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Boon   Listen
noun
Boon  n.  The woody portion flax, which is separated from the fiber as refuse matter by retting, braking, and scutching.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Boon" Quotes from Famous Books



... a boon apart, and not to be mentioned with commoner things. It is chief of this world's luxuries, king by the grace of God over all the fruits of the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the angels eat. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... more definite), and gifted with an extensive territory, nearly as big as Yorkshire, it had yet failed to make that material progress which had been hoped by its founders. It is true that the state was still in its infancy, being an offshoot from another and larger realm, and having obtained the boon of freedom and self-government only as recently as 1871, after a series of political convulsions of a violent character, which may be studied with advantage in the well-known history of "The Making of Aureataland," by a learned professor of the Jeremiah P. Jecks University in the United ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope

... excruciating torture; the blood gushed from his nostrils and mouth, his eyes well nigh started from their sockets. His physical nature at length gave way, though his courage did not fail him. He fainted. Death would have been a happy release, but his torturers took pains not to allow him that boon; restoratives were administered, and consciousness again returned. The surgeon who stood by, however, gave notice that he must not be subjected, for a time, to equal torture, or he would sink under it. He was therefore removed on a blood-besprinkled stretcher ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston

... the paupers, and expect the most happy results. Paupers (as Mr. Gladstone says) are "our own flesh and blood," and, as we compel them to be vaccinated, so we should permit them to vote. Is it a dream that Mr. Jesse Collings (how you would have loved that man!) has a Bill for extending the priceless boon of the vote to inmates of Pauper Lunatic Asylums? This may prove that last element in the Elixir of political happiness which we have long sought in vain. Atheists, you will regret to hear, are still unpopular; but the new Parliament has done something for ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang

... at once engaged its cabin. Colonel Vavasour obtained George leave for the present, and promised to arrange as to his exchanging from full pay. He likewise enabled him, which George felt as a great boon, to take his old and attached servant with him; with the promise that he would use all his interest to have the man's discharge forwarded him, before the expiration of ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... with the sparrow, with the lion sport, Talk with the murmur of the babbling rill And sing thy summer song upon the hill— Who that could know thee as thou wast inwrought The all in all of nature's primal thought, And see thee given by Omniscient mind, A native boon to lord, and brute, and wind, Could e'er have dreamed with fate's prophetic sleep, The darker lines thy horoscope would keep, Or trembling read, thro' tones with horror thrilled, The damned deeds thy future name ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various

... was a boon to the sad-hearted father, for she would not despair; and nature having blessed her with a strong and hopeful temperament, and an abounding faith in a final good, she kept the father's ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch

... passing from discipline to authority might have given to them. However this may be, it is clear and it is admitted that education as opposed to professional training of a high order is still, generally speaking, a want among the priests of Ireland, and I look forward to no greater boon from a University or University College for Roman Catholics than its influence, direct and indirect, on a body of men whose prestige and authority ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett

... supplicating tone, 'tell me that it's false, and I'll bless you! Crush me, blight me, do what you will, only tell me that my own loved child is pure from spot or stain! Tell me so, I beseech you; I, Michael Rust, who never begged a boon ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... this there was nothing cheering to the dignity of human nature. What the people had was conceded as a boon, not as a right. When a nation was brought under the sceptre of the Incas, it resigned every personal right, even the rights dearest to humanity. Under this extraordinary polity, a people advanced in many of the social refinements, well skilled in manufactures and agriculture, ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... to the merits of these characters? And were I also able to induce the inmates of the inner chamber to understand and diffuse them, could I besides break the weariness of even so much as a single moment, or could I open the eyes of my contemporaries, will it not forsooth prove a boon? ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... Legislature recently, where a measure was introduced to abandon him to his own taxable resources for education. The ratio of his moral and material product will be the measure of his gratitude for this great boon. For, after all, many of "our great dangers ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... have I begged the high gods for a boon, That they would bear me from the Flanders slosh Back to a desert not made by the Bosch, The sunny Egypt that I left too soon. O silvery nights beneath an Eastern moon! O shirt-sleeved days! O small infrequent wash! O once again to see the nigger "nosh" The camel, rudely grunting (out ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various

... and the will, Which torture where they cannot kill; And the inexorable Heaven, And the deaf tyranny of Fate, The ruling principle of Hate, Which for its pleasure doth create The things it may annihilate, Refused thee even the boon to die; The wretched gift eternity Was thine—and thou hast borne it well. All that the Thunderer wrung from thee Was but the menace which flung back On him the torments of thy rack; The fate thou didst so well foresee, But would not to appease him tell; And in thy Silence was his Sentence, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... feared from William and Cyril. But there was always Calderwell, and Calderwell was serious. Bertram decided, therefore, after some weeks of feverish unrest, that the only road to peace lay through a frank avowal of his feelings, and a direct appeal to Billy to give him the great boon ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter

... fallen so lightly on the flowery path of those to whom contentment was a higher boon than wealth, that few footmarks were visible. Yet there had been changes in the old homestead. As the smiling years went by, each, as it looked in at the cottage-window, saw the home circle widening, or new beauty crowning the angel brows of happy ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur

... what the niggardly Law has already secured him) he solicits not; simply the glance of your eyes. Understand his mystic significance, or altogether miss and misinterpret it; do but look at him, and he is contented. May we not well cry shame on an ungrateful world, which refuses even this poor boon; which will waste its optic faculty on dried Crocodiles, and Siamese Twins; and over the domestic wonderful wonder of wonders, a live Dandy, glance with hasty indifference, and a scarcely concealed contempt! Him no Zoologist classes among the Mammalia, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... misfortune; we ought to be as close knit as the strands of a rope. Here is our brother Fuzl Khan, the only man of his gang who did not try to escape, and see how he is treated! Could he be worse misused? Would not death be a boon? ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... cars, marshalled legions and laurelled fasces. Such I have endeavoured to find in the world; and, in their stead, I have met with selfishness, with vanity, with frivolity, with falsehood. The life which you have preserved is a boon less valuable than ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... at the window listened in aghast dismay and became pale in sober truth, for these boon companions he had accounted the best friends he had in the world. They had no word of regret, no simple human pity; even that facile meed of casual praise that he was "powerful pleasant company" was withheld. And for these and such ...
— His Unquiet Ghost - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... susceptible nature, and 'twas known she had refused suitor after suitor, among them men of quality and rank, the elegant and decorous Viscount Wilford, among others, having knelt at her feet, and—having proffered her the boon of his lofty manner and high accomplishments —having been obliged to rise a discarded man, to his amazement and discomfort. The world she lived in was of the better and more respectable order, and Jack Oxon had seen little of it, finding it not gay and ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... Our School was slate pencil. It had some inexplicable value, that was never ascertained, never reduced to a standard. To have a great hoard of it was somehow to be rich. We used to bestow it in charity, and confer it as a precious boon upon our chosen friends. When the holidays were coming, contributions were solicited for certain boys whose relatives were in India, and who were appealed for under the generic name of 'Holiday-stoppers,' ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... soon came, however, and with it the blessed relief which such a boon bestows. Mulford had barely time to explain his arrangements, and to place the party on their knees, along his little reservoir and the gutter which led to it, when the pattering of the rain advanced along the sea, with a deep rushing ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... he protested. "I understand even where I do not sympathise. You make of life the greatest boon on earth. We of my race and way of thinking are taught to take it up or lay it down, if not with indifference, at any rate with a very large share of resignation. However, Jesson's life is spared. From what I have heard of the man, I imagine he will ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... way of protecting the nests of our beautiful and useful birds of the wildwood, what a boon it would be to men and fowls! So many nests come to grief that one wonders sometimes that any brood is ever reared. During a recent spring, with exhausting toil and patience, I found the nests of several shy woodland ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser

... Raoul, not to interrupt me any more; you could never convince me, for I tell you beforehand, I do not wish to be convinced; I have gone so far I cannot recede; I have suffered so much, death itself would be a boon. I no longer love to madness, Raoul, I am being engulfed by ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... levity was gone. He had the look of bestowing, and Captain Pharo of witnessing bestowed, upon another, a boon inestimable, priceless, rare. ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... Martin Antolinez alighted, and came to the King, and kissed his hand; and he received them right well, and said, What tidings bring ye me of the Cid, my true vassal, the most honourable knight that ever was knighted in Castille? Well was Minaya pleased when he heard this, and he said, A boon, Sir King Don Alfonso, for the love of your Maker: My Cid sendeth to kiss your hands and your feet, as his natural Lord, at whose service he is, and from whom he expecteth much bounty and good. You banished him from the land; but though in another's country, ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various

... MIND. A king? oh, boon for my aspiring mind, A cottage makes a country swad rejoice: And as for death, I like him in his kind But God forbid that he should be my choice! A kingdom or a cottage or a grave,— Nor last, nor next, but first and best I crave; The ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various

... himself fortunate in becoming her purchaser; and as time developed the goodness of her heart, and her mind enlarged through the instructions he assiduously gave her, he found the connection that might have been productive of many evils, had proved a boon to both; for whilst the astonishing progress she made in her education proved her worthy of the pains he took to instruct her, she returned threefold the tenderness and affection he ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... that they in turn will care for the laboring poor. Any intermediary between the people and their Government or the least delegation of the care and protection the Government owes to the humblest citizen in the land makes the boast of free institutions a glittering delusion and the pretended boon of American ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... had drunk a cup or two, and drunk memories to good men dead, and healths to good men living, amidst this arose a grey-head carle from the lower end of the hall, and said: "Child Christopher, thy grace, that I may crave a boon of thee on ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris

... that she was three years older than you; the three seem to have stretched to a dozen. Luckily, you didn't let Norton's snatching Emily from under your nose prey upon cheek or heart. Nothing is damaged. You are sound and whole, and that is why your friendship has been such a boon to me. You have saved me from tilting against ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... ladder, like he sea's, Whose rounds of rollers, raised above Sun-rise, Lean not on Heaven, hence shattered lie at noon; For 'tis set firmly on the verities, Which form God's throne. Ah, there, what joy, my prize! Would that I had a dove for every boon! ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle

... had brought, she never suspected how near she had been to the great happiness she had sometimes dared to hope for, or dreamed how fervently Arthur Leighton prayed that night that, if it were possible, God would grant the boon he craved above all others—the priceless gift of Anna ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes

... serf, he did not consider that a boon had been bestowed upon him. The soil and the hovel were his, descended to him from his forbears! Why, then, should he pay for them? He clung to this idea with all the stubbornness implanted by a sense of justice ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen

... be asked:—What about criminals and defective men? Let their wives be sterilized. The wife of any criminal would deem it a boon to be protected from the offspring of such ...
— The Fertility of the Unfit • William Allan Chapple

... been asserted that this nomination was a boon to Roscoe Conkling to secure his support of Garfield. To deny this is almost supererogatory. He sternly refused to make any suggestion."—Conkling, Life of Conkling, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... prince can mak' a belted knight, A marquis, duke, and a' that; But an honest man's a boon his might, Guid faith he manna fa' that! For a' that, and a' that, Their dignities, and a' that, The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth, Are ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... himself under the protection of a man of fortune, honour and humanity, he is encouraged by his said master to make this his humble prayer to you, who says that to above three hundred letters he has lately written, to ask a small boon for himself, he did not receive above three answers that gave him the pleasure your's did though he had twenty times better pretensions to an hundred and fifty. And as your petitioner has seen a great deal of the world, as ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse

... went on. 'I desire to rest—after all the happenings of this last moon I do desire really to rest, and I ask of you one last boon.' ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit

... to his sway, Church Reform, Educational Reform, Land Reform, Liberty! [Cheers.] It was no sudden impulse and it is no short or recent record. It is more than seventeen years since Mr. Gladstone secured for Ireland the boon of disestablishment. It is nearly as long since he carried the first bill recognizing and seriously endeavoring to remedy the evils ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... Walter guides, Along the Fleet, up Ludgate-Hill, And puffing, holding both their sides, His boon ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis

... treated it as a delusion. It was at this time that he read Paine's "Age of Reason" and Volney's "Ruins," through which he was influenced to array himself against the Bible for a time,—as much of a skeptic, almost, as any one of his boon companions. But his early religious training soon asserted itself, and we hear no more of hostility to religion as long as he lived. On the other hand, when he was elected President, he spoke as follows to ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer

... scow, so if the "Eb and Flo" could not be saved, he did not know what to do. His only hope lay in a heavy rain which would cause the river to rise enough to float the boat. That, however, was not a very bright outlook, for such a boon could hardly be expected during the summer. It was only in the fall when the heavy rains set in, and then it would be too late for much work. And besides, he would lose the carrying of the stones from the quarry. There was not much cordwood to be ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody

... earth, he lifts his eyes to heaven - Is't not enough, unhappy thing, to know Thou art? Is this a boon so kindly given, That being, thou wouldst be again, and go, Thou know'st not, reck'st not to what region, so On earth no more, but mingled with the skies! Still wilt thou dream on future joy and woe? Regard and weigh yon dust before it flies: That little ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron

... the nerve or brain cell whereby one experiences the sensation of amazement was numb. If Paragot had informed me that he had been a boon companion of King Qa and had built the pyramids of Egypt I should not have been surprised. I could only ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke

... the day had waxed very hot, for it was come high noontide, so presently Sir Turquine cried out: "Stay thee, Sir Launcelot, for I have a boon to ask!" At this Sir Launcelot stayed his hand and said: "What is it thou hast to ask, Sir Knight?" Sir Turquine said: "Messire, I am athirst—let me drink." And Sir Launcelot said: "Go ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle

... spake, but all the kings approved, admiring the speech of Diomede, the breaker of steeds. Having then offered libations, they departed each to his tent; there they lay do to to rest, and enjoyed the boon of sleep.[331] ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... bailiff, "you speak of that of which you know nothing. It is true that he hath not come to trial, but the trial hath come to him. He hath fled the law and is beyond its pale. Touch not that which is no concern of thine. But what is this boon, rogue, which you ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... This is the only safe, secure, and certain way to accomplish the great object. It is safe because it is just; it is secure because it is profitable to all concerned, the giver as well as the receiver of the boon. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various

... he lives must wield the boasted prize, Whose value all can feel, the weak, the wise; Displays in triumph his distinguished boon, The solid honors of the wooden spoon. Grad. ad Cantab., ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... young man of his own age, boon comrade, kindred spirit, who had come to Port Royal a boy of fourteen, in 1606, in the gay days of Marc L'Escarbot—Charles de La Tour. Sea rovers, bush lopers, these two could bid defiance to English raiders. Whether Biencourt died in 1623 or went ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... accept whatever change the peculiar conditions in each case may call for. But the use of universal time will not necessarily involve a change; it will rather be something added to what all now possess. It will be a boon to those who avail themselves ...
— International Conference Held at Washington for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day. October, 1884. • Various

... make you happy, if it doesn't make you feel as if it were a boon from heaven to kiss her, then it's not the right kind of love. But—why don't you stand still—but that kind of love is not enough; there may be something else concealed beneath it, believe me." Here ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... parties, for which the benefits bestowed upon either would not compensate. With respect to our own colonies, in particular, it is manifest that the whole matter resolves itself into one consideration. If the negroes be in such a state, as that the boon of universal freedom would be productive to them of universal benefit, by all means let it be bestowed at once, even though it be attended by so much national expense, as the fair demands of the proprietors for compensation shall impose upon us. ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig

... and she liked to be ruled by them. After her husband's death, and after the first agony of his loss had passed away, she sank into a sort of subdued state—she began to live in the present, to be content with the little blessings of each day, to look upon the sunshine as an unmitigated boon, and on the girls' laughter as the sweetest music. She had been rich in her early married life, but Captain Mainwaring had lost his money, had lost all his large private means, through a bank failure, and before Daisy ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... duck or goose, under the laughing encouragements of the mother for hours together, before it is strangled. At one moment he satisfies the cravings of nature from the breast of his mother, and instantly rewards the boon with a violent blow perhaps on the very breast on which he has been hanging. Nor does the mother dare resent the injury by an appeal to the father. He would at once say that punishment would daunt the spirit of the boy. Hence the Indian never suffers his child to ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West

... was his subdued reply. "It's such a clear case of self-defence—I hear there will be no arrest. Still, I shall remain here to-night. Johanna's gone home, I believe. There's only one thing, the deepest yearning of my heart, John; but before I ask that boon, I want you to know, John, that I acknowledge my sin! my awful, awful sin of years! O my God! my God! ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable

... crinoline and Gothic bonnets, and the innocent finery that belongs to them, and send them out into the wholesome daylight to talk and laugh and make merry,—the birthright of their young years. A religion that deprives young girls or old girls of this boon is not the religion of Jesus ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... occasions, celebrated in a tomb which he had constructed under a summer-house in his garden, to have indulged in the mastication of bank-bills between slices of bread and butter, doubtless to the envy of his boon companions; not, as might be inferred, of the better or richer classes, though, considering all things, it is perhaps needless to hope that these current symbols of value were a little cleaner than most of those ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous

... would be full of sweet peace, and a joy so shining that its light would drive afar off the shadows of his death agony. In that knowledge death would be vanquished and heaven would stoop to earth and cover his grave with glory. Oh, God! Grant me this one boon! Give me this one request! In every step of my life I have disappointed him. In the future let all other hopes, and joys, and aspirations die, if needs be, all but this—this one—that I may never in any way touch liquor again. May every man and woman who sees this allow their hearts to go out ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson

... is life a boon? To me, at any rate, it was a misfortune. After their shameful desertion, I owed them only vengeance. They committed against me the most inhuman, the most infamous, the most monstrous crime which can be committed ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... suffered a good deal in this house. To keep him at home in the evening—and at night—I have had to play the part of boon companion in his secret drinking-bouts in his room up there. I have had to sit there alone with him, have had to hobnob and drink with him, have had to listen to his ribald senseless talk, have had to fight with brute force to get him ...
— Ghosts - A Domestic Tragedy in Three Acts • Henrik Ibsen

... rather disbelieve in the immortality of my own soul than suppose the boon given to me was withheld from any of my fellow-creatures. Besides, I did not, in the position I placed before you, suggest the efficacy of any special kind of idea of God, as connecting the holder of ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... and looked away, swallowing at the dry lump in his throat. Suddenly he turned to Myles. "Wilt thou grant me a boon?" ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle

... and remoter corner of earth: I will choose another name—Fool! why did I not so before? But matters it? What is writ is writ. Who can struggle with the invisible and giant hand, that launched the world itself into motion; and at whose predecree we hold the dark boon of life and death?" ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... that I can recall any novel that makes such insistent demands upon the weather as does Miss JOAN SUTHERLAND'S Cophetua's Son (MILLS AND BOON). The sun, the rain, the wind, the snow—these are from the first page to the last at their intensest, wildest, brightest, most furious, and as I closed the book and looked out upon a day of monotonous drizzle I thanked Heaven for the English climate. But ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various

... had been manufactured by the same persons. This was by no means to be wondered at. There was surely but one plain tale to tell; and it was not surprising, that it had been clothed in nearly the same expressions. There was but one boon to ask, and that was—the abolition of ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson

... find a remedy. Sun lights require especial arrangements, and are very expensive on account of the quantity of gas consumed. The library illumination of the future promises to be the electric light. If only steady and moderate in price, it would be a great boon to public libraries, and perhaps the day is not far distant when it will replace gas, even in private houses. That will, indeed, be a day of jubilee to the literary labourer. The injury done by gas is so generally acknowledged by ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades

... himself: "He may have laughed only to cheer me up. They never tell their patients the truth." And every cell of his body was vitiated, poisoned, inefficient, profoundly demoralised. Ordinary health seemed the most precious and the least attainable boon. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... Germans, however, were jealous of their liberties; and not unreasonably dreading the power of each competitor, rejected both. Their choice fell on Frederic, Elector of Saxony, surnamed the Wise, celebrated as the protector of Luther; but that prince declined the splendid boon, and recommended Charles, on the plea that a powerful emperor was required to stop the rapid progress of the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various

... agreeable. For all, it serves a purpose in those countries where salt is a scarce commodity; and cooked—as all Spanish Americans cook it—with a plentiful seasoning of onions, garlic, and chili, the "gamey" flavour ceases to be perceptible. Above all, it is a boon to the traveller who has a long journey to make through the uninhabited wilderness, with no inns nor post-houses at which he may replenish his spent stock of provisions. Being dry, firm, and light, it can be conveniently carried ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid

... as he knew no others, adorned with unquotable oaths, short-clipped, rough phrases—the language of the man-at-arms in the guard-room. Yet he possessed a certain breezy charm, and Eberhard Ludwig seemed to respond to it. In truth, the King, when he was not in one of his furious rages, was a boon companion, and appealed to the brutish swagger which lies dormant ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... there would be almost irresistible pressure put upon them to reduce the railway rates, and generally (as indeed the Majority Report recommends) to work the railways on other than commercial lines.[99] A reduction of rates has been held out as the great resulting boon of nationalisation ever since the Irish Parliamentary Party specifically raised the question in Parliament in 1899. A 25 per cent. reduction in rates and fares (suggested by Nationalist witnesses) would involve an annual diminution of net receipts to the Government of over L1,000,000 per annum, ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various

... destination abroad. These were generally men of education, and accustomed to generous diet, but the prison discipline and scale of dietary soon told upon their health, and disqualified them in the eyes of the prison officials for the boon of transportation. Even if their health was not restored by the sea voyage and liberation abroad, it was only exchanging the hospital abroad for the hospital at home. If the experiment succeeded, who may estimate its value to him who was the ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous

... the Reformers at this crisis, which was truly a tremendous one, have argued themselves into a wrong course! How many plausible pretexts and fair reasons might they have found for submission! The Lutheran princes were guaranteed the free exercise of their religion. The same boon was extended to all those of their subjects who, prior to the passing of the measure, had embraced the reformed views. Ought not this to content them? How many perils would submission avoid! On what unknown hazards and conflicts would opposition launch ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... personal affairs we bemoan our fate as sharply as though the whole night had been rolling in upon us through some fever, or all the blasts of the arctic world had crept through our bones in some frigid chill. There is no boon so great as health. Of course everybody admits that. But why can we not attach meaning to it? If a man rise in a public gathering and say "I will give a hundred dollars!" he knows exactly what he is saying, and so do his hearers ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern

... walls of China, which is bringing the yellow races into the labor and white light of civilization, which has made Germany a nation, and spanned a continent with the human voice so that Boston talks with San Francisco, is it too much to expect that it can bring the boon of an international civilization, abolishing ...
— The Audacious War • Clarence W. Barron

... the Isle of Wight; comfortably housed, with the sea before their eyes, and the boon of sunshine which Casti ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing

... hardly overestimate the boon a man like Dr. Russel is to a district. Trust is a plant of slow growth with the natives, but they have learned to trust him entirely, and go to him in all their troubles as children go to a father. And he has a very real helpmate ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas

... Martha. Ten minutes before, she had been sitting with two boon companions in the oyster saloon next door, discussing their night's catch. Elsie "Specs" was one of the two; the other was known to the street simply as Mame. Elsie wore glasses, a thing unusual enough in the Bowery to deserve recognition. From ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... Imogen. He knew her not in that disguise; but it seemed that all-powerful Nature spake in his heart, for he said: 'I have surely seen him, his face appears familiar to me. I know not why or wherefore I say, Live, boy; but I give you your life, and ask of me what boon you will, and I will grant it you. Yea, even though it be the life of the ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... chattered near by, laughing while one of the men tried to win a wager by climbing a marble pillar. Pertinax frowned. Livius did his best to look dependable and friendly, but his eyes were not those of a boon companion. ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy

... short cross-cuts in the most unexpected places, not without a suggestion of peril, to make eye and foot alert, and to infuse a certain wild pleasure into the exercise. The multiplicity of these paths is a great boon to the lover of beauty, for here one charm of Italian landscape exists in perfection. Every few moments the scene rearranges itself in new combinations, as on the Riviera or at Amalfi, and makes an endless succession of lovely pictures. The infinite variety ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry

... Beethoven than some of Clementi's. Mr. E. Dannreuther, in his article on the composer in Sir George Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, justly remarks "that a judicious selection from his entire works would prove a boon." ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock

... lay down the law about living, and religion, and governing the masses. I, too, used to say that teaching is light, that education is necessary, but that for simple folk reading and writing is enough for the present. Freedom is a boon, I used to say, as essential as the air we breathe, but we must wait. Yes—I used to say so, but now I ask: 'Why do we wait?'" Ivan Ivanich glanced angrily at Bourkin. "Why do we wait, I ask you? What considerations ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff

... earth.'—Is. 45:22. The Son of man was so lifted up that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:14, 15). It is your part simply to lay hold of the proffered boon. You are invited to do so; and you are entreated to do so; nay, what is more, you are commanded to do so. It is true, you are unworthy, and without holiness no man can see God; but be not afraid, only believe. You cannot get holiness of yourself, ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin

... mid-stream gain'd, a poignant pain Shot thro' his well-strung nerves, contracting all, And the stiff joints refus'd their wonted aid. Loudly he cry'd for help, Arsaces heard, And thro' the swelling waves he rush'd to save His drowning Brother, and gave him life, And for the boon the Ingrate pays ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey

... of Sindbad was taken to Almighty Allah, much wealth came to the possession of his son; but soon did it dwindle in boon companionship, for the city of Baghdad is sweet to the youthful. Then did Sindbad bethink him how he might restore his fortune, saying to himself: "Three things are better than other three; the day of death is better than the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various

... had e'er yet been imprest, When rose in the distance no mountain-tops hoar As the sun of the ev'ning bright gilded the west, Full swiftly they fled—and that hour, too, is gone When we gain'd the meridian, assign'd as a bound To entitle our crews to their country's first boon, Hail'd by all as an omen the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various

... love first as an unattainable dream, then as a boon, then as a blessing, then as a right, then as a ...
— A Guide to Men - Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl • Helen Rowland

... proper to put away all affectation of grief, and to pay his visit to Ireland. Great hopes were entertained there for the beneficent results of the royal visit. George had been during his earlier days in political sympathy as well as boon companionship with Fox and with Sheridan. Fox had always shown himself a true friend to Ireland. The Irish national poet, Thomas Moore, had, in one of his songs, described the Banshee as wailing over the grave of him "on whose burning tongue truth, peace, ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... the knave," said Drusus, smiling. "So this is the trouble? I wonder that your mother should have anything to do with such a fellow. I hear in letters that he goes with a disreputable gang. He is a boon companion with Marcus Laeca, the old Catilinian,[20] who is a smooth-headed villain, and to use a phrase of my father's good friend Cicero—'has his head and eyebrows always shaved, that he may not be said to have one hair of an ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... boon to the fleeing Germans, for without its aid, there is little likelihood that they could have escaped the British fleet, which had the heels of the enemy. But the fog blotted the foe completely from the sight of the main British fleet; and even from the decks of ...
— The Boy Allies at Jutland • Robert L. Drake

... robbery were committed with impunity, heretics and Jews were admitted to the city on payment of bribes, and the pope himself shamelessly cast aside all show of decorum, living a purely secular and immoral life, and indujging in the chase, dancing, stage plays and indecent orgies. One of his boon companions was Jem, the brother of the sultan Bayezid, detained ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... merchants would hear his yell, they would close their doors in fear. But this man went one night into a revival meeting in a country church out of curiosity. He made sport of the meeting that night with a boon companion who sat by his side, but he went again the next night. The Spirit of God touched his heart. He went forward and bowed at the altar. He arose a new creation. He was transformed into one of ...
— The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit • R. A. Torrey

... anxiously into his face, and asking, ever and anon, a question, in order to discover the tone of his voice. At length, with one consent, and as if the recognition had at once burst upon them, they hailed their old boon-companion, Hugh Crombie, and, leading him into the inn, did him the honor to partake of a cup of welcome at ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... never so fast at pleasure, Twilight follows the longest noon. Nay, but here is a lasting boon, Life for hearts that are old and chill, Youth undying for hearts that treasure Imogen dancing, ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt

... wound. She was a sailor's daughter, and an adept in first aid to the wounded. Her soft hands touched his face and head, her eyes were dewy with sympathy, and Drew found himself rejoicing at the accident that had brought him this boon. She had never been so close to him before, and he was sorry when the ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes

... was to superintend the boys in putting a culvert into the new road to carry off the rain in the wet season. She also devised and carried out a scheme of water-works for the place which was a great boon and comfort to all the family, and enabled them to sprinkle their lawn in civilized fashion. A large cemented reservoir was built at a spring on the mountain and the water carried down from it in pipes and distributed through the house ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez

... settled itself after the hymn, and the palm-leaf fans began to sway in the air, a swallow flew in through the open window; and, after fluttering to and fro over the pulpit, hid itself in a dark corner, unnoticed by all save the small boys of the congregation, to whom it was, of course, a priceless boon. But Miss Vilda could not keep her wandering thoughts on the sermon any more than if she had been a small boy. She was anything but superstitious; but she had seen that swallow, or some of its ancestors, ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... held the contrary opinion, and they were Calton and Kilsip. Both these men had sworn to discover this unknown murderer, who struck his cowardly blow in the dark, and though there seemed no possible chance of success, yet they worked on. Kilsip suspected Roger Moreland, the boon companion of the dead man, but his suspicions were vague and uncertain, and there seemed little hope of verifying them. The barrister did not as yet suspect any particular person, though the death-bed confession ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume

... vain if I succeed in beholding her once more, O king. Let this sort of understanding be ever stable in thee. Let thy mind always take a pleasure in such righteousness as is involved, O king of kings, in thy desire of bestowing such a high boon on us. Know, O king, that all these ladies of thy house are staying with their feet raised for the journey, from desire of beholding Kunti, and Gandhari, and my father-in-law. Thus addressed by queen Draupadi, the king, O ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... that Thou mayest make them manifest, and we may know them [as they are in themselves apart from all Symbols] by Thy Grace alone. Thou alone hast raised up the Secret Worlds to Thyself, so that they might know Thee, for Thou hast given unto them the boon of knowing Thee, for Thou hast given birth unto them from Thy Incorporeal Body and hast taught them that from Thy Self-productive Mind Thou hast the Man brought forth in Contemplation and in a perfect Concept, yea, even the Man brought forth by Mind to whom Contemplation has given a form. ...
— The Gnosis of the Light • F. Lamplugh



Words linked to "Boon" :   good luck, close, mercy, blessing, luckiness, good fortune



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