"Bonfire" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Garrick wrote to a friend:—'I did not hear till last night that your friends have generously contributed to your and their own happiness. No one can more rejoice at this circumstance than I do; and as I hope we shall have a bonfire upon the occasion, I beg that you will light it with the inclosed.' The inclosed was a bond for 280. Garrick Corres. ii. 297. Murphy says:—'Dr. Johnson often said that, when he saw a worthy family in distress, it was ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... real scientific truth from his experiences with the elements which have for him such a mysterious attraction; by the very contact with water something in the child responds to its stimulus. Mud and sand have their charms, quite intangible, but universal, from prince to coster; a bonfire is something that arouses a kind of primeval joy. Again, race experience reproducing itself may account for all this, and it must be satisfied. The demand for contact with the rest of nature is a strong and fierce ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... Those they had snugly about them. They fraternized with Corporal Snooks, Sergeant Blower, and others of their comrades, and soon learned that a grand pyrotechnic display was arranged to come off on Independence-day. A huge bonfire was to be built outside, and the prisoners were to salute the old flag, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... a woman was a terrible humiliation to the valiant Sons of the Vikings. They were silent and moody during the evening, and sat staring into the big bonfire on the saeter green with stern and melancholy features. They had suffered defeat in battle, and it behooved them to avenge it. About nine o'clock they retired into their bunks in the log cabin, but no sooner was Brumle-Knute's rhythmic snoring perceived than Wolf-in-the-Temple put his head out ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... Ghoorka knife and his match-box, the Hunter went on to the Cave of Skulls. Luckily for the denizens of that ominous place, none of them were there to bar his entrance, for he was in a grim mood, so making a bonfire of some of the mats, he looked about. One calabash contained water, and this he carried back, together with something equally precious—a bunch of bananas that were black with smoke, yet fit to eat by any one who was very hungry or did not see them. The boy was ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... up to the flames,—and the people, beholding, thought that the angels had indeed come down, and brought forth all their loose pictures and vile books, such as Boccaccio's romances and other defilements, and the children made a splendid bonfire of them in the Grand Piazza, and so thousands of vile things were consumed and scattered. And then our blessed Master exhorted the artists to give pencils to Christ and his Mother, and seek for her image among pious and holy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... me. Here's a country perfectly contented, and that fellow at work digging up grievances to persuade the people they're oppressed by us. Why should I talk of it? He can't do much harm; unless he has money—money! Romfrey says he means to start a furious paper. He'll make a bonfire of himself. I can't stand by and see you in it too. I may die; I ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the same idea differently treated. But Othello had beaten him. "That noble gentleman and that noble lady—h'm—too painful for me." The same night the hoardings were covered with posters, "Burlesque of Othello," and the contrast blazed up in my mind like a bonfire. An unforgettable look it gave me into that kind man's soul. His acquaintance was indeed a liberal and pious education. All the humanities were taught in that bare dining-room beside his gouty footstool. He was a piece of good advice; he was himself the instance ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as far as the blacksmith's shop Everett climbed the wall and approached the house through the garden, for in front of the store had been piled high a bonfire of empty boxes and dry wood boughs, and most of the inhabitants of Sweetbriar, small fry and large, were assembled in jocular groups around its blaze of light. He could see Mr. Crabtree and Bob rolling out an empty barrel to serve as a speaking stand ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... enemies, and as the only nation on earth who wished us ill from the bottom of their souls. And I am satisfied, that were our continent to be swallowed up by the ocean, Great Britain would be in a bonfire from one end to the other. Mr. Adams, as you know, has asked his recall. This has been granted, and Colonel Smith is to return too; Congress having determined to put an end to their commission at that court. I suspect and hope they ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... at once and the bonfire began to smoke and roar and crackle just as the great army of wooden Gargoyles arrived. The creatures drew back at once, being filled with fear and horror; for such a dreadful thing as a fire they had never before known in all the ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... resumed their natural forms. As you may imagine, they were all very grateful, and Princess Placida entreated them never, never to do another stitch of work so long as they lived, and they promptly made a great bonfire in the courtyard, and solemnly burnt all the embroidery frames and spinning wheels. Then the Princess gave them splendid presents, or rather sat by while Prince Vivien gave them, and there were great rejoicings in the Green Castle, and everyone did his best ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... "And you would doubtless have made a bonfire of this," picking up one dog's-eared document, "old Mr. Witherton's will; and this, a deed to an estate; and this, a bit of important evidence ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... "only look here! If the fire had got a little more hold and the wind had come more strongly down, the flames would have swept everything before them: the mill would have been like a burnt-out bonfire." ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... suffer, and the great wheel grinds them into bone and powder just as surely a century hence as a century ago. Man, you don't start right. If you would restore a ruined and neglected garden, you must first destroy, make a bonfire of the weeds prepare your soil. Then, in the springtime, fresh flowers will blossom, the trees will give leaf, the birds who have deserted a ruined and fruitless waste will return and sing once more the song of life. But there ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... land beside a stream of water, was a log cabin. It looked like a dilapidated cabin, for there were no windows and the door was off its leather hinges. There was a bonfire by the doorstep and a black kettle was hung over the fire from the ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope
... destruction; if we are besieged, so much the more food have we here. Those who do not send in their families would do well to keep a cart with two strong horses ready day and night, so that no time would be lost when they get the signal. We shall fire a gun, hoist the flag, and light a bonfire on the keep, so that they may see the smoke by day or the fire by night. Tell Jean Bouvard ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... well meant, and might have been given by the most judicious friend ; for at that time, from causes to which we may hereafter advert, nothing could be more disadvantageous to a young lady than to be known as a novel writer. Frances yielded, relinquished her favourite pursuit, and made a bonfire of all her manuscripts.(9) ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... one subject on which my husband and I hold no truce. Mr. Baxendale makes it one of his pet studies, whilst I should like to make a bonfire of every volume containing such cruel nonsense. You must know, Mr. Athel, that I have an evil reputation in Dunfield; my views are held dangerous; they call me a socialist. Mr. Baxendale, when particularly angry, offers ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... carry them into the room, and again return them to their places when the exercise was finished. One of the favorite amusements of the students was to burn these benches; the spot selected for the bonfire being usually the green in front of the old ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... sun went down that Snegourka drew a deep breath of relief and spread her little hands out to the cool evening air. And the boys, glad at her gladness, said: "Let us do something for Snegourka. Let us light a bonfire." And Snegourka not knowing what a bonfire was, she clapped her hands and was as merry and eager as they. And she helped them gather the sticks, and then they all stood round the pile and the boys set fire ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... the tangle of undergrowth and driftwood, they soon emerged on the loose sand above the beach. As Amos Swan had said, the rains had not yet washed away the black embers of the great bonfire, and near by lay a barrel with staves caved in. Looking at the scene, Jeremy almost fancied he could hear again the wild chorus of that drunken crew, most of whom had now gone ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... when he saw them both interred, he cried out that he was well rid of such good-for-nothing children, but that he should be perfectly happy only when the remaining five were buried with the first two, and that when he had got rid of the last he himself would burn down his palace as a bonfire to celebrate the event. ...
— The Cenci - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Crystal Palace. Mr. Southey, in his thirty years' laureateship, made the fame of several young versifiers, and deemed that in introducing poor White's remains to the polite world he was laying the first lucifer to a bonfire that would gloriously crackle for posterity. No less than Chatterton was the worthy laureate's estimate of his young foundling; but alas! Chatterton and Kirke White both seem thinnish gruel to us; and even Southey himself ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... permission from Ma'amselle, who would not have refused her had she asked to build a bonfire on the drawing-room carpet, Patty took her friends ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... cables, and allowed her to float on shore near Long Wharf. Then, feeling sure that their prey could not escape them, they cut away her masts, liberated their captives, and taking the sloop's boats, dragged them through the streets to the common, where they were burned on a triumphal bonfire, amid the cheers ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... his intentions. Possibly he was affected by some hazy notion that it would be a quicker end to leap headlong from the neighbouring cliffs than to plunge into the sea. At all events, he ran like a deer up towards the woods. A bonfire, round which the revellers had made merry, lay in his path. He went straight through it, scattering the firebrands right and left. No one attempted, no one dared, to stop him, but God put a check in his way. The course he had taken brought him straight up to the row ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... chimneys roar and a ruddy light gleams through the windows; but "No," say the people above, "those below would take care not to set the house on fire, for they live in it as we do. It is only a straw bonfire and a burning chimney, and a little water will extinguish it; and, besides, these little accidents clear the chimney and burn out ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... pronounce the words, "Try it with fire." The rioters, with an unanimous shout, called for combustibles, and as all their wishes seemed to be instantly supplied, they were soon in possession of two or three empty tar-barrels. A huge red glaring bonfire speedily arose close to the door of the prison, sending up a tall column of smoke and flame against its antique turrets and strongly-grated windows, and illuminating the ferocious and wild gestures of the rioters, who surrounded ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... 1832. I would be eight or ten year old at the time. James Strachan was at the door by five o'clock in the morning in his Sabbath clothes, by arrangement. We was to go up to the hill to see them building the bonfire. Moreover, there was word that Mr. Scrimgour was to be there tossing pennies, just like at a marriage. I was wakened before that by my mother at the pans and bowls. I have always associated elections since that ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... trees and interset with stumps, some cleanly cut, others with jagged splinters from three to ten feet high. And beyond, with the fierce sunlight quivering above it, rose a mass of prostrate trees piled as if for the base of a tremendous bonfire. Not a Frenchman showed behind it. Was that ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... footman, and reading it afterwards in the privacy of his bedroom with a sardonic smile upon his face. Still less contented would he have been had he beheld the merchant tearing it into small fragments and making a bonfire of it in his capacious grate. Next morning Kate looked in vain out of the accustomed window, and was sore at heart when no tall figure appeared in sight and no friendly hand waved a ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... noticed that it was reeking with filth and bad smells, and safely by the falling walls, for the workmen are tearing down everything shaky. Look out, there, or you will get scorched by that huge bonfire. They are burning all over town. Everything that the men can lift is dragged to these fires and burned. This is the plan for clearing the town. You noticed it at the bridge and you notice it here. Men with axes and saws are cutting timbers too big ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... exact bearings of the point at which the boats had disappeared, and during the night, which turned out gusty and threatening, kept making short tacks, while lanterns were hung at the mast-heads, and a huge torch, or rather a small bonfire, of tarred materials was slung at the end of a spar and thrust out over the stern of the ship. But for many hours there was no sign of the boats, and the crew of the Dolphin began to entertain the ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... are lighted on Guy Fawkes' Day, November 5, so in Belgium they light them on the evening of St. Martin's Day. Indeed, they are known as St. Martin's fires, and the children call lighting a bonfire ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Belgium • George W. T. Omond
... afternoon, "I am going to build a bonfire this evening, to burn up this rubbish, so you ...
— Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper and Other Stories • Anonymous
... in the woods began, the customs regulating it were established. The council teepee no longer existed. A hunting bonfire was kindled every morning at day-break, at which each brave must appear and report. The man who failed to do this before the party set out on the day's hunt was harassed by ridicule. As a rule, the ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... you," he said, "I despise and hate this loose socialistic philosophy that makes a bonfire of ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... mood to approve of anything introduced by Fanchon, she had scornfully refused, from the first, to dance the new "step," and, because of its bonfire popularity, found herself neglected in a society where she had reigned as beauty and belle. Faithless Penrod, dazed by the sweeping Fanchon, had utterly forgotten the amber curls; he had not once asked Marjorie to dance. All afternoon the light of indignation had ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... premises, the courts and councils of the last few years have found beams enough in some other quarters to build a church that would hold all the good people in Boston and have sticks enough left to make a bonfire for all the heretics. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... meat, two blankets, and a bottle of whisky. With this outfit they lie down in line on the pavement the whole night before the tickets are sold, generally taking up their position at about ten. It being severely cold at Brooklyn, they made an immense bonfire in the street—a narrow street of wooden houses!—which the police turned out to extinguish. A general fight then took place, out of which the people farthest off in the line rushed bleeding when they saw a ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... of Monmouth.... Spent the evening with my father. At cards till late, and being at supper, my boy being sent for some mustard to a neat's tongue, the rogue staid half an houre in the streets, it seems at a bonfire, at which I was very angry, and ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... figures out of papier-mache, and each group tries to keep its design secret until the fiesta takes place. The best falla wins a prize, and at the end of the three-day celebration, all the fallas except the prize-winner are burned in a big bonfire while the people dance around it and fireworks ...
— Getting to know Spain • Dee Day
... one. Eleanor who had intended asking there for some news of her whereabouts and the roads, changed her mind as she drew near and resolved to pass the house at a gallop. So much for wise resolves. The miserable children who dwelt in the house had been that day making a bonfire for their amusement right on her track. The hot ashes were still there; the pony set his feet in them, reared high, and threw his rider, who had never known the pony do such a thing before and had no reason to expect it of him. ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... landed yesterday at Portsmouth, and came this evening to the 'White Hart.' A bonfire and illuminations. The mayor and magistrates went to pay their respects to him. I went into the room with them, and had two glasses of claret. Afterwards sat in the next room with Mellersh, Harbroe, Shotter, Horsenell, Elkins, Clifton, H. Parson, and Buckle, to drink his health, from 8 to half-past ...
— Extracts from the Diary of William Bray, Esq. 1760-1800 • William Bray
... fence, Ter find the body that hand come off of. But I couldn't never find nothin'. I'd lay awake nights Hearin' them laylocks blowin' and whiskin'. At last I had Clarence cut 'em down An' make a big bonfire of 'em. I told him the smell made me sick, An' that warn't no lie, I can't abear the smell on 'em now; An' no wonder, es you say. I fretted somethin' awful 'bout that hand I wondered, could it be Hiram's, But folks don't rob graveyards hereabouts. Besides, Hiram's hands warn't that ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... be danger in these visits. So long as the American outposts are within an hour's ride he can have the road watched; and, although he is not likely to venture upon signaling with rockets, he may send or take word on horseback. A bonfire, too, might be lit at the other side of the hill to call them over. Altogether you will never be safe from home except when you have a strong body of your own troops between this ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... he is a little animated by the thought of the cheerful Christmas time, which, in our country of Provence, is like a grand bonfire of joy lighted in the midst of winter; by remembrance of the departure for Mass at midnight; the church bedecked and luminous; the dark streets of the village full of people; then the long watch around the table; the ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... that was the year we had a bonfire in June, because Doctor Stacey was married for the third time, and ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... "Because this isn't a bonfire. Somebody's shed is burning up; and though it looks nice it isn't any fun for them. We ought to ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on an Auto Tour • Laura Lee Hope
... the latter had not yet sighted them, and the issue, so far, hung on the race between the two feluccas. The pursuing vessel crept up closer and ever closer, and Roger and Mathews began to picture themselves as adorning that bonfire in the ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... burn en barbecue; but there is not, cannot be, a purpose of eternity; it shall pay mainly as it goes, or not at all. The show is on; and what a show, if we will but give our attention! Barbecues, bonfires, and banners? Not twenty worlds a minute would keep up our bonfire of the sun; and what banners of our fancy could eclipse the meteor pennants of the pole, or the opaline splendors of the everlasting ice? . . . Doubtless we are ostensibly progressing, but there have been prosperity and ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... to the intellectual splendor exhibited among the most favored aspirants of the seats of learning, or in councils, courts, and camps, in heroic and romantic enterprises, and in some immortal works of genius. And thus we are gazing with delight at a fine public bonfire, while, in all the cottages round, the people are shivering ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... "Only making a bonfire of a foul nest," lightly answered the minstrel, standing back as though to admire his handiwork. "Your vile hostelry burns well, my ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... his own admirable rule, that "an author is not to write all he can, but only all he ought."[26] In his worst images, however, there is often a vividness that half excuses them. But it is a grotesque vividness, as from the flare of a bonfire. They do not flash into sudden lustre, as in the great poets, where the imaginations of poet and reader leap toward ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... metamorphosis in Virgil of the ships into mermaids is not more absurd than an army of twelve or thirteen thousand of the flower of our troops and nobility performing the office of link-boys, making a bonfire, and running away! The French have said well, "les Anglois viennent nous casser des vitres avec des guin'ees."(900) We have lost six men, they five, and about a hundred vessels, from a fifty-gun ship ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... was the eventful afternoon when the Seniors took the straw ride into the country and built a bonfire upon which to burn the books they hated most. Blue Bonnet had helped Annabel select a much thumbed Cicero (there had been some difficulty in choosing), longing with all her heart for the day when her own Geometry could be added to ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... she set to work, and that happened to be the day when Mother had praised her and the others about not quarrelling. She moved the rose-bushes and carried them to the other end of the garden, where the rubbish heap was that they meant to make a bonfire of when Guy Fawkes' ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... after describing the scene, which he introduces with the words "fruges lustramus et agros," puts into perfect verse a prayer for the welfare of the crops and flocks, and looks forward to a time when (if the prayer succeeds) the land shall be full of corn, and the peasant shall heap wood upon a bonfire—perhaps one of the midsummer fires that still survive in the Abruzzi. Virgil's lines are no less picturesque;[168] and though he does not mention the pagus, he is clearly thinking of a lustratio in which more than one ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... woods, and mountains, and lake all trembling, and as it were idealized through the suble smoke, which rose up from the clear, red embers of the fir-apples which we had collected: afterwards we made a glorious bonfire on the margin, by some elder bushes, whose twigs heaved and sobbed in the uprushing column of smoke, and the image of the bonfire, and of us that danced round it, ruddy, laughing faces in the twilight; the image of this in a lake, ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... McLaren, of Manchester, has well said that if ministers, "instead of trying to prop the Cross of Christ, would simply point men to that Cross, more souls would be saved." The vast proportion of volumes of "Apologetics" are a waste of ink and paper. If they could all be kindled into a huge bonfire, they would shed more light than they ever did before. It is not our business to answer every sceptic who shies a stone at the solid fortress of truth in which God places His ambassadors. If Tobiah and Sanballat are challenging us to come down into ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... to march in a body upon the little "Temple," and, armed with stones, proceed with shouts of merriment to smash out every spear of the crimson and orange and blue glass in the windows. They then demolished the rustic furniture and made of that a noble bonfire. Mrs. Carroll had indeed wondered, between fits of laughter, in her sweet drawl, if they ought to destroy the furniture, as it could not be said, strictly speaking, to belong to them to destroy, but she was promptly vetoed by all the others ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... marched, sang "Joy to Great Caesar," a loyal ode, which had lately been written by Durfey, and which, though like all Durfey's writings, utterly contemptible, was, at that time, almost as popular as Lillibullero became a few years later. [262] Round the Cross the trainbands were drawn up in order: a bonfire was lighted: the Exclusion Bill was burned: and the health of King James was drunk with loud acclamations. The following day was Sunday. In the morning the militia lined the streets leading to the Cathedral. The two knights of the shire were escorted with great pomp to their choir ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... same. The official order was given, and all of Paine's books that could be found were seized and publicly used for a bonfire by the official hangman. Paine was burned in effigy in many cities, the charge being made that he was one of the men who had brought about the French Revolution. With better truth it could have been stated that ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... rare blaze they will make!" continued Carne, as the sunlight glanced along the russet thatch, and the blue smoke arose from the earliest chimney. "Every cottage there shall be a bonfire, because it has cast off allegiance to me. The whole race of Darling will be at my mercy—the pompous old Admiral, who refused to call on me till his idiot of a son persuaded him—that wretched poetaster, who reduced ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... shortly after that hour the Queen and the Princess Beatrice drove to Invergeldie, followed by the Balmoral party of torchbearers. The two parties then united and returned in procession to the front of Balmoral Castle, where all were grouped round a large bonfire, which blazed and crackled merrily, the Queen's pipers playing the while. Refreshments were then served to all, and dancing was engaged in to the strains of the bagpipes. When the fun was at its height, there suddenly appeared from the rear of the castle a grotesque ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... date I cannot recall that experience with Captivity, involving as it did the wood-cut representing the unfortunate Rogers standing in an impossible bonfire and being consumed thereby in the presence of his wife and their numerous progeny, strung along in a pitiful line across the picture for artistic effect—even now, I say, I cannot contemplate that experience and that wood-cut without feeling lumpy in my throat ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... loudly and warmly at the side-table. The slow, cold German-Swiss at the other tables looked at them occasionally. The landlord, with his crazed, stretched eyes, glared at them with hatred. But they fetched their beer from the bar with easy familiarity, and sat at their table, creating a bonfire of life in the ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... close of their visit, a message arrived from the Countess herself, signed with the fictitious name we had agreed upon. The news she gave caused us to celebrate that night. We had a bonfire in the courtyard and drank to the ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... when on the morning of September eleventh loud and long-continued cannonading was heard from the distance, and the sky became suffused with a crimson glow. The villages southwest of the city were burning. Every house, every barn that sunk into ashes, burying the property of honest men, was a bonfire to the despairing citizens. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... nets. Suppose a necessary errand to occur, suppose it imperative to send abroad, the messenger must then go openly, advertising himself to the police with a huge brand of cocoa-nut, which flares from house to house like a moving bonfire. Only the police themselves go darkling, and grope in the night for misdemeanants. I used to hate their treacherous presence; their captain in particular, a crafty old man in white, lurked nightly about my premises till I could have found ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... them to bring us piles and stacks of dry wood; and we made an enormous bonfire in the middle of the main street. Round this, when they felt its warmth, the whole tribe gathered and smiled and wondered. It was a striking sight, one of the pictures from our voyages that I most frequently ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... in the house, so I knew that somebody was getting up. I don't think indeed I know, for they were good boys that they ever wanted anybody to lose property, but they did enjoy seeing a blaze, and one of their greatest delights, when there hadn't been a fire for some time, was to build a bonfire in the garden. ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... visited them by their bonfire, had received their compliments, watched the sword dance and the dance of the clubs, touched with their lips, or pretended to touch, the stem of a keef, listened to a marriage song warbled by Ali to the ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... he lit a bonfire in his dormitory, he pelted the German master with rejected examination papers, and in a single day was caned over a dozen times. Yet he fought the bullies, and kept his word; he was brave, honest and manly, ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... sure if we can get a couple of hundred yards into this thick wood the fire would not be seen through it," Vincent said; "of course I do not mean to make a great bonfire which would ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... jetty and put on board the long-boat. It had evidently been a place of some little importance; but, from Courtenay's account, it was not to be compared for a moment with Merlani's establishment. At last, the place having been thoroughly rummaged, a bonfire was built on the weather side of the shed, which, being well fed with tar, etcetera, soon set the entire building in a blaze, after which they retreated to the boats, firing the jetty also before shoving off. Altogether it was a very satisfactory morning's work, since, with their limited ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... the first time I ever saw cattle too tired to eat," said Joel, as the corral gates were being roped shut. "Something must be done. Rest seems as needful as food. This is worse than any storm yet. Half of them are lying down already. We must build a bonfire to-night. Wolves are afraid ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... indifference between you and other young women is that which lay also between me and other young men: a special attractiveness... Thousands of slippers, did I say? Tens of thousands. I had hoarded them with a fatuous pride. On the evening of my betrothal I made a bonfire of them, visible from three counties. I danced round it all night." And from his old eyes darted even now the ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... "let us see if I can't make near as good a bonfire as Mike Clancy himself! Throw a sup more paraffin on, you, Pat; now stand back all of yous, an' look at the fine blaze. As soon as we have the roof off of it, you can all set to work an' pull the whole place down. ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... said that the meeting resolved to take Cooper's books from the Library and burn them at a public bonfire, but if so, this proposal did not appear in the ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... philosophically and appeared to dismiss the whole affair. Willie swore with a curious and seemingly unnecessary bitterness, at frequent intervals, for the next hour or so. Macgregor remained in a semi-stunned condition of mind until the opportunity came for making a little private bonfire of the two letters; after which melancholy operation he straightway recovered ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... the rules and principles had been thoroughly mastered, the huge bonfire of text-books in grammar and rhetoric might be regarded a fitting celebration of the students' victory over the difficulties of "English undefiled." But too often these rules are merely memorized by the student for the purpose of recitation, ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... Pecson, Tadeo, and Juanito Pelaez were all alike suspended—the first receiving his dismissal with his foolish grin and declaring his intention of becoming an officer in some court, while Tadeo, with his eternal holiday realized at last, paid for an illumination and made a bonfire of his books. Nor did the others get off much better, and at length they too had to abandon their studies, to the great satisfaction of their mothers, who always fancy their sons hanged if they should come to understand what the books teach. Juanito Pelaez alone took the blow ill, since it ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... eighteen hours opened up a new world to Sam. With the fumes of liquor rising in his brain, he rode for two hours on a train, tramped in the darkness along dusty roads and, building a bonfire in a woods, danced in the light of it upon the grass, holding the hands of Prince and the little man with the wrinkled face. Solemnly he stood upon a stump at the edge of a wheatfield and recited Poe's "Helen," taking on the voice, the gestures ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... suit and a bonfire, rather than the lustring; and as her clothes are returned, le the lady's be put to her others, to be sent to her when it can be told whither—but not till I give the word neither; for we must get the dear ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... moderated. That same night an English bark went to pieces under the rock, so near that the workmen above, clinging for dear life to their precarious perch, could hear the shouts of her officers giving their commands. A bonfire was kindled, in hope of warning the doomed sailors of their peril, but it was too late, for the ship could not be extricated from her position, and became a total wreck, with the loss of the lives of twenty of her company. To-day a clear beam ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... cricket, for the day was beautifully fine, though it is midwinter. And all sorts of fun we had. Then a capital dinner, puddings, &c. Then cricket, running races, running in sacks (all for prizes), then a great tea, 7 P.M. Chapel, then native dances by a great bonfire. Then at 10 P.M. hot coffee and biscuits, then my little speech, presenting all our good wishes to the married couples, and such cheering, I hope it may be well remembered. The deeper feeling of it all is bearing fruit. Already lads and young men from the Solomon Islands say, "We begin ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to the window, "Abel has made such a bonfire in the back-yard, and he is burning weeds and all kinds of things, and he has given us each a ''tato' to bake, and Fraeulein has given us a band-box she did not want, and we've filled it quite full of dry leaves. And do you think if we wait ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... old-fashioned now! And what about these piles and piles of Harper's and Scribner's, and the broken washstand that was in Belle's, room and the curtains, that used to be in the back hall? I move we have a bonfire and keep it going ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... foot, and was so naughty that, in gratitude, I gave him five minutes with a matchbox. Matches, which he drops on the floor when lighted, are the greatest treat you can give David; indeed, I think his private heaven is a place with a roaring bonfire. ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... only, her easy-going style of sailing seeming to prove conclusively to a sailor's eye, that she must be either a whaler or a man-of-war. On board the Alabama the former was the favorite supposition, and hopes ran high of another glorious bonfire fed by tons of brightly burning sperm oil. The aspirations of the Tonawanda were naturally in favor of the man-of-war, and it was with difficulty that considerations of prudence restrained the open exhibition of their delight as the stranger drew near, and the long pendant floating ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... without the slightest expectation that it would be fulfilled; and the man—who would have plunged into a blazing bonfire if he had been so ordered—advanced, and, to the unutterable astonishment of himself, the king, and in fact the whole concourse of natives, raised the gigantic structure to his shoulders and held it there with scarcely ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... in token of their joy. On the following day, when Mr. Aislabie was conveyed to the Tower, the mob assembled on Tower-hill with the intention of hooting and pelting him. Not succeeding in this, they kindled a large bonfire, and danced around it in the exuberance of their delight. Several bonfires were made in other places; London presented the appearance of a holiday, and people congratulated one another as if they had just ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... was thick with stars, which flashed like silver bonfires in the blackness of the night. A fresh breeze swept over the gorze bushes of the moorland and blew into yellow and red streamers the sheet of flame that rose from a huge bonfire which was built in a direct line inland from the Haunted House. The sea, below the precipitous cliffs, moaned and sighed, and, far off, in the distance, could be heard the murmur of the deep seas. Shouts of laughter and merry voices, scraps ...
— Where Deep Seas Moan • E. Gallienne-Robin
... River Boyne, where he rested, resolving there to prepare for the next Day's Solemnity. It was penal for any Person at the Time of the Celebration of this solemn Convention at Tarah, to kindle a Fire in the Province, before the King's Bonfire first appeared. I am of Opinion this was a religious Ceremony, as the chief Deity of the ancient Inhabitants, in exterior Worship especially, was Bel, or Belus; whence Apollo or Ap-haul, the Son of the Sun, whom they emblematically ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... books were preserved, and, later, entered the Bodleian Library. The world can spare the controversial manuscripts of the Fellows of Merton, but who knows what invaluable scrolls may have perished in the Puritan bonfire! Persons, the librarian of Balliol, sold old books to buy Protestant ones. Two noble libraries were sold for forty shillings, for waste paper. Thus the reign of Edward VI. gave free play to that ascetic ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... consisting of three Senators and three Representatives, and a Librarian, to be appointed by the President of the United States. It had grown to the number of only 3,000 volumes in 1814, when the British army made a bonfire of our national Capitol, and the library was consumed in the ruins. The first library of Congress being thus destroyed, ex-President Jefferson, then living, involved in debt, and in his old age, at Monticello, ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... indeed to become a Christian! The ancestors frizzled in the bonfire, and the descendants singled out and ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... that she used in making the house should take fire, what would become of her then. I do not wonder that Ruby was frightened when she looked at the little bonfire, crackling and snapping away as cheerily as if a frightened child was not watching it with ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull
... with itself in exuberant joy. For an hour the school bell pealed out the good news. A big bonfire blazed in the court-house square. Wise dames busied themselves baking bread and frying doughnuts and roasting beef for the rescue party now homeward bound. It was a certainty that their men-folks would all be hungry and ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... tyranny and oppression will drive even a lad to do, in the way of hardened resistance, observe the following instance Seventeen of the boys were to be flogged for making a bonfire on the 5th of November, myself of course among the number; many of them were large boys, and we were left together while Griffith was busily employed making up a number of rods out of half a dozen new birch brooms, a great many dozens of which he bought every year at Weyhill fair, expressly ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... themselves chilled and moistened with gray mist. So swift was their flight, however, that in an instant they emerged from the cloud into the moonlight again. Once a high-soaring eagle flew right against the invisible Perseus. The bravest sights were the meteors that gleamed suddenly out as if a bonfire had been kindled in the sky and made the moonshine pale for as much as a hundred ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... around the world, but Daniel Boone, that young rebel, didn't even hear of it until the following August. Whereupon the fearless hunter with the abandon of a happy lad danced a jig around the bonfire inside the stockade. It could have been an Elizabethan jig, ironically enough, for the Boones were English. Daniel tossed his coonskin cap into the air again and again and let out a war whoop that brought the terrified Rebecca hurrying to the cabin door, a whoop that pierced the silence ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... to the dogs and went away to their homes, for it was evening, and they were spent with madness. Then the Jews came, who hated him also; and they dragged the miserable corpse through the streets; and made a bonfire of thistles in a remote place and burned it; and what was left of the bones and ashes they threw into the Tiber. So perished Rienzi, a being who was not a man, but a strangely responsive instrument, upon which virtue, heroism, courage, cowardice, faith, ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... the ancient reputation and actual present influence of the City of London. Demolish Gog and Magog, put down the civic banquets, break up and melt down the weighty and many-linked chains of solid gold round the neck of my lord mayor and the sheriffs, strip off the aldermen's gowns, make a bonfire of the gilded carriages, wring, if you will, the necks of both swans and cygnets. It is all vanity and vexation. Man is an intellectual animal: he wants none of these gewgaws. Alas! Wisdom may cry aloud in the streets, but no one will heed her words ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... his cabin he found four of the inmates lying drunk on the floor, the fires expiring, and Guyon Vidocq in a delirium of intoxication pulling everything to pieces— table, benches, etcetera—to pile them in the corner, and, then, as he said, light a real Christmas bonfire. John Bar immediately saw the danger that the poor creatures on the floor were in, and whilst he tried to get fires going in the stove and chimney-place as quickly as possible, he also exerted his influence to soothe Guyon Vidocq and make him cease his crazy work. But the ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... fire often lasted a long time. One means of clearing the ground to make a farm was to fell the trees, while in full leafage, in what were called 'winrows.' They lay in great piles for a year and sometimes longer; then when quite dry they would be ignited, and a glorious bonfire on a gigantic scale would ensue. The fire would burn up not only all the logs and dead leaves upon the ground, but, spreading its way through the forest, would do considerable damage to the living trees, burning as it often did for weeks. It was, however, a grand ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... the city at that hour. At the foot of every crosstown street is a bonfire of sunset. What a mood of secret smiling beset him as he viewed the great territory of his enjoyment. "The freedom of the city"—a phrase he had somewhere heard—echoed in his mind. The freedom of the city! A magnificent saying, ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... don't know what to advise; and yet we can't let them perish on the floes. We had better get the guns, and build a bonfire on the cape below; perhaps they may see it; but it wasn't for nothing that I saw those men the other night. Poor La Salle laughed at it, but if ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... burned on the bottom. It is almost impossible without many trials to understand just how little heat suffices underneath. Sometimes it seems that the warmed earth where the fire has been is enough. And on top you do not want a bonfire. A nice even heat, and patience, are the proper ingredients. Nor drop into the error of letting your bread chill, and so fall to unpalatable heaviness. Probably for some time you will alternate between the extremes of heavy crusts with doughy insides, and white weighty ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... whole day was occupied in stripping a tree that stood on the high western promontory of the bay, and building up the materials of a bonfire a few yards from it, that, if any whaler should stray that way, they might not be at a loss for ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... change in the nature of this festival was a tribute to the influence of Savonarola. Children went about the streets, chanting hymns instead of the licentious songs which Lorenzo dei Medici had written for the purpose. They begged alms for the poor, and their only amusement was the capannucci, or Bonfire of Vanities, for which they collected the materials. Books and pictures, clothes and jewels, false hair and ointments were piled in great heaps round a kind of pyramid some sixty feet in height. Old King Carnival, ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... tea-room above it were also outlined with innumerable coloured electric bulbs, and festoons of Japanese lanterns were stretched between the fir trees in all directions. At the top of the toboggan slides powerful arc-lamps blazed, and a stupendous bonfire roared on a little eminence. The effect was indescribably pretty, and it was pleasant to reflect how man had triumphed over Nature in being able to give an outdoor evening party in mid-winter with the thermometer below zero. The gleaming crystals of snow reflecting ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... Bill and Reddy went into the hut to arrange the straw bedding, while the rest of us gathered wood for a huge bonfire in front of the hut. The wind was blowing right down the river and we expected it to carry the warmth of the fire into the hut. The fire was built some distance in front of the doorway, so as to prevent the hut from catching fire. But we had evidently miscalculated ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... most delightful task to arrange a sort of cooking-hole of stones over which the coffee pot may be set and potatoes may be boiled over another similar hole. You will find that it is far better to have a number of very tiny little fires entirely separated from each other, than one big bonfire which is almost sure to grow unmanageable. It will be seen that it is far easier to take a big piece of bacon (to be sliced after reaching the picnic grounds) a loaf or two of bread and raw potatoes than ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... on the part of Hertzog demanded prompt action on the part of Botha, who called upon his colleague either to suppress his particular brand of anathema or resign. Hertzog not only built a bigger bonfire of denunciation but ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... was of body, and burdened with some cares of mind, the general factor ploughed his way with his usual resolution. A scowl of dark vapor came over the headlands, and under-ran the solid snow-clouds with a scud, like bonfire smoke. The keen wind following the curves of land, and shaking the fringe of every white-clad bush, piped (like a boy through a comb) wherever stock or stub divided it. It turned all the coat of the horse the wrong way, and frizzed up the ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... he had even tried to earn a living, and had failed. Cilley, his old college mate, was just elected to Congress from Maine, Pierce was just elected Senator from New Hampshire, and Longfellow had found the ways of literature as smooth as the primrose path to the everlasting bonfire. Hawthorne was of a noble disposition, and glad of the fortunes that came to these of his circle in boyhood at Bowdoin; but it was not in human nature to be oblivious of the difference in his own lot. To this mood must be referred the dream ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... swift and black directly across, but when I looked to the north I found that the ice extended from the shore to the upper end of the island. I put several sandwiches in my pocket and carefully walked across. Powers was trying to cook some freshwater clams when I came upon his bonfire." ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... the boathouse a bonfire was burning, raining up sparks into the indistinctness of the dawn. Around this struggled a mass of black figures. I heard Montgomery call my name. I began to run at once towards this fire, revolver in hand. I saw the pink tongue of Montgomery's pistol lick out once, close to the ground. ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... left another college on account of a mistake he had made with some of his classmates. They had taken a great deal of trouble to bring some wood from a distant wood-pile to make a bonfire with, under one of the professors' windows. Agamemnon had felt it would be ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... Once that bonfire was started, the scene assumed a different aspect. The glow lighted up the encampment, and filled the Banner Boy Scouts with a feeling of pardonable pride, because each one felt that he had a personal ownership in the camp under ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... NERO. He would never have fiddled while Rome burned. He would have been more likely to imagine that Rome was burning when there was really nothing more going on than a bonfire. He is one more example of the pernicious influence of sensational ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various |
