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Bonfires, it may be thought, need no recondite explanation; light goes with a light heart, and boys always love a blaze. Dr. J.G. Frazer, in his "Golden Bough," has endeavored, nevertheless, to bring the Purim bonfire into relation with primitive spring-tide and midsummer conflagrations, which survived into modern carnivals, but did not originate with them.
These sights went by Ruth as in a dream; and as in a dream she heard the topple and crack of masonry to right and left. Langton guided her; and haggard, perspiring, they bent their heads to the strange wind now howling down the street as through a funnel, and foot by foot battled their way. The wind swept over their bent heads, carrying flakes of fire to start new conflagrations.
A lantern, overturned in the hands of a man who was groping to save an imprisoned life, had flashed to the cotton, or the wool, or the oil with which the ruins were saturated. One of the historic conflagrations of New England resulted. "With blanching cheeks we listened to the whispers that told us how the mill-girls, caught in the ruins beyond hope of escape, began to sing.
He, of course, made desperate efforts to conceal these manifold conflagrations from the queen, but the inflammable tow of his heart was always bringing him into trouble with his fiery mistress. The earl's first glance toward Dorothy was full of admiration. The second glance was full of conflagration.
Volunteer companies parade and are reviewed oftener, and drill more constantly; but the good effects of the manual exercise are rendered nugatory by its being conducted in confined armories and a bad atmosphere. The frequency of conflagrations and the emulation of rival volunteer corps render the fire-companies an active school of exercise.
They are soft, sensuous, lovely they are exquisite refined, effeminate, but we have seen no sunsets here yet like the gorgeous conflagrations that flame in the track of the sinking sun in our high northern latitudes. But what were sunsets to us, with the wild excitement upon us of approaching the most renowned of cities!
As they are of a character which aims at effect, this obscure evil probably appeared to them to be a useless one. They were satisfied with the more signal conflagrations of their cities. This defect, if that negligence proceeded from it, turned, as is frequently the case with all other defects, to the advantage of their enemies.
In this wise, in Pierre's mind there spread out the whole history of the popes, the most prodigious of all histories, showing fortune in every guise, the lowest, the most wretched, as well as the loftiest and most dazzling; whilst an obstinate determination to live enabled the papacy to survive everything conflagrations, massacres, and the downfall of many nations, for always did it remain militant and erect in the persons of its popes, that most extraordinary of all lines of absolute, conquering, and domineering sovereigns, every one of them even the puny and humble masters of the world, every one of them glorious with the imperishable glory of heaven when they were thus evoked in that ancient Vatican, where their spirits assuredly awoke at night and prowled about the endless galleries and spreading halls in that tomb-like silence whose quiver came no doubt from the light touch of their gliding steps over the marble slabs.
What illuminations and conflagrations have kindled themselves, as if new heavenly suns had risen, which proved only to be tar-barrels, and terrestrial locks of straw! Profane princesses cried out, "One God; one Farinelli!" and whither now have they and Farinelli danced? In literature, too, there have been seen popularities greater even than Scott's, and nothing perennial in the interior of them.
I have discovered two chronicles that are in agreement, but one has copied from the other. A single fact is certain, namely, that massacres, rapes, conflagrations, and plunder succeeded one another without interruption. Under the unhappy prince Bosco IX. the kingdom was at the verge of ruin.
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