Bolo

“ and when they left off at ten minutes past eleven, Miss Bolo rose from the table considerably agitated, and went straight home, in a flood of tears, and a sedan chair. ”

“ Green flame of flight to the very tip!”
I looked into the bowl, wondering:
And night and dawn mingled
And sleep stirred
And the day turned in its dream,
And flame, flickering, swept the bowl’s lip.
Then I took the bowl in my two hands,
Thanking God.
But now in my bowl dawn breaks no more,
Over the bowl’s lip I hear the iron shudder of dry leaves
Beaten by frozen wind.
There is no rain to soften sleep,
No day like topaz in the sun,
I see the larch crumble to ash,—
My arms grow numb back to the very heart
Holding this bowl God gave to me! ”

“ In the mean time, the court enjoyed every kind of diversion, in a place where amusement is sought with avidity. The game of bowls, which in France is the pastime of mechanics and servants only, is quite the contrary in England, where it is the exercise of gentlemen, and requires both art and address: it is only in use during the fair and dry part of the season, and the places where it is practised are charming, delicious walks, called bowling-greens, which are little square grass plots, where the turf is almost as smooth and level as the cloth of a billiard-table. ”

“ In the morning there were plum-pudding for breakfast, and roast duck and lemon jelly, and the day passed like a happy dream, only broken by surprising and delightful meals. The Ball woke up and showed them how to play water-polo; and they bounced him on the sand, with shrieks of joy and pleasure. You know, a Ball likes to be bounced by people he is fond of—it is like slapping a friend on the shoulder. ”

“ Fear not to slaver; ’tis no deadly sin,
Like the free Frenchman, from your joyous chin
Suspend the ready napkin; or, like me,
Poise with one hand your bowl upon your knee;
Just in the zenith your wise head project,
Your full spoon, rising in a line direct,
Bold as a bucket, heed no drops that fall,
The wide-mouth’d bowl will surely catch them all. ”

“ The French will give you for breakfast a bowl of Soissons, for dinner a Romaine, which long survive as tender memories; even the humble dandelion they have enlisted in the good cause. With the Italian you will fare no less well; better it may be, for, with the poetic feeling that has disappeared for ever from their art and architecture, they fill the salad bowl at times with such delicate conceits as tender young violet leaves, so that you may smell the spring in the blossoms at your throat, while you devour it in the greens set before you. ”

“ Whatever be the cake you give to the ménage, the best part of it will be set aside to offer to the master and mistress and their family. If it be a bull, the head and horns will be kept; if a dragon, the head and tail; and on the evening after the servants’ party, when your dinner is over, the cook will hastily don a white apron and knot her best silk handkerchief round her head, and will march into the dining-room bearing the remains of the cake with all its inedible decorations carefully rearranged to hide what has gone. ”

“ The great bowling-green was crowded with jostling, laughing bowlers; the archery ground afforded amusement to many competitors, for our Islonians are skilful in the use of the long-bow and cross-bow; parties were gathered for cricket, balloon, quoits, nine-pins, and leaping the bar. Some of the lads and lasses began at once to trip it to fiddle and pipe and tabour. Many of the older folk were content to stand or sit and watch a set of morris dancers, or filled the booth where a company of strolling players performed a blood-curdling tragedy and a side-splitting farce well within the hour. ”

“ No game of "kic bal" to last more than five minutes, and after every game a pause of one hour to be permitted, so that the players may have necessary rest and proper refreshment.
And yet one more suggestion. But this shall not be a rule but only an offering. I make you a present of the idea—so charming—as a compliment of the season. Let the goals be made of Christmas-trees, let the "kickers" be covered with holly and mistletoe (like your "Jack-in-the-Green") , and instead of a brutal, rough, hard, uncomfortable globe of leather, let the "kic bal" be a veritable plum pudding! ”

“ Some call this game Dutch-rubbers.
Bowling, according to an author in the seventeenth century, is a pastime "in which a man shall find great art in choosing out his ground, and preventing the winding, hanging, and many turning advantages of the same, whether it be in open wilde places, or in close allies; and for his sport, the chusing of the bowle is the greatest cunning; your flat bowles being best for allies, your round byazed bowles for open grounds of advantage, and your round bowles, like a ball, for green swarthes that are plain and level." ”

“ I found a fine bowling-green in the rear, and during the course of the evening some of the townsfolk forgathered there and played bowls quite seriously over their pipes and their ale. It may not be high art, but I noticed there was an art in playing bowls, and the old men who knew and studied it appeared mostly to win. A good old-fashioned game is bowls, that never seems wholly to go out of fashion, and a pleasant one to watch ”

“ To one quart of strong hot ale add the pulp of six roasted apples, together with a small quantity of grated nutmeg and ginger, with a sufficient quantity of raw sugar to sweeten it; stir the mixture assiduously, and let it be served hot.
Of equal antiquity, and of nearly the same composition, is the Wassail Bowl, which in many parts of England is still partaken of on Christmas Eve, and is alluded to by Shakspeare in his "Midsummer Night's Dream." ”

“ Yet there is reason in the custom that has, in great measure, withdrawn them from the heated ball-room and the artificially illuminated dinner table.
Corsage bouquets, in dancing, become an early ruin. Carried in the hand at a ball, they are speedily tossed aside on the nearest point of refuge and left there to ignominiously fade. When flowers are worn at an evening entertainment, choose those that will best stand the light and heat. ”

“ As a rule, ball—suppers with the exception of the soup, which should be white or clear—are cold ones, consisting of mayonnaises, game, poultry, pies, pasties, galantines, salads, creams, jellies and other sweets, with plenty of fresh fruit according to the season of the year. They may be served at a buffet or at a table, or tables, where every one can sit down, but the viands are the same, and it is an essential thing that a ball supper should be prettily and daintily laid. ”

“ The moon doth shine.
And our ballast is old wine.—
And your ballast is old wine.
Who art thou, so fast adrift?
I am he they call Old Care.
Here on board we will thee lift.
No: I may not enter there.
Wherefore so? 'Tis Jove's decree,
In a bowl Care may not be.—
In a bowl Care may not be.
Fear ye not the waves that roll?
No: in charmed bowl we swim.
What the charm that floats the bowl?
Water may not pass the brim.
The bowl goes trim. The moon doth shine. ”

“ It is a wishing bowl. Whenever you are hungry all you have to do is to wish for something in it, and there it is; milk, or soup, or wine; anything that can go in a bowl. And if you turn it over, as you saw me do just now, a rushing, roaring river pours out, and surrounds you, or, if you like, it will flood a whole country and drown every living thing.”
“Dear me!” said the young man, “that is a wonderful bowl. Well, I agree; I’ll give you my diamond for it.” So they exchanged the bowl and the diamond. The old man took the diamond in his hand and watched it sparkle ”

“ And the feasters delayed not to fall to on these dainties, while the cup-bearer bore round a mighty bowl of beaten gold filled with sparkling wine the hue of the yellow sapphire, and furnished with six golden ladles resting their handles in six half-moon84 shaped nicks in the rim of that great bowl. Each guest when the bowl was brought to him must brim his goblet with the ladle, and drink unto the glory of Witchland and the rulers thereof. ”

“ Then, as the flaming brandy flickered and darted from the yawning bowl, even as did the flaming poison tongues of the cruel dragon that St. George of England conquered so valiantly, each one of the revellers sought to snatch a raisin from the burning bowl without singe or scar. And he who drew out the lucky raisin was winner and champion, and could claim a boon or reward for his superior skill. ”

“ BOWLS One bowl is filled with clear water, another with wine, a third with vinegar, a fourth is empty. All are placed in line on table. Each person in turn is blindfolded, turned about three times, and led to table. A hand is put out and prophecy made by bowl touched. Water shows happy, peaceful life; wine promises rich, eventful, noble career; vinegar, misery and poverty; an empty bowl is a symbol of bachelor or spinster life. ”

“ These viands, with mince-pies and other Christmas dainties, had probably somewhat the same origin, and that of considerable antiquity. The Wassail Bowl, or Lamb’s Wool, is another joyous accompaniment of this eve, a composition of ale, nutmeg, sugar, toast, and roasted crabs or apples, still preserved in many parts. ”

“ From the Greek verb ‘βάλλειν,’ to cast, probably came the Italian ‘ballo,’ the French ‘bal,’ and the English ‘ball.’ Playing at ball was, in the middle ages, often associated with singing and dancing. Hence the Romance word ‘ballare,’ and the Old Spanish ‘ballar,’ which both meant ‘to sing.’ The French ‘ballade’ and the English ‘ballad’ may be thus accounted for. ”

“ Who ever learnt a Scotch song out of books? They are possessed of souls, these songs, to be caught only from living lips. The bodies alone are to be found within the bars.
Passing Bolton we saw the first bowling green, sure proof that we are getting northward, where every village has its green and its bowling club, the ancient game of bowls still offering to rural England attractions paramount to more modern sports. ”

“ The dinner was as elegant as could be well expected when so great an assembly were to be kept for so long a time. For drink there was several sorts of wine, good lemon punch, toddy, cyder, porter &c. About seven the ladies and gentlemen begun to dance in the ball room, first minuets one round; second giggs; third reels; and last of all country dances; tho' they struck several marches occasionally. ”

“ Day after day the importuning cry
Grew stronger - grew, a heaven-accusing dole
Because no sacred waters laved my bowl.
'So full the fountain, Lord, wouldst Thou deny
The little needed for a soul’s supply? ”

“ We had a great dinner yesterday, and G. and I went to the Station ball, which was very well managed. I do not know why one ball should be better than another; as far as the dinners are concerned, I think they are all equally tiresome, but balls do differ.
This was a very dancing business, and we did not get away till one. It went on till three, and I have been obliged to represent to our engaged aides-de-camp how very wrong it is of them to dance three times with the same girl—such a waste of time to all parties. ”

“ Anyhow, when one dark rainy morning the sharp need came for something of this kind, it was I who thought of the bowl, which, after all, could contain almost as much Jordan water as could the freestone font in St. Barnabas's, and was twenty times more beautiful. ”

“ Come to plate, every tavern can afford you flat bowles, french bowles, prounet cups, beare bowles, beakers; and private householders in the citie, when they make a feast to entertain their friends, can furnish their cupboards with flagons, tankards, beere cups, wine bowles, some white, some percell guilt, some guilt all over, some with covers, others without, of sundry shapes and qualities. ”

“ The great bowl was miles deep and miles wide. We scrambled down the rocks and they showed us how, even when you stood far, far apart from one another, you merely had to whisper in that great place and every one in the theatre could hear you. ”

“ At the high table each person had a bowl, either silver or wood, and each had a private spoon, and a dagger to serve as knife, also a drinking-cup of various materials, from the King’s gold goblet downwards to horns, and a bannock to eat with the brose. ”

“ To have missed the dinner would have been to miss as jolly and as stout a meal as man need eat; and to have missed the overflowing cups in which they drank The Wedding–Day, would have been the greatest miss of all.
After dinner, Caleb sang the song about the Sparkling Bowl. As I’m a living man, hoping to keep so, for a year or two, he sang it through.
And, by–the–by, a most unlooked–for incident occurred, just as he finished the last verse.
There was a tap at the door; and a man came staggering in, without saying with your leave, or by your leave, with something heavy on his head. ”

“ This is played exactly as all other progressive games. Arrange [56] tables to seat four, choose partners, and provide score cards.
In the centre of each table, place a bowl containing one hundred peanuts in the shell, and lay a long, new, common hat-pin at each place. At the head table have a bell. Before being seated to play, each guest is to have the right hand securely tied down to the side by a ribbon or fancy cord. When ready to commence, a player rings a bell at the head table, and all begin to spear nuts from the bowl ”

“ A bowl whereon wreaths of corn-flowers twine,
And along the rim these letters shine:
Not joy to the rich, to the poor man care;
Our toil and our pleasure alike we share.
"The crowd makes way for the carriage to come,
The murmurs grow silent, the people stand dumb;
Only the sound of the bells is rolled,
Like a seraph-song from the blue down-sailing. ”

“ Bowls of frumenty, made from wheat cakes or creed wheat, boiled in milk, with sugar and nutmeg, &c., also made part of the feast. Nor was the wassail bowl, or the tankard of spiced ale, omitted, but formed a prominent part of the entertainment; Christmas ale being generally of superlative merit. ”