiles itself for another—a pipkin that is put on the fire for another man's pottage! a napkin, that every guest wipes his hands upon! and the scullion says, "by your leave" too. A pimp! I would rather he had called me parricide! But the man was drunk, and did not know what he said; and, besides, ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... unprophesied, might result in unbearable evils. Necessary as it might be at the start to give away valuable properties to meet present needs, one generation or its representatives has no conceivable right to sell for a mess of pottage the heritage of all succeeding ones. The fact is, then, that the natural title to all gifts of Nature is vested in the public at large; and while it is in duty bound to observe the contracts which it makes with private parties, it is also not to be thought that the dishonesty ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker
... which instructed and enacted that the man who sought office or preferment from a British Minister unfitted himself as a standard-bearer or even a raw recruit in the ranks of Irish Nationality. The Irish birth-right was bartered for a mess of pottage and, worst of all, the fine instincts of Ireland's glorious youth were being corrupted and perverted. The cry of "Up the Mollies!" became the watchword of the new movement and the creed of selfishness and ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... would be better to let Japan stay out of the League than to abandon China and surrender our prestige in the Far East for 'a mess of pottage'—and a mess it is. I fear that it is too late to do anything to ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... his dome dy[gh]t hit bylyue. 632 [Sidenote: Abraham appears bare-headed before his guests.] e burne to be bare-heued buske[gh] hy{m} e{n}ne, [Sidenote: He casts a clean cloth on the green, and sets before them cakes, butter, milk, and pottage.] Cleche[gh] to a clene cloe & keste[gh] on e grene, rwe ryftyly {er}-on o re erue kake[gh], & bry{n}ge[gh] butt{er} wyth-al, & by e bred sette[gh] 636 Mete; messe[gh] of mylke he merkke[gh] bytwene, Sye{n} potage & polment i{n} plater honest; As sewer i{n} a god ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... ready to talk it over with me by ten o'clock. I'll see Mazie in the 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 ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... wished I had never received my lord of Essex's honor of knighthood. She is quite disfavored[141] and unattired, and these troubles waste her much. She disregarded every costly cover that cometh to the table, and taketh little but manchet and succory pottage. Every new message from the city doth disturb her, and she frowns on all the ladies. I had a sharp message from her, brought by my lord Buckhurst, namely thus. 'Go tell that witty fellow my godson ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... 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 bestow ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, this word of Jehovah came by Haggai the prophet: Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: 'Ask of the priests a decision, saying, "If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any food, shall it become holy?"' And the priests answered and said, No. Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by reason of a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... "I can guess what that feeling must be; the perfect emptiness and despair of having a great work done. I suspect there aren't many great masterpieces that one couldn't have bought cheap by offering the mess of pottage at the right moment. Oh, no, I didn't mean a sneer when I said cheap. I really understand. That very next morning out in the orchard, thinking over it, I managed to be glad you'd gone—alone. Your own way, rather than back with me to Ravinia. ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... slenderly provided for that before they had remained halfe a yeare in this new Collony they fell into extreame want, not havinge anything left to sustein them save a little ill conditioned Barley, which ground to meal & pottage made thereof, one smale ladle full was allowed each person for a meale, without bread or aught else whatsoever, so that had not God, by his great providence, moved the Indians, then our utter enemies, to bringe us reliefe, we had all utterlie by famine perished. How unable ...
— Colonial Records of Virginia • Various
... an old, old food. We read of Esau selling his birthright for a mess of red pottage, or a mess of red dal. Then later we read of the Hebrew children refusing to eat the king's meat, and growing rosy and fat on their daily portion ...
— The Khaki Kook Book - A Collection of a Hundred Cheap and Practical Recipes - Mostly from Hindustan • Mary Kennedy Core
... 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 soup?" The German, who did not at ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... 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 ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... and fellow-men!' said Slackbridge then, shaking his head with violent scorn, 'I do not wonder that you, the prostrate sons of labour, are incredulous of the existence of such a man. But he who sold his birthright for a mess of pottage existed, and Judas Iscariot existed, and Castlereagh existed, and this ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... that with her the situation is a little less advanced than with the others. Que voulez-vous? The English are heavy, and the Anglaises move slowly, that's all. The movement, however, is perceptible, and once this fact is established I can let the pottage simmer. I can give her time to arrive, for I am over-well occupied with her concurrentes. Celles-ci don't ...
— A Bundle of Letters • Henry James
... son, that three years was of age, Unto him said: "Father, why do ye weep? When will the gaoler bring us our pottage? Is there no morsel bread that ye do keep? I am so hungry that I cannot sleep. Now woulde God that I might sleep for ever! Then should not hunger in my belly creep. There is no thing save ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... would soon have discovered that he must retrace those latest steps, or Bismarck, and not he, would have been the actual leader of the first German independent labor party. There was nothing in Lassalle's life to warrant the assumption that he would deliberately sell his party for a mess of pottage. Lassalle had put his hand to the plow and it was not in his nature to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... his pursuits and adventures? Even quietly leave him to take guinea-and-a-half lodgings with mamma in Leghorn! O impotent and pacific measures!... I am certain that you must mix up some strong ingredients of distress to give a savour to your pottage. I still think that you may, and must, graft the story of Savage upon Defoe. Your hero must kill a man or do some thing. Can't you bring him to the gallows or some great mischief, out of which she must have recourse to an explanation with her ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... 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
... the trouble to read the Kansas-Nebraska Bill or seriously contemplated its 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
... not 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 he ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... 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 ...
— Christmas Light • Ethel Calvert Phillips
... pertater; There's p'litickle econ'my, now, combined 'ith morril beauty Thet saycrifices privit eends (your in'my's, tu) to dooty! Wy, Jeff'd ha' gin him five an' won his eye-teeth 'fore he knowed it, An', slid o' wastin' pottage, he'd ha' eat ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... answer to any body, much 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 ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... chieftains; and the Russian fabrics were a temptation to all, especially to the women; but to the honor of the Circassians, the tribes with few exceptions disdained to sell their birthright of independence for a mere mess of pottage. Relations of trade and amity could be established only with the tribes whose position on the frontier compelled them to be neutral. The chiefs in the interior, though often jealous of each other, held themselves too high to be bought ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... our life is centred round our flesh-pots. On the altar of the flesh-pot we sacrifice our leisure, our peace of mind. For a mess of pottage we sell our birthright. ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... mighty of the world, whom God often bringeth to misery." "They that are ravenous, and prey on all about them, shall want, but the meek shall inherit the earth; they shall not want who, with quiet obedience, work and mind their own business; plain-hearted Jacob has pottage enough, when Esau, the cunning hunter, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... 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 hunters, and receive withal ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... vision such a cock's head In the path—and it was white! Saw Brinvilliers {334} in his pottage: Faltered, ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... neighbourhood of Nice are far more appalling. Nor are symptoms wanting of the spread of that moral disease. The municipal council of this beautiful city, like Esau, had just sold their birthright for a mess of pottage. They had conceded the right of gambling to the Casino, the proprietors purchasing the right by certain outlays in the way of improvements, a new public garden, and so on. As yet roulette and rouge-et-noir are not permitted at Nice, ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... down in England. A man of science may earn great distinction, but not bread. He will get invitations to all sorts of dinners and conversaziones, but not enough income to pay his cab fare. A man of science in these times is like an Esau who sells his birthright for a mess of pottage. Again, if one turns to practice, it is still the old story—wait; and only after years of working like a galley-slave and intriguing like a courtier is there any chance of getting a decent livelihood. I am not at all sure if...it would be the most prudent thing ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... been said as to those who deliberately and knowingly sell their intellectual birthright for a mess of pottage, making a brazen compromise with what they hold despicable, lest they should have to win their bread honourably. Men need to expend no declamatory indignation upon them. They have a hell of their own; words can add ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... from the spot. And the question of what to do worried her as much as it worried de Spain. The whole range had been shaken by the Calabasas fight. Even in a country where appeal to arms was common, where men were ready to snuff out a life for a word, or kill for a mess of pottage—to settle for the least grave offense a dispute with a shot—the story of the surprising, unequal, and fatal encounter of the Calabasas men with de Spain, and of his complete disappearance after withstanding almost unheard-of odds, was more than a three days' wonder; nothing else was ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... 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 some noble impulses. ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... retorted Barbara in her fiercest manner. "But if I thought yon fox was in any manner of fashion of way a-making up to my jewel,—I could find it in my heart to put rats-bane in his pottage!" ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... more fruitless and gratuitous, mark how their overtures are received by their Southern brethren. Having sold their birthright, let us see what prospect our Northern Esaus have of gaining their mess of pottage. Perhaps no better illustration can be given of the state of feeling among the chiefs of the Southern Rebellion than is found in a letter from Colonel R.C. Hill to the Richmond "Sentinel," dated September 13th, 1863. It had been stated by a correspondent ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... who, even when hard pressed by hunger, sells his birthright for a mess of pottage, is unwise. But what shall we say of him who parts with his birthright and does not get even the pottage in return ? It is not necessary to inquire whether opulence be an adequate compensation for the sacrifice of bodily and mental freedom ; for Frances Burney paid for leave to be a prisoner and ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... or lose it, never sell your divine heritage, your good name, for a mess of pottage. Whatever you do, be larger than your vocation; never let it be said of you that you succeeded in your vocation, but failed ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... 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 "freedom" ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... lover heard with total neglect, if indeed he 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 he fairly wished ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... being profuse in his hospitalities at Christmas, as well as in his alms to the poor throughout the year. "As touchinge the Almes to the poore of 5 & six country p'ishes & villages hard adjoyninge to Callowdon were relieved, with each of them a neepe of holsome pottage, with a peece of beoffe or mutton therin, halfe a cheate loafe, & a kan of beere, besides the private Almes that dayly went out of his purse never without eight or ten shillings in single money of ijd iijd & groates, & besides his Maundy & Thursday before Ester ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... water-gruel to be had at the Rainbow and Nando's at four. Hot furmity at Bride-bridge at seven. Justice to be had at Doctor's Commons, when people can get it. A lecture at Pinner's hall at ten. Excellent pease-pottage and tripe in Baldwin's Gardens at twelve. A constable and two watchmen killed, or near being so in Westminster; whether by a lord or lord's footman, planets ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... excellent summer dish. The back-ribs are divided into two, and used for very different purposes. The fore-part, the neck, is boiled and makes sweet barley-broth, and the meat, when well boiled, or rather the whole pottage simmered for a considerable time beside the fire, eats tenderly. The back-ribs make an excellent roast; indeed, there is not a sweeter or more varied one in the carcass, having both ribs and shoulder. The shoulder-blade eats best cold, and the ribs ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... 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 the last ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... a time Cormac, king of Ulaid, "the man of the three gifts," forsakes Eochaid's daughter, because she was barren save for one daughter that she had borne to Cormac after the making of the pottage which her mother—the woman from the elfmounds—gave her. Then she said to her mother: "Bad is what thou hast given me: it will be a ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents. And Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison: but Rebekah loved Jacob. And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field, and he was faint: And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom. And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... Ditto tame, the Sorts. Ditto Carrier, its use. Ditto broiled. Ditto in Paste or Dumplings. Ditto stew'd. Portmanteau Pottage. Pike, to roast. Ditto to bake. Pease, preserved all the Year. Pickled Walnuts. Ditto Cucumbers. Ditto for Mangoes. Ditto Kidney-Beans. Ditto Nasturtium-Seeds. Partridges stew'd with Sallery. Ditto roasted. Pheasants, ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... market is made. I sold my birthright for a mess of pottage. Whatever regrets or grief I may have are just. To contemplate a girl like Judith having any interest in me, is ghastly. Judith is yours, whether she realizes it or not. Will ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... eliminated at once and struck off the balance, never to return again, if life were but viewed aright, and held in the scale of true valuations. Nothing is more idle than to sell one's soul for a mess of pottage; for the pottage is not worth the price. Seen in the most practical, every-day light, it is a bad bargain. Not only is it true that a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of things that he possesseth, but, ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... regimen, Madam, replied he; which, I am sure, the doctor will approve of, and will make physic unnecessary in your case. And that is, 'go to rest at ten at night. Rise not till seven in the morning. Let your breakfast be watergruel, or milk-pottage, or weak broths: your dinner any thing you like, so you will but eat: a dish of tea, with milk, in the afternoon; and sago for your supper: and, my life for your's, this diet, and a month's country air, will set ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... 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,' replied the old woman, 'thou shalt escape death; but, if thou do it not, I will let ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... in 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 scald ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... in Dutch is called 'Melden'. Some of those that I describe it vnto, take it to be a kinde of Orage; it groweth about foure or fiue foote high: of the seede thereof they make a thicke broth, and pottage of a very good taste: of the stalke by burning into ashes they make a kinde of salt earth, wherewithall many vse sometimes to season their brothes; other salte they knowe not. Wee our selues, vsed the leaues also ...
— A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land Of Virginia • Thomas Hariot
... by Guild Socialists and others nowadays as a recent discovery—is alluded to: indeed the modern syndicalist doctrine was anticipated: the workman, it is said, "has been forced to sell himself for a mess of pottage and is consequently deprived of the guidance of his own life and the direction of his own labour." Socialist opinion abroad, it says, "has taken shape in two distinct schools, Collectivist and Anarchist. English ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease |
