A fine pair of metaphors for the differing effects of two men’s company – no doubt with whom I’d rather spend an evening, chatting in front of the fire.

‘Mr Irwine was like a good meal o’ victual, you were better for him without thinking on it, and Mr Ryde was like a dose o’ physic, he griped you and worreted you, and after all he left you much the same.’

Source: George Eliot, Adam Bede (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985 (1859)), p. 227

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