Bosio

“ I do not think that I can live much longer."
"Can I do nothing?" asked Don Teodoro.
Bosio still smiled, as a man smiles in torture when one speaks to him of peace.
"If I believed that anything could be done," he said, "I should not suffer as I do. I have lived a bad life, and the time has come when I must pay the score. But it is not my fault if things are as they are—it is not all my fault."
The priest sighed, and looked away after a moment.
"We have all done some one great wrong thing in our lives," he said gently. "The price may perhaps be paid to God in good, as well as to man in pain." ”

“ Maretzek opened the doors of the Astor Place Opera House for a short season, preparatory to his summer campaign in Castle Garden. Under his auspices Bosio has reappeared, and Bettini has made his bow. Bosio is so beautiful a woman, she has a voice so subtly sweet and sympathetic, a style of singing so simple and sufficient, and an instinctive feminineness of feeling fine enough to make her acting always agreeable, that her impression as a Prima Donna is the most symmetrical we have known in New-York. Her womanliness is her charm and her success. ”

“ Count Bosio may be the best of men. I do not know. But he is the middle-aged, younger brother of Count Macomer, with a very slender fortune of his own and a position no better than the rest of us. If he marries you, he becomes Prince of Acireale, a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, a Grandee of Spain of the First Class—and many times a millionnaire. For you have all that to give the man you marry. Grant that he is the best of men. Is his brother wholly disinterested? I speak plainly. It is rumoured that Count Macomer has lost most of his fortune in speculations. ”

“ You are young, you have never been married, you have a very good name and a small fortune of your own."
"Take it, then!" exclaimed Bosio, impulsively. "You shall have it all to-morrow—everything I possess. God knows, I am ready to give you all I have. Take it. I can live somehow. What do I care? I have given you my life—what is a little money? But do not ask me to marry her, your niece, here, under your very roof. I am not a saint, but I cannot do that!"
"No," answered the countess, "we are not saints, you and I, it is true. ”

“ A ball having struck his helmet from his head, he quietly replaced it with the steel-cap of a fallen soldier, without seeming to heed the danger. Bosio has left us a striking picture of him during the progress of the defences at St. Nicholas. To complete them, it was necessary for the workmen to labour continuously for seventy hours, during which time a constant watch was kept to guard them from surprise. D’Aubusson never left the spot. “His armour,” says the historian above named, “was gilt or golden, and always kept highly polished and shining ”

“ A man cannot know modes of life as well in Minorca as in London; but he may study mathematicks as well in Minorca.' BOSWELL. 'I don't know, Sir: if you had remained ten years in the Isle of Col, you would not have been the man that you now are.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, if I had been there from fifteen to twenty-five; but not if from twenty-five to thirty-five.' BOSWELL. 'I own, Sir, the spirits which I have in London make me do every thing with more readiness and vigour. ”

“ The walls of his great basilica could tell a whole history of wonders that were wrought into all parts of the stately structure, mosaics of light, of charity, visible to Mary and the angels who watch around the sacred altar. Don Bosco, the humble, the lowly-hearted peasant, still more amid divine favors and caresses than amid the earthly honors often lavished upon him, regarded them as utterly beyond his merits and inflicted upon himself more severe penances, sought a more complete death to self and courted humiliations with a deeper joy and a more solid conviction of his nothingness. ”

“ The history of this clever conjurer, with all its lights and shadows, sweeps before me like a mental panorama.
The second vision carries me into the country, to the fairs of England and the side-shows of America:
“Bosco! Bosco! Eat-’em-alive Bosco. You can’t afford to miss this marvel. Bosco! Bosco!”
Follow me into the enclosure and gaze down into a den. There lies a half-naked human being. His hair is long and matted, a loin cloth does wretched duty as clothing. ”

“ So I read and laugh over my Boswell in the library when the lamps are lit, buried in cushions and surrounded by every sign of civilisation, with the drawn curtains shutting out the garden and the country solitude so much disliked by both sage and disciple. Indeed, it is Bozzy who asserts that in the country the only things that make one happy are meals. "I was happy," he says, when stranded at a place called Corrichatachin in the Island of Skye, and unable to get out of it because of the rain,—"I was happy when tea came. Such I take it is the state of those who live in the country. ”

“ An article published in THE CATHOLIC WORLD in 1903, about Don Bosco. Today, he is better known as Saint John Bosco, the patron saint of young people.
WHEN one man in his lifetime has cared for, trained, and sent out into the world, as useful and law-abiding citizens, ten million children, then the attention of people may well be drawn to him again and again, for it is the lives of such men that keep the heart of the world from despair. ”

“ I raised my old gun, and partly getting the scent, he turned his head upwards, and his eyes flashed fire in my face! But afore he could spring on me, I plumped a charge into his face and eyes, and dropped him, as Aunt Polly did the tory. Then Bose made a lunge on the critter; but he warn't dead yet, and in they grappled for life or death! Then dog's hair and painter's hair flew like flax in the brake, I tell you. And then there was growling and craunching, I reckon. I see Bose was going to be worsted, and I closed in to give him a lift. ”

“ And, besides, Don Bosco never wasted time. St. Liguori, whose voluminous works are the treasure of the Church, made a vow which might well frighten the most saintly, never to waste a minute of time; and I have often thought that vow was like the fiery chariot of Elias, which bore his soul up to heaven to witness the "Glories" of divine love, and then, returning to earth, sped him over its vast spaces scattering his pages—so many sparks of fire to kindle heavenly love in the hearts of men. ”

“ No wonder Bozzy’s relatives got tired of his last hobby, his very subject himself got tired. “Sir,” said the sage, “you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.” Yet Bozzy knew what he was about when he stuck to his one topic. After his idol was gone, what was there for him but the bottle? It was one of the earliest recollections of Lord Jeffrey that he had assisted as a boy in putting the biographer to bed in a state of absolute unconsciousness. Next morning Boswell was told of the service rendered: he clapped the lad on the head, and complacently congratulated him. ”

“ A man of noble birth and brilliant attainments was the original Bosco, and his name became a by-word all over the Continent as the synonym, not of cruelty, but of clever deception, yet never has posterity put the name of a great performer to such ignoble uses. ”

“ Give it all up, in the name of God!"
"God's mercy has sent me these boys," answered Don Bosco heroically; "I shall not give one up; if I cannot hire a house I shall build one; and I tell you that one day, with God's help and the protection of His Blessed Mother, these children and a great many more will have a house, workshops, a college, a church and their own professors," and his eyes glowed with a supernatural light as he raised his hands toward Heaven. ”

“ Why his Lordship uses the epithet pleasantly, when speaking of a grave piece of reasoning, I cannot conceive. But different men have different notions of pleasantry. I happened to sit by a gentleman one evening at the Opera-house in London, who, at the moment when Medea appeared to be in great agony at the thought of killing her children, turned to me with a smile, and said, 'funny enough.' BOSWELL.
[262] Dr. Johnson afterwards told me, that he was of opinion that a clergyman had this right. ”

“ The interior life of our founder, in all the booklets about him, as far as I can see, has not been touched upon, because exterior deeds are what impress the world. Yet these marvelous feats of Don Bosco would absolutely have been unattainable had it not been for the divine fire that burnt in his simple heart. ”

“ For all his love of a post-chaise, Johnson was happiest in London. "You yourself, Sir," said Boswell when they were in the Hebrides "have never seen, till now, any thing but your native island." "Johnson. 'But, Sir, by seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can shew.' Boswell. 'You have not seen Pekin.' Johnson. 'What is Pekin? Ten thousand Londoners would drive all the people of Pekin: they would drive them like deer.'"
The town, he said, was his element. ”

“ In the evening, Bosco explained the extraordinary gift he possessed of sleight of hand and of his being able—while calling the attention of the person, with whom he was conversing, to some indifferent object or otherwise distracting attention—to abstract, by an instantaneous and almost imperceptible movement, some ornament from their person and again to be able to place, or cast it with precision, wherever he desired. ”

“ Dr Johnson said, if M'Leod would let it be known that he had such a place for naughty ladies, he might make it a very profitable island. We had, in the course of our tour, heard of St Kilda poetry. Dr Johnson observed, 'it must be very poor, because they have very few images.' BOSWELL. 'There may be a poetical genius shewn in combining these, and in making poetry of them.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, a man cannot make fire but in proportion as he has fuel. He cannot coin guineas but in proportion as he has gold.' At tea he talked of his intending to go to Italy in 1775. ”

“ I tell you what, young man, you are not over civil this evening; but you are ill, as I said before, and I shan’t take much notice of your language, at least for the present; as for my size, I am not so much bigger than yourself; and as for being fierce, you should be the last one to fling that at me. It is well for you that I can be fierce sometimes. If I hadn’t taken your part against Blazing Bosville, you wouldn’t be now taking tea with me.’
‘It is true that you struck me in the face first; but we’ll let that pass. So that man’s name is Bosville; what’s your own?’
‘Isopel Berners.’ ”

“ There was danger in the air at Bosco, in your own defended house; it seemed to me too monstrous. I said to myself, 'We can help him, poor dear, and we must. It's the least one can do for so old and so good a friend.' I decided what to do: I simply put this other story about. In London that always answers. I knew that Mary pitied you really as much as I do, and that what she saw at Bosco had been a revelation—had at any rate brought your situation home to her. ”

“ Yes, at this moment I feel as well as if I had never been sick at all. If any one were to ask the reason why, you might answer thus: Quod Deus imperio, tu prece Virgo potes! (What God does by His power, Thou obtainest, Virgin! by Thy intercession) . This is certainly not my hour yet; it may be ere long but not now.'
"This unexpected respite in Don Bosco's illness was beyond doubt the result of many prayers offered up through Our Lady in many parts of the world. ”

“ Vincent of Paul is you, Reverend Father; with your religious family, half Italian, half French, you will accomplish better than any other, the necessary work of peace and conciliation. Your place is waiting for you...... Father of Italian orphans, I appeal to your heart. You have already responded to Europe and America; here is Africa presenting desolate children whom your heart is large enough to contain." Don Bosco could not resist this appeal. ”

“ Bosigo will see them. He will follow them to learn the meaning of it. He will send a runner back to the herdsmen to tell them to break camp and follow him. But we will be between Bosigo and the herd. We will catch the runner. The herdsmen will not know that Bosigo is marching, and when the gap between them and Bosigo is wide, we will strike. Is it good, Umbesi?"
"Oh, it is good—good!" Umbesi stamped the ground in his excitement. "The indunas will not whisper among themselves; saying that I am too young for the leopard-skin."
Turcan patted his shoulder: "Go, show them your wisdom!" ”

“ He immediately agreed to do so, whenever I should acquaint him of my time of going thither; for he saw that my enthusiasm for the brave islanders was as warm as his own.
I accordingly wrote to him from Rome, in April 1765, that I had fixed the month of September for my Corsican expedition, and therefore begged of him to send me the letter of introduction, which if he refused, I should certainly go without it, and probably be hanged as a spy. So let him answer for the consequences.
The wild philosopher was a man of his word ”

“ His lordship was drest in a rustick suit, and wore a little round hat; he told us, we now saw him as Farmer Burnett, and we should have his family dinner, a farmer's dinner. He said, 'I should not have forgiven Mr Boswell, had he not brought you here, Dr Johnson.' He produced a very long stalk of corn, as a specimen of his crop, and said, 'You see here the loetas segetes.' He added, that Virgil seemed to be as enthusiastick a farmer as he, and was certainly a practical one. JOHNSON. 'It does not always follow, my lord, that a man who has written a good poem on an art, has practised it. ”

“ Sometimes when they were standing at their trough eating, he ran at them, just for the fun of seeing them run.
“I don’t think he meant to kill it,” said the grandpa.
“Very likely not,” said the father, “but I must teach him not to run at the geese. Come here, sir,” he said to Bose.
Bose felt very badly. He crawled slowly along. He couldn’t say, “I didn’t do it; please don’t whip me,” as a little boy or girl can. He could only look up to his master with soft, begging eyes. But little Patsy was looking in at the door. Little Patsy loves Bose dearly; and of all the family Bose best loves Patsy. ”