Bonze

“ If the omens were favorable, they passed a night locked up alone in one of the cells, for the purpose of prayer. If the omens were unfavorable, it was because their prayers had not been sufficiently sincere. The bonzes made this fault known to them; and they began their seven days' fast anew, before returning to make their devotions.
The cells had no sort of opening in their walls, and when a penitent entered one of them, her family and attendants used to come and install her. ”

“ He told us that the people in the neighbourhood are very poor, and will be glad that foreigners should come and trade with them. The bonzes here are much like their brethren of Potou, the most wretched-looking of human beings. Our friend told us that they have no books or occupation of any kind. Four times a day they go through their prayers. He had twelve bald spots on his head, which, were the record of so many vows he had taken to abstain from so many vices, which he enumerated. I gave them five dollars when I left the island, which seemed to astonish them greatly. ”

“ My father, prince, has long been expecting you and is very angry; however, don’t grieve, and don’t be frightened, but do as I tell you. As soon as you see King Bony, fall at once on your knees, and, paying no regard to his outcry, upbraiding, and threats, approach him boldly. What will happen afterwards you will learn, but now we must part.’ On saying this the princess stamped on the ground with her little foot; the ground sprang open at once, and they descended into the subterranean realm, right into Bony’s palace, which shone all underground brighter than our sun. ”

“ Little Bonsa much more than fetish, Little Bonsa alive, or so,” he added doubtfully, “these silly niggers say. She wife of Big Bonsa, who you see, to-morrow p’raps. But their story this, that she get dead sick of Big Bonsa and bolt with white Medicine man, who dare preach she nothing but heathen idol. She want show him whether or no she only idol. That the yarn, priests tell it me to-day. They always watch for her there by the edge of the lake. They always sure Little Bonsa come back. Not at all surprised, but as she love you once, you stop holy ”

“ O once I lov’d a bonnie lass,
Ay, and I love her still;
And whilst that honour warms my breast,
I’ll love my handsome Nell.
II.
As bonnie lasses I hae seen,
And mony full as braw;
But for a modest gracefu’ mien
The like I never saw.
III.
A bonnie lass, I will confess, Is pleasant to the e’e, But without some better qualities She’s no a lass for me. IV.
But Nelly’s looks are blithe and sweet, And what is best of a’, Her reputation is complete, And fair without a flaw. ”

“ The fairy little bark, the Bonnibel, swept blithely out into the moonlighted waves.
Bonnibel tied her lace handkerchief over her head, and wrapped the shawl about her shoulders.
Somehow her heart began to grow lighter. This moonlight flitting seemed so sweet and romantic.
Her dark-eyed lover sitting opposite lightly swaying the oars [Pg 17] looked handsome as a demi-god to her partial eyes. She trusted him implicitly.
"The king can do no wrong," was her motto. ”

“ Grim, therefore, invented all kinds of transparent pretexts for paying visits to the saw-mills. And when he saw Bonnyboy, conscious that his eye was resting upon him, swinging his axe so that the chips flew about his ears, and the perspiration rained from his brow, a dim anxiety often took possession of him, though he could give no reason for it. That big brawny fellow, with the frame of a man and the brain of a child, with his guileless face and his guileless heart, strangely moved his compassion. ”

“ For a cargo of wine to this bonnie Dundee.
Some said she was bonnie when she was a lassie,
Ah! fair the young blossom upon the young tree;
But winter will come, and summer will pass aye,
And youth is not always to you or to me.
A true loving daughter, with God to fear,
A dutiful wife, and a mother dear;
With a heart to feel and a bosom to sigh,
She had tears to weep, she had tears to dry. ”

“ And as they walk’d, of love they talk’d,
and joys which lovers crown'd.
And now the sun had rose to noon,
the zenith of his power,
When to a shade their steps they made,
to pass the mid-day hour.
The bonny lad row’d in his plaid
the lass, who scorn’d to frown;
the soon forgot the ewes she fought,
and he to gang to town.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago. ”

“ I have a very deep affection for Bonfire, for we have been through so much together, and some of it bad enough. All the hard spots to which one's memory turns the old fellow has shared, though he says so little about it. ”

“ That frank and genial gaze of Bonnyboy’s, which expressed goodness of heart but nothing else, seemed to Grim an “open sesame” to all hearts; and that unawakened something which goes so well with childhood, but not with adult age, filled him with tenderness and a vague anxiety. “My poor lad,” he would murmur to himself, as he caught sight of Bonnyboy’s big perspiring face, with the yellow tuft of hair hanging down over his forehead, “clever you are not; but you have that which the cleverest of us often lack.” ”

“ She made no reply, but turned her head sharply away, as if in sudden embarrassment. Then, in answer to his conventionally murmured good-byes, she looked back, and he saw her face radiant, alight, with the most beautiful smile trembling on the lips. The splendor of this look seemed to him a mute expression of her happiness—of love reciprocated, ambition realized—and in it he read his own doom. He turned blindly round to pick up his hat; the door behind him was opened, and there, handsome, debonair, fresh as a May morning, stood Lord Hastings, hat in hand. ”

“ Why do you weep, Mary Halliday? and why do you weep, John Graeme? Ye think that Elphin Irving,—oh, it’s a bonnie, bonnie name, and dear to many a maiden’s heart as well as mine,—ye think that he is drowned in Corrie, and ye will seek in the deep, deep pools for the bonnie, bonnie corse, that ye may weep over it, as it lies in its last linen, and lay it, amid weeping and wailing, in the dowie kirkyard. Ye may seek, but ye shall never find ”

“ It is an expression we often make use of. Bonnie Berks—bonnie even in winter, when the fields are robed in starry snow; bonnie in spring-time, when the fields are rolling clouds of tenderest green, when the young wheat is peeping through the brown earth, when primroses cluster beneath the hedgerows, and everything is so gay and so happy and hopeful that one’s very soul soars heavenwards with the lark.
But Berks I thought never looked more bonnie than it did one lovely autumn morning, when Ida and I and the dogs walked up the hill towards our favourite seat in the old pine wood. ”

“ A high-bred gentleman, thought I, whom the fickle goddess has cruelly maltreated.
If I had seen these men with the eyes of my old age, would my opinion have been the same? Perhaps the grotesque marker would have excited more pity than aversion. The jovial Boniface might have been metamorphosed into a vulgar, over-dressed, and not over-scrupulous moneylender ”

“ She walked up the hall to the sitting-room and there sat down in a low chair before the chimneypiece. The chill of the fog had penetrated the house and a fire had been kindled in the grate. On its quivering fluctuation of flame she fixed her eyes. With her hands pressed between her knees she sat immovable, thinking of what she was going to say, and so nervous that the blood sang in her ears and the palms of her hands, clasped tight together, were damp. She had never in her life shrunk so before an allotted task. ”

“ And out cam his bonnie bryde,
riving her hair.
'The meadow lies green,
the corn is unshorn,
But bonnie George Campbell
will never return.'
Saddled and bridled
and booted rode he,
A plume in his helmet,
a sword at his knee. ”

“ He looked around the kitchen with a mischievous air, and stretched out his feet decorated with the defunct Boniface's slippers.
"Upon my word, this is stepping into the old man's shoes with a vengeance! And what a hearty, good-humored looking woman she is! Kind as a kitten," and he leaned forward and stroked the cat and her brood, and then patted old Bose upon the head. The widow, bringing in sundry good things, looked pleased at his attention to her dumb friends.
"It's a wonder Bose does not growl; he generally does if strangers touch him. ”

“ A bonfire is formed of faggots of furze, ferns, and the like. Men and maidens by locking hands form a circle, and commence a dance to some wild native song. At length, as the dancers become excited, they pull each other from side to side across the fire. If they succeed in treading out the fire without breaking the chain, none of the party will die during the year. If, however, the ring is broken before the fire is extinguished, “bad luck to the weak hands,” as my informant said. ”

“ To these days, so cold and pitiless to the fragile creatures of the earth, little Bonnie has succumbed. Into his aching limbs the frosts have entered, racking the tender little body, and bringing it to so low an ebb that Susan, watching over him with miserable fear and terrible forebodings from morning till night, and from night again to morning (she never now lets him out of her sight, refusing even to let anyone else sleep with 132him) , lives in secret, awful terror of what every day may bring. ”

“ There is some sprinkling of powdered incense over the embers of the hempen bonfire in order that the fumes, mingling with the ghostly essences that permeate the air, may smother evil influences; sometimes, too, men light their pipes in the flame, thinking thus to inhale good fortune ”

“ Bonfire, bon′fīr, n. a large fire in the open air on occasions of public rejoicing, &c.—originally a fire in which bones were burnt. [Not Fr. bon, good, and Fire.]
Bongrace, bon′grās, n. a shade from the sun once worn by women on the front of the bonnet: a broad-brimmed hat or bonnet. [Fr.]
Bonhomie, bon′o-mē, n. easy good-nature. [Fr.; bon homme, a good fellow.] ”

“ He stood glaring at her with rage and malignity distorting his aristocratic features. How dared that feeble, puny girl defy him thus?
For a moment he almost hated her. A sleeping devil was aroused within his heart.
"Bonnibel," he exclaimed, angrily, "you shall repent this hour in dust and ashes!"
All the latent fire and scorn of the girl's passionate nature were fanned into flame by his threatening words.
"I care nothing for your threat," she answered, haughtily. "I defy you to do your worst! Such threats do honor to your manhood when addressed to a weak and helpless girl! ”

“ The besoms, dipped in tar, are set ablaze, and the young men wave them about, while dancing round and leaping through the bonfire, or run with them, flaming in their hands, from one bonfire to another, to leap over each in turn, being in this exercise imitated and rivalled by the damsels ”

“ Grim had to laugh in spite of himself at the paternal way in which his son comforted him, as if he were the party to be pitied. Bonnyboy’s unfailing cheerfulness, which had its great charm, began to cause him uneasiness, because he feared it was but another form of stupidity. A cleverer boy would have been sorry for his mistakes and anxious about his own future. But Bonnyboy looked into the future with the serene confidence of a child, and nothing under the sun ever troubled him, except his father’s tendency to worry. ”

“ I remembered suddenly that I had dressed carelessly in the morning, that I had tied my cravat in a hurry, that my coat fitted me badly and I had neglected to send it back. All the innumerable details of life—the little things I despised or overlooked—swarmed, like stinging gnats, into my thoughts while I stood there.
"You're just in time for tea, Ben," said Sally; "it's a pity you don't drink it."
"And you're just in time for a scolding," remarked Bonny. "Do you know, if I had a husband who wouldn't ride with me, I'd gallop off the first time I went hunting with another man." ”

“ If one fall down, all the others they have too much play. They rock”—Bonny exhibited—“and fall over and pile up in heap. I like to do one turn for you. We goin' the same way—you bring me the good luck, like a bird in the han'. This is my clean-up, you understand. You bring me the beautiful luck. You turn me up right bower first slap. Now it's goin' be my deal. I like to do by you!”
The packer turned over and looked up at the cool sky, pricked through with early stars. ”

“ In parts of Switzerland and France the lighting of the Yule log is accompanied by a prayer that the women may bear children, the she-goats bring forth kids, and the ewes drop lambs.846 The rule observed in some places that the bonfires should be kindled by the person who was last married847 seems to belong to the same class of ideas, whether it be that such a person is supposed to receive from, or to impart to, the fire a generative and fertilizing influence. ”

“ She almost thought he was good enough for her Bonnie girl now. She wasn't given to romances, but she felt that Bonnie needed one most mightily about now.
"She didn't wake up except to open her eyes and smile once," she reported, reassuringly. "She coughs a little now and then, with a nasty sound in it, but I hope we can ward off pneumonia. It was great of you to put your overcoat around her. That saved her, if anything can, I guess. You look pretty well used up yourself. Wouldn't you like the doctor to give you something before you go home?" ”