A garland of quotations LXXXIII
Culled from the finest T-totalers in literary history, and re-woven every Wednesday
From boist’rous Wine I fled to gentle Tea,
For, Calms compose us after Storms at Sea.
•Peter Motteux, A Poem in Praise of Tea (1712).
The ladies will be especially interested to know that it exercises absolutely no bad effects upon the complexion.
•Wiliam Mill Butler, Yerba Maté Tea: The History of Its Early Discovery in Paraguay, Its Preparation in That Country and in Brazil, and Its Introduction into the United States (1900)
The inhabitants of Hampstead have silk hats
On Sunday afternoon go out to tea
On Saturday have tennis on the lawn, and tea
On Monday to the city, and then tea.
They know what they are to feel and what to think,
They know it with the morning printer's ink
They have another Sunday when the last is gone
They know what to think and what to feel
The inhabitants of Hampstead are bound forever on the wheel.
•T.S. Eliot, “The Death of the Duchess ” (1918?)
(His slavery to black tea had, doubtless, much to do with his misanthropy.)
•Richard Le Gallienne, on Hazlitt, in his introduction to Liber Amoris (1894).
Inseparable things are easily separated, she knows. The name of the tea on one end of the string, the tea itself on the other.
•Patricia Lockwood, “The Cartoon’s Mother Builds a House in Hammerspace” (2012).
Q: In the middle of a duck egg, grind the tea mill.
A: The pupil walks in a circle around the room.
•Hau Hōō, A Critique of Present-day Pseudo-Zen (1916).
“Have a cup of tea!” The tea is of course the universe, but we must pretend it is not. The sound of the water when the frog jumps into the old pond is the music of the spheres, but we mustn’t say so.
•R.H. Blyth, Zen and Zen Classics vol. 2 (1962) .
We had a kettle: we let it leak: Our not repairing it made it worse. We haven’t had any tea for a week… The bottom is out of the universe! •Kipling, “Natural Theology” (1919).
Soon others joined in with an interest hearty
Increasing the size of their famous tea party,
Declaring with war-whoops of savage delight,
“Boston Harbor shall furnish the tea-pot tonight!”
•Josephine Pollard, The Boston Tea Party (1882).
“My aunt is very fond of tea, but once for three weeks she had to do without it.”
“That was a pity. There are some who find great comfort in tea.”
•Horatio Alger Jr., Robert Coverdale’s Struggle (1881).
You see, instead of getting our tea ready, as we promised at the beginning of this chapter, we have filled it with descriptions and meditations,—and now we foresee that the next chapter will be equally far from the point. But have patience with us; for we can write only as we are driven, and never know exactly where we are going to land.
•Harriet Beecher Stowe, The Minister’s Wooing (1859).
Tom tied a kettle to the tail of a cat,
Jill put a stone in a blind man’s hat,
Bob threw his grandmother down the stairs—
And they all grew up ugly, and nobody cares.
•Trad.
Sources: Lockwood: Balloon Pop Outlaw Black (Octopus, 2012); Hau Hōō: trans. Yoel Hoffmann as The Sound of the One Hand (Basic Books, 1975); trad.: in Wm. S. & Ceil Baring-Gould, The Annotated Mother Goose (Meridian/New American Library, 1967); some of this material is copyrighted, and I plead only fair use.