Patience is a bitter cup, which the strong alone can drink.
“Arabian wisdom : selections and translations from the Arabic“
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We were so happy till father drank rum, Then all our sorrow and trouble begun ; Mother grew pale and wept every day. Baby and I were too hungry to play ; Slowly they faded till one summer night Found their dead faces all silent and white; Then with big tears slowly dropping I said, ‘ Father’s a drunkard and mother is dead.’ ‘”Oh! If the temperance men’ only could find Poor, wretched father and talk very kind ; If they would stop him from drinking, then I should be so very happy again. Is it too late, temperance men ? Please try Or poor little Bessie must soon starve and die! All day long I’ve been begging for bread, — Father’s a drunkard and mother is dead.
THE TRIADS OF IRELAND Three sorrowful ones of an alehouse : the man who gives the feast, the man to whom it is given, the man who drinks without being satiated.
"Reminiscences of Scottish life and character" The people were a little disposed to rebel, because, according to their Highland notions, " a gentleman was no the waur for being able to tak a gude glass o' whisky." These were the notions of a people in whose eyes the power of swallowing whisky conferred distinction, and with whom inability to take the fitting quantity was a mark of a mean and futile character. Sad to tell, the funeral rites of Highland chieftains were not supposed to have been duly celebrated except there was an immoderate and often fatal consumption of whisky. It has been related that at the last funeral in the Highlands, conducted according to the tradi- tions of the olden times, several of the guests fell victims to the usage, and actually died of the ex- cesses.
The funeral of the late Duke of Sutherland.
The procession was a mile long. Refreshments were provided for 7000 persons : beef, bread, and beer, but not one glass of whisky was allowed on the property that day ! It may, perhaps, be said that the change we speak of is not peculiar to Scotland ; that in England the same change has been apparent, and that drunkenness has passed away in the higher circles, as a matter of course, as refinement and taste made an advancement in society.
An old beggar woman was a frequent visitor at Duntrune. She was called Bobbins, a nickname which she did not particularly like, as it had ref- erence to some intromissions with her neighbours' yarn. She was seized with a cold, and confined to bed. The neighbours sent donations of various delicacies, one of them a jar of black-currant jam, which she emptied into a wooden dish, and ate it all up with a large horn spoon, making wry faces all the time, and took credit to herself for the same, by remarking, " That mony ane wadna sup it, for the leddy maks her jeil wi' the caff (chaff) amang't." Then she drank six bottles of beer and half a bot- tle of whisky, and fell asleep for eight-and-forty hours, at the end of which time she awoke quite recovered !
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