A Ridiculous Exaggeration

Those were drinking days, and most men drank hard. So very great is the improvement Time has brought about in such habits, that a moderate statement of the quantity of wine and punch which one man would swallow in the course of a night, without any detriment to his reputation as a perfect gentleman, would seem, in these days, a ridiculous exaggeration.


Charles Dickens, A Tales of Two Cities

Painting: Gabriël Metsu (1629 - 1667)