"Christmas" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "After Christmas!" he started as if he had been bitten. "Nonsense! It's nonsense to wait so long. Next month, at ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... like he was my hoss. Like he'd been planned for me. I wanted him terrible bad, the way you want things when you're a kid—the way you want Christmas the day before, when it don't seem like you could ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... pushing, or rather failing to push, the old-fashioned box-plow through the crusted drifts on the uptilted shoulder of Plug Mountain, at altitude ten thousand feet, with the mercury at twelve below zero. There was a wind—the winter day above timber-line without its wind is as rare as a thawing Christmas—and it cut like knives through any garmenting lighter than fur or leather. The cab of the 206 was old and weather-shaken, and Ford pulled the collar of his buffalo coat about his ears when the grunting of the exhaust and the shrilling ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... to invite the younger portion of the company to spend Christmas evening with her. And having succeeded in her mission, she made the ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... up or lie down), and I don't know that there's much else excepting plenty of cups and plates—they're enamel, fortunately, so you won't have much trouble with the servants breaking things. Of course there's a Christmas card and a few works of art on the walls for you to look at when you're tired of looking at yourself in the glass. Yes! There's a looking-glass—goodness knows how it got there! You ought to be thankful for that and the wire-mattress. ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... of Hursley but was expelled, and Mr. Maijor, as patron of the living, provided persons for the ministry and kept a close account of their expenses, which is still preserved. Seven different ministers in the half year after Christmas 1645 were remunerated "for travell and pains in preaching," after which time Mr. Richard Webb settled for a time at Hursley, and Mr. Daniel Lloyd at Otterbourne, though several more ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... Every fall Theodora and Ellen, with Kate Edwards, and sometimes the Wilbur girls, went into the woods to gather lion's-paw and mitchella with which to decorate the old farmhouse at Thanksgiving and Christmas. But it was one of their girl friends, named Lucia Scribner, or rather Lucia's mother, at Portland, who invented mitchella jars, and started a new industry ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... suppose," he suggested, "that the present unhappy situation in which Nan finds herself did not exist. Would you still prefer that I limit my visits to, say, Christmas and Easter?" ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... said Biddy. "I know I look perfectly charming. Oh, what a sweet, sweet blue it is, and these ducky little flounces! It was Aunt Mary O'Flannagan sent me this dress at Christmas. She wore it at a fancy ball, and said it might suit me. It does, down to the ground. Let me drop a courtesy to you, Nora O'Shanaghgan. Oh, how proper we look! But I don't care! Now I'm not afraid to face anyone—why, the old kings would ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... come to me on Christmas Day," he resumed, "when you know that I am alone in my house, put up my shutters, and make a point of refusing business. Well, you will have to pay for that; you will have to pay for my loss of time, when ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... your determination to marry me out of hand tempts me to such naughtiness. However, be forgiving, and lend me the boys till next spring. They might go to Castleford for Christmas." ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... Italians, struck by the power with which the effect of midnight was produced, called it "La Notte," The Night. When it came to a German gallery the Germans called it "Die Heilige Nacht," The Holy Night. An old German Christmas carol interprets it so perfectly that it seems as if the author must have known the picture. ...
— Correggio - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... long Lucretia remained in Nepi, where, in summer, the moisture rising from the rocky chasms caused deadly fevers, and still renders that place and Civitacastellana unhealthful. Her father recalled her to Rome before Christmas, and received her again into his favor as soon as her brother left the city. Only a few months had passed when Lucretia's soul was again filled with visions of a brilliant future, before which the vague form of the unfortunate ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... of our story, he was living in Cincinnati with his father. The latter suddenly gave up a prosperous law practice to go to the help of the North, secured a commission as a captain of volunteers, went to the front, and was either captured or killed by the Confederates. Since the preceding Christmas nothing had been heard of him. George, with an aching heart, stayed at home with an uncle, and chafed grievously as he saw company after company of militia pass through his native town on the way to the South. Where was his father? This he asked himself ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... on, Waite," muttered Farley, "someone will have to give you an ancient history book at Christmas. You don't seem well posted on ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... to leave him I shan't be missed—as an able seaman, at least. He'll just potter on down the islands, running aground and kedging-off. and arrive about Christmas.' ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... thought that cat and dog were paying good money for their board, the way they would mew and whine if a meal were late. I took very good care of the chickens, giving them plenty of warm food, so from about Christmas I got a dozen or more eggs each week. The cow, too, I fed well on ground feed and hay, with pumpkins and sometimes a few potatoes, and she gave me a fair quantity of milk all winter; and on the eggs and milk, together with potatoes, bacon, and salt codfish, I and ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth
... turned adrift without employment!" I believed the theater employed regularly seven hundred persons in all its different departments, without reckoning the great number of what were called supernumeraries, who were hired by the night at Christmas, Easter, and on all occasions of any specially showy spectacle. Seized with a sort of terror, like the Lady of Shallott, that "the curse had come upon me," I comforted my mother with expressions of pity and affection, and, as soon as I left her, wrote a most urgent entreaty ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... his life. With that went love for friends and fellow men, and for all living things, birds, animals, trees, flowers, and nature in all its moods and aspects. But love of children and family and home was above all. The children always had an old-fashioned Christmas in the White House. In several letters in these pages, descriptions of these festivals will be found. In closing one of them the eternal child's heart in the man cries out: "I wonder whether there ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... silly with badgerin' wimmen. I'm goin' ratty with worry. When the boss comes back from his spree, I'll give 'im a bit o' my mind. I'll tell 'im, if he must go on a bend he should wait till the proper time—Christmas, Anniversary of the Settlement, Easter, or even a Gov'ment Holiday. But at a time like this, when the town's fair drippin' with dollars ... stupid ole buck-rabbit! An' when he can't be found, the mutton-headed bobbies suddenly become ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... afore your father's stomach soured against 'ee. Dostn't-a mind that evening I put 'ee across with your trunks for the last time? 'Never take on, Master Sam,' said I— for all the parish knew and talked of your differences—'give the old man time, and you'll be coming home for the Christmas holidays as welcome as flowers in May.' 'Not me,' says you; 'my father's is a house o' wrath, and there's no place for me.' A mort o' tide-water have runned up an' down since you spoke they words; but here be I, Nicholas Vro, ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... how," said Ernestine. "It takes every cent we all earn to keep things going. Who ever thought we'd be so poor? Just think of last Christmas, how glorious!" ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... have received your letter of the 24th, which has given me a great surprise to hear, that Mr. Craig was married as far back as Christmas, to his own servant lass Betty, and me to know nothing of it, nor you neither, until it was time to be speaking to the midwife. To be sure, Mr. Craig, who is an elder, and a very rigid man, in his animadversions on the immoralities that come before the session, must have had his own good reasons ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... of the wren' was not unknown to the Principality as late as about a century ago, or later. In the Christmas holidays it was the custom of a certain number of young men, not necessarily boys, to visit the abodes of such couples as had been married within the year. The order of the night—for it was strictly a nightly ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... him who makes the promise, or any loss, trouble, or disadvantage undergone by, or charge imposed upon, him to who it is made, is a sufficient consideration in the eye of the law to sustain an assumpsit. Thus, let us suppose that I promise to pay B L50 at Christmas. Now there must be a consideration to sustain this promise. It may be that B has lent me L50; here is a consideration by way of benefit or advantage to me. It may be that he has performed, or has agreed to perform, some laborious service for me; if so, here is a consideration ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... winter decoration is just beginning to be understood. If it retained its fruit throughout the entire season it would be one of our most valuable plants, but the birds claim its crimson fruit as their especial property, and it is generally without a berry by Christmas in localities where robins and other berry-eating birds linger late in the season. Up to that time it is exceedingly attractive, especially if it is planted where it can have the benefit of strong contrast to bring out the rich color of its great clusters. Because of its tall and stately habit it ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... he, lost in memory, and not noticing the tone. "Well, I put my hand down the throat of that man's town, and turned her inside out! It was like as if Christmas and Fourth of July had happened on ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... with it a Christmas holiday. For weeks I had looked longingly out of college windows as the first tracking-snows came sifting down, my thoughts turning from books and the problems of human wisdom to the winter woods, with their wide white pages written all over by the feet ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... Well, the cook left, and retired some streets away to lodgings of her own; and there was Coolin in precisely the same situation with any young gentleman who has had the inestimable benefit of a faithful nurse. The canine conscience did not solve the problem with a pound of tea at Christmas. No longer content to pay a flying visit, it was the whole forenoon that he dedicated to his solitary friend. And so, day by day, he continued to comfort her solitude until (for some reason which I could never understand and cannot approve) he was kept ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 'tisn't thy work. Thou wert always good at thy work, praise God. Thou'rt thy father's own son for that. But thou dostn't keep about like, and take thy place wi' the lave on 'em since Christmas. Thou look'st hagged at times, and folk'll see't, and ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Last Christmas eve, from off the spit I took the goose to table, Or should have done, but teasing Love Did make me quite unable; And down slipt dish, and goose, and all With din and clitter-clatter; All but the dog fell foul on me; He ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... at eighteen could lift ten hundredweight. In 1794 he became engineer at the Ding Dong Mine, where he introduced many improvements; and a few years later he was busily engaged in designing a genuine steam-carriage, which was finished and made its first short trip on Christmas Eve, 1801, carrying the first passengers ever known to have been conveyed by steam. Locally this contrivance was known as the "puffing devil," or as "Cap'n Dick's Puffer." The next step was to produce an engine running on rails. This was done in 1804, when Trevithick ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... of the conspirators, yet knew the drift of public feeling, and knew also Arundel's opinion of the queen's prospects, insisted that Mary should place some restraint upon herself, and treat her sister at least with outward courtesy; Philip was expected at Christmas, should nothing untoward happen in the interval; and the ambassador prevailed on her, at last, to pretend that her suspicions were at an end. His own desire, he said, was as great as Mary's that Elizabeth should be detected in some treasonable correspondence; but harshness only ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... of ten they begin by making promises to pay on a certain day when it is certain they have nothing to pay with. They are as bold at fixing the time as if they had my lord's income; the day comes round as sure as Christmas, and then they haven't a penny-piece in the world, and so they make all sorts of excuses and begin to promise again. Those who are quick to promise are generally slow to perform. They promise mountains and perform mole-hills. He who gives you fair words and nothing more feeds you with ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... passion, and fancy that we can step out of the whirlwind into a calm at any moment. We marry our husbands and we fancy that all the tragedy of human passion is over so far as we are concerned. 'The haven entered and the tempest passed.' Philip Marston's terrible poem,—you have read it,—'A Christmas Vigil'? 'The haven entered,'—the whirlwind of passion has been left far away, we fancy. Oh, we are fools! It sweeps down upon us ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... She must write herself down a failure! At her age, with her ambitions, with her artistic temperament and creative instincts, she was yet to be denied all coherent means of expression. She was to fall back amongst the ruck, a young woman of talent, content perhaps to earn a scanty living by painting Christmas cards, or teaching at a kindergarten. Her finger-nails dug into her flesh. It was the bitterest moment of her life. She flung herself back into the bare little room, cold, empty, comfortless. In a momentary fury she seized and tore in pieces the study which remained upon the ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... grandfather was succeeded by his son, and by his grandson; the Crawshays have followed one another for four generations in the iron trade in Wales, and there they still stand at the head of the trade." The occasion on which these words were uttered was at a Christmas party, given to the men, about 1300 in number, employed at the iron works of Messrs. Hawks, Crawshay, and Co., at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. These works were founded in 1754 by William Hawks, a blacksmith, whose principal trade consisted in making claw-hammers for joiners. ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... publishing a third set of tales; sequels are, not only proverbially but actually, very hazardous things. However, the tales make no pretence but to amuse, and my friends have not seldom asked for the publication. So not a great deal is risked, perhaps, and perhaps also some one's Christmas may be the cheerfuller for a storybook which, I think, ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... came from the East along the coast with a great army, and this winter (A.D. 1135) is called on that account the Crowd-winter. King Harald came to Bergen on Christmas eve, and landed with his fleet at Floruvagar; but would not fight on account of the sacred time. But King Magnus prepared for defence in the town. He erected a stone-slinging machine out on the holm, and had iron chains and wooden booms laid across over the passage ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... large, brilliant evening star in the early twilight, and underfoot the earth was half frozen. It was Christmas Eve. Also the War was over, and there was a sense of relief that was almost a new menace. A man felt the violence of the nightmare released now into the general air. Also there had been another wrangle among the men on ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... evening for her, the 24th of December, 1911—she had expected her husband to remain with her, for it was not only Christmas eve, but the night when, as manager of a large manufacturing concern, he brought up from New York the money with which to pay off the men on the next working day, and he never left her when there was any unusual amount of money in the house. But with the first glimpse she ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... home until after dark, but they may come sooner; it may be a trick. They have threatened to catch us this year in one way or another, and you know they must not do that—not this year! There must be one more Christmas with all its old ways—even if it must ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... Mrs. Flaxman told me, was a fixed rule at Oaklands. The dinner provided for the master's table was sufficient in quantity for every member of the household to share, down to the ruddy-haired Samuel. In addition to this, Mr. Winthrop remembered each one of his domestics when distributing his Christmas gifts. Mrs. Flaxman confided to me that Samuel was consumed with a desire to have his gift in the shape of a watch. I proceeded forthwith to gratify, if possible, this humble ambition, and first went to the different jewelers' establishments in Cavendish to see how much ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... shouldn't happen again." It was quite in keeping with her character that she was graciously pleased to accept the man's excuses. And then the agent, fired into an expansive cheerfulness by her kindness, said that which won him the mysterious present he received the following Christmas. ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... was published just before Christmas, 1809, and made a merry Christmas for our grandfathers and grandmothers eighty years ago. The fun began before the book was published. In October the curiosity of the town of eighty thousand inhabitants was awakened by a series of skilful ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... was nothing to be done but to stand helplessly by and watch him drown. And what were Boyton's thoughts? He stated afterwards: "I thought of it being Christmas eve. The news of my death would be telegraphed to New York, my mother would hear of it and it would make a sad Christmas for her." The voyager straggled with all the strength he possessed against the awful power of ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... Yorkshire accent, Robin overheard a good deal, and it sounded very fine. Not being at all shy, he joined them, and asked so many questions that he soon got to know all about it. They were practising a Christmas mumming-play, called "The Peace Egg." Why it was called thus they could not tell, as there was nothing whatever about eggs in it, and so far from being a play of peace, it was made up of a series of battles between certain valiant knights ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... were two books with coloured pictures—one, extracts from a popular book of travels, published for juvenile reading, the other a collection of very light, edifying tales, for the most part about the days of chivalry, intended for Christmas presents or school reading. She had, too, an album ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... has written to say he is coming to spend Christmas with us, and he is bringing me ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... Christmas, 1878, in London, this army of Christian workers was christened "The Salvation Army," consisting then of about 20 workers and about as many posts, with a few hundred members, and some 3,000 souls seeking salvation during the year. ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... the glorious summer weather, one could have fancied Christmas at hand from the look of Ludgate Hill. From the Circus we took a long look up at Paul's great dome, massive and calm against the evening sky. But between it and us was a seething crowd, promenading at the rate of a mile an hour, and ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... time of the General Assembly which met on Christmas Day 1563, a French waiting-maid of Mary Stuart, 'ane Frenche woman that servit in the Queenis chalmer,' fell into sin 'with the Queenis awin hipoticary.' The father and mother slew the child, and were ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... began. "Be a man—be a man. And if you stick to it, before Christmas comes, we'll see about those pockets, and you can walk into the new year with your head up. But ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... this cave three times in the winter season, viz. on October 22, November 26, and on Christmas Day; and one of them, by name Chavan, drew up an account of their experiences, which was read by M. Colladon before the Societe de Physique et d'Histoire Nat. de Geneve in 1824.[80] The peasants found very little ice in columns at the time of the October visit, and there were signs of commencing ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... was really born on December 24th, not 25th, 1801. You will find the date on her grave which is under the same monument as that of Balzac, in Pere Lachaise in Paris. I am absolutely sure of the day, because my father was also born on Christmas Eve, and there were always great family rejoicings on that occasion. You know that the Roman Catholic church celebrates on the 24th of December the fete of Adam and Eve, and it is because they were born on that day that my father and his sister were called ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... time—in great Eliza's age, When rare Ben Jonson ruled the humorous stage, No play without its Prologue might appear To earn applause or ward the critic's sneer; And surely now old customs should not sleep When merry Christmas revelries we keep. He loves old ways, old faces, and old friends, Nor to new-fangled fancies condescends; Besides, we need your kindly hearts to move Our faults to pardon and our freaks approve, For this our sport has been in haste begun, ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... Not one single previous writer had ever seen an earlier work than that of Fassola, published in 1670 [1], whereas I have had before me one that appeared in 1586 [7]. I had written the greater part of my book before last Christmas, and going out to Varallo at the end of December to verify and reconsider it on the spot, found myself forced over and over again to alter what I had written, in consequence of the new light given me by the 1586 [7] and 1590 [1] ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... of George Sand was so great that it would have been a sore disappointment to her if George Sand were to prove inaccessible. A letter of introduction to her had been obtained from Mazzini. "Ah, I am so vexed about George Sand," Mrs Browning wrote on Christmas Eve; "she came, she has gone, and we haven't met." In February she again was known to be for a few days in Paris; Browning was not eager to push through difficulties on the chance of obtaining an interview, but his wife was all impatience: "' No,' said I, 'you ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... clown who views the pandemonium of red brick which he has built on the estate which he has purchased in the neighbourhood of the place of his grand debut, in which every species of architecture, Greek, Indian, and Chinese, is employed in caricature—who hears of the grand entertainment he gives at Christmas in the principal dining-room, the hundred wax candles, the waggon-load of plate, and the oceans of wine which form parts of it, and above all the two ostrich poults, one at the head and the other at the foot of the table, exclaims: 'Well, if he a'n't ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... other end of the clearing, I thought it was all up with us. The wall of red roaring flame had reached the other side, and the flame was leaping from the top of one pine to another, making them one shape of quivering red, like Christmas evergreens in the fire, a huge tree perhaps standing up all black against the lurid light, another crashing down like thunder, the ribbon of flame darting up like a demon, the whole at once standing forth a sheet of blazing light. I verily believe I should have stood on, fascinated ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and in eager haste he left the cave. Picking his way along the slimy stones under the wharf, he soon neared the outlet and there was startled by the most significant of all his discoveries. Right before him lay the identical hoop which he had given the lost child only Christmas Day, and which bore the inscription, "From Sandy Coggles ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... meanwhile, and for a brief holiday, let us laugh and be as pleasant as we can. And you elder folk—a little joking, and dancing, and fooling will do even you no harm. The author wishes you a merry Christmas, and welcomes you to the ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... settled down for the winter, and as Christmas approached the Martin-Teeter conflict ceased to occupy the public mind. Even in the schoolroom it was soon forgotten, and this was a great relief to Elizabeth. For, of course, Eppie's trouble could not but directly affect her. Elizabeth and Rosie had both stood loyally ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... Winchester on Christmas Day. Once more the enemy threatened to advance, and information had been received that he had been largely strengthened. Jackson was of opinion that the true policy of the Federals would be to concentrate at Martinsburg, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... that even death itself could not make me give in," he said, "but I've had to make a complete surrender to the Little Colonel." That Christmas there was such a celebration at Locust that May Lilly and Henry Clay nearly went wild in the general excitement of the preparation. Walker hung up cedar and holly and mistletoe till the big house looked like a bower. Maria bustled about, ...
— The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows Johnston
... of the king. Henry promised that an embassy should be at once despatched to Rome, to obtain the pope's consent to this arrangement, in order that Anselm, to whom the temporalities of his see were now restored, might be present at his Christmas court in England. ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... the patent and demands a royalty. So there is nothing really strange in the statement that Piggy Pennington took from his Sunday clothes, beneath a pocketful of Rewards of Merit for regular attendance at Sunday-school—all dated before the Christmas-tree—a spool with notched wheels, a lead pencil, and a bit of fishline. The line wound round the spool. Piggy put the pencil through the hole in the spool, and held the notched rims of the spool against the window pane by pressing on the pencil ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... conscious of an impression that in some subtle way John had changed since their last meeting. For a moment he could not have said what had given him this impression. Then it flashed upon him. Before, John had always been, like Mrs. Fezziwig in "The Christmas Carol," one vast substantial smile. He had beamed cheerfully on what to him was evidently the best of all possible worlds. Now, however, it would seem that doubts had occurred to him as to the universal perfection of things. His face was graver. His eyes ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... the letter. But it must be something altogether different from what folk pay down here, that's plain. Why, she gets Christmas presents, and presents other times as well, and not counted ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... the alienation of ecclesiastical property and the treatment of Jews. While favouring sacerdotal celibacy the council laid rather rigid restrictions on monasticism. It commanded that the laity communicate at Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide. The canons of Agde are based in part on earlier Gallic, African and Spanish legislation; and some of them were re-enacted by later councils, and found their way into collections such as the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... have been so distracted with business and one thing or other, I have not had a quiet quarter of an hour for epistolary purposes. Christmas too is come, which always puts a rattle into my morning scull. It is a visiting unquiet un-Quakerish season. I get more and more in love with solitude, and proportionately hampered with company. I ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... goes, and Christmas snows Are from the north returning, I quit my lair and hasten where The old yule-log is burning. And where at night the ruddy light Of that old log is flinging A genial joy o'er girl and boy, ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... fiercest in autumn and winter, Odin was supposed to prefer hunting during that season, especially during the time between Christmas and Twelfth-night, and the peasants were always careful to leave the last sheaf or measure of grain out in the fields to serve as ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... school cabinet. At night I often found myself longing for the return of my sister, seven years my junior, in order that I might embrace her in bed and fondle her genitals. I had done these things during my Christmas vacation of the year before. I mildly reproached myself for such incestuous desires, but they recurred continually. I dreamed little. And I cannot remember the character of my dreams. My waking libido spent itself mostly ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... reader is now introduced to quite a different set of people, in Grosvenor Street, and falls in love with Kate Aubrey.—Christmas in the country; Yatton; Madam Aubrey; the Reverend Dr. Tatham; and old ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... the patio, between the curate's house and the church, are some very brilliant large scarlet flowers, which they call here "flor del pastor," the shepherd's flower; a beautiful kind of euphorbia; and in other places, "flor de noche buena," the flower of Christmas eve. ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... by their leaders. The songs to which they danced were made of white society's scandals reduced to satirical rhyme; and to the rashest girl or man there was power in the warning, "You'll get yourself sung about at Christmas." Yearly a king, queen, and retinue were elected. The dresses of court and all were a mixture of splendor and tawdriness that exhausted the savings and pilferings of a twelvemonth. Good-natured "missies" often helped make these ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... later, we can make our lives more successful and infinitely happier than the lives of those who have never learned self-control. For instance, I am far healthier than men all around me who seem to be able to eat three Christmas dinners each day. They sit at the table and boast about being "good feeders," then later they come to me for pills, saying, "There is nothing the matter with me, doctor, but I thought I had better take a little medicine so I won't get ill." But they don't fool me. ...
— How to Eat - A Cure for "Nerves" • Thomas Clark Hinkle
... girls did not go home for just a few days, Helen's father and her twin unexpectedly appeared at college on Christmas Eve, and their company delighted ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson
... down upon the young settlements. On the day before Christmas, 1775, they attacked half-finished Boonesborough. After that, through some years, it was rare for a young man to ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... enquire and I have ascertained that these stobbers are invariably of orange wood. Say what you will, the orange tree is a hardy growth. Every February you read in the papers that the Florida orange crop, for the third consecutive time since Christmas has been entirely and totally destroyed by frost and yet there is always an adequate supply on hand of the principal products of the orange-phosphate for the soda fountains, blossoms for the bride, political sentiment for the North of Ireland and little sharp stobbers ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... of its girdle she drew the tinted paper, and opening it she read: "Captain Atherton is to offer a prize to the boy or girl who has highest rank at Christmas time. Try for it, and I believe that you will obtain it. Will not that delight ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks
... over Last Christmas Eve had brought: The fibres still were quivering Of the one wounded thought, When Herbert—who, unconscious, Had guessed no inward strife— Bade her, in pride and pleasure, ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... the father looked on. That is just as good as a betrothal; the old man did not overturn anything, he drew in his claws, took his nap and left the two seated, caressing each other. They have so much to relate, they will not get through till Christmas!" ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... up dere min's fer ter git married long 'bout Christmas time, w'en dey 'd hab mo' time fer a weddin'. But 'long 'bout two weeks befo' dat time ole mars 'mence' ter lose a heap er bacon. Eve'y night er so somebody 'ud steal a side er bacon, er a ham, er a shoulder, er sump'n, fum one er de smoke-'ouses. De smoke-'ouses wuz ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... General Reed ended my staff duties for a time, as the survey in Kashmir had come to an end and Lumsden rejoined his appointment before Christmas. ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... of January, in a very cold winter. Jules was forty-five years old, that year, and he remembered the day of the month, because in the morning, before he started out to his work, he had remarked that it was just one month since Christmas. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... pleasure-loving youth about this time. A suspicion of this seems justified by the fact that he 'was elected one of the Comptrolers of the Middle Temple-revellers, as the fashion of ye young Students and Gentlemen was, the Christmas being kept this year (1641) with great solemnity; but being desirous to passe it in the Country, I got leave to resign my staffe of office, and went with my brother Richard to Wotton.' From January till March he was back in London 'studying a ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... say at the very beginning that if one is tremendously wealthy he will not enjoy this dissertation on staying at high class hotels. If one has more than two bathrooms in his home and can afford chicken when it is not Sunday and turkey when it is not Christmas and could stay at the Fairmont all winter if he preferred, then these words will mean nothing ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... been gifts for the pupils in the schools as well as for the schools themselves. These have been of various kinds: clothing, books, pictures, magazines, newspapers, Christmas presents, prizes, etc., as well as money gifts in a few cases. In many instances reduced transportation has been allowed on railroads, and there have been a number of benefactions of like character. We have already referred to the funds left ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best
... mass of twisted stems. The sun shone bright, however, on this day, and as there was no wind, it was not hard to imagine it warm out-of-doors and the spring somewhere in keeping. It was the week before Christmas, and the season ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... army, some 30,000 strong, was still encamped at Dehli, but Madhoji Sindhia, the Patel, waited upon the Emperor in his cantonments, and there concluded whatever was wanting of the negotiations. The Emperor then proceeded, and entered his capital on Christmas Day. ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... among a number of colonial troopers who had come over from South Africa for the King's Coronation. The play was 'Our Boys,' and between the acts my next neighbour gave me, without any sign of emotion, a hideous account of the scene at Tweefontein after De Wet had rushed the British camp on the Christmas morning of 1901—the militiamen slaughtered while drunk, and the Kaffir drivers tied to the blazing waggons. The curtain rose again, and, five minutes later, I saw that he was weeping in sympathy with the stage misfortunes of two able-bodied young men who had to eat 'inferior Dorset' ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... stags caught in midfloor as they bad been about to cut in subsided listlessly back to the walls, because this was not like the riotous Christmas dances—these summer hops were considered just pleasantly warm and exciting, where even the younger marrieds rose and performed ancient waltzes and terrifying fox trots to the tolerant amusement of their younger brothers ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... first the French prince had some successes. In November he increased his hold on the Home counties by capturing the Tower of London, by forcing Hertford to surrender, and by pressing the siege of Berkhampsted. As Christmas approached the royalists proposed a truce. Louis agreed on the condition that Berkhampsted should be surrendered, and early in 1217 both parties held councils, the royalists at Oxford and the barons at Cambridge. There was vague talk of peace, but the war was renewed, ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... an attempt made in canoes to take the vessel by boarding, and killed Karaka. Emboldened by this, they afterwards made an expedition to the shore and cut up or stove in all their enemies' canoes lying on the beach. This was on Christmas Eve. On Boxing Day they landed and burnt the principal native village, which Kelly calls the "beautiful city of Otago of about six hundred fine houses"—not the only bit of patent exaggeration in his story. Then they ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... Christmas Eve and children's voices singing in the night! Two figures by the open window listening—a man and a woman, hand in hand in ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... "that's fwhat the shuperior an' cultivated man calls a raffle, me misbeguided child av darkness an' sin. Lead on to that raffle, though fwhat the mischief 'tis doin' so far away from uts home—which is the charity-bazar at Christmas, an' the Colonel's wife grinnin' behind the tea-table—is more than I know." Wid that I wint to the shed an' found 'twas pay-day among the coolies. Their wages was on a table forninst a big, fine, red buck av a man—sivun fut high, four fut wide, an' three fut thick, ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... God?" And of the same nature with those we have been contemplating? The knowledge of other's errors in ay be for our warning; but the knowledge of our own is requisite to our reformation. Where then are we directed of God, religiously to observe Christmas, Lent, or Easter? Where to attend the eucharist only twice or thrice a year; and never without one, or more preparatory lectures? * Where to add a third prayer at the administration of that ordinance, when our divine ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... when the assemblies at Court were particularly attended, such as the 1st of January and the 2d of February, devoted to the procession of the Order of the Holy Ghost, and on the festivals of Easter, Whitsuntide, and Christmas, the Queen no longer wore any dresses but muslin or white Florentine taffety. Her head-dress was merely a hat; the plainest were preferred; and her diamonds never quitted their caskets but for the dresses of ceremony, confined to the days I have mentioned. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... First they ate the seeds of all the weeds and tall grasses that reached above the snow, then they cleaned the honeysuckles of their watery black berries. When these were nearly gone, I began to feed them every day with crumbs, and they soon grew very tame. At Christmas an ice storm came, and after that the cold was bitter indeed. For two days I did not see my birds; but on the third day in the afternoon, when I was feeding the hens in the barnyard, a party of feeble, half-starved Juncos, hardly able to fly, settled down around ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... some Russian neighbours," the newcomer was saying; "Prince and Princess Jaroslav; and they had an English party at Christmas. It was great fun. They used to take us out riding into the mountains, or into Italy." She paused a moment, and then said carelessly—as though to keep up the conversation—"There was a Mr. Falloden with them—an undergraduate at Marmion College, ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and her mother had always loved Christmas, and had invariably given some gift to each other. After their stockings were hung side by side, Christmas Eve, her mother would take her in her lap and tell her the Christmas story. So now it was a great mercy for Elsie that she had her ...
— The Potato Child and Others • Mrs. Charles J. Woodbury
... additional illustrations drawn by the author, C. A. Vanderhoof, and others. Yet another little brochure recently appeared, called London Rambles en zigzag with Charles Dickens, by Robert Allbut, 1886. Lastly, there was published in the Christmas Number of Scribner's Magazine, 1887, an article, "In Dickens-Land," by Edward Percy Whipple, in which this veteran and appreciative critic of the eminent English writer's works points out that, "In addition to the practical life that men and women lead, constantly vexed as it is by obstructive ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... Woodman, Spare that Tree, still survives. Other residents of New York City who have written single famous pieces were Clement C. Moore, a professor in the General Theological Seminary, whose Visit from St. Nicholas—"'Twas the Night Before Christmas," etc.—is a favorite ballad in every nursery in the land; Charles Fenno Hoffman, a novelist of reputation in his time, but now remembered only as the author of the song, Sparkling and Bright, and the patriotic ballad of Monterey; ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... which was the club or rather the casino of the island, I regularly passed my evenings. It was small, but neatly fitted, and at night (when the lamp was lit) sparkled with glass and glowed with coloured pictures like a theatre at Christmas. The pictures were advertisements, the glass coarse enough, the carpentry amateur; but the effect, in that incongruous isle, was of unbridled luxury and inestimable expense. Here songs were sung, tales told, tricks performed, games played. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Love, as awake I lay, And heard the Christmas bells ring sweet and clearly, My heart stole through the gloom Into your silent room, And whispered to your heart, ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... Captain folded up his newspaper and began studying the trinkets in the holiday stock in the show case under the new books. A comb and brush with tortoise shell backs seemed to arrest his eyes. "Doc," he mused, "Christmas never comes that I don't think of—her—mother! I guess I'd just about be getting that comb and brush for her." The Doctor casually looked through the show case and saw what had attracted the Captain. "Doc," again the Captain spoke, bending over ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... London with a smile for every one and a happy laugh upon his lips? What wonder is it that the cannon in the Tower thundered a loud welcome, and that all over England, at one season or another, maypoles rose and Christmas fires blazed? For Englishmen at heart are not only monarchists, but they are lovers of good cheer and merrymaking and all ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... spoke to her. She took great notice of Georgie. The schoolmaster's well contint with Georgie. He takes to the Irish like a duck to water. The master do be sayin' he's better at the language nor them that should be spakin' it be rights. He'll have him doin' a trifle o' poetry in it by the Christmas holidays." ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... Christmas makes a full churchyard, or A green Christmas makes a fat graveyard. General in ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... to buy our securities, all well and good. He shall lose nothing in the end. But he will find that Graustark is not a toy, nor the people puppets. More than all that, I am not a bargain sale prince with Christmas tree aspirations, but a very unamiable devil who cultivates an ambition to throw stones at the conventions. Not only do I intend to choose my wife but also the court grandfather. And now let us forget the folly of Mr. Blithers ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... nephew, in some manner, had come to know that it distressed his mother to speak of being hungry after he had eaten what she had to give him. It was seldom now that he mentioned it. His little mind appeared to be taken up with speculations as to Christmas. ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... hands. At the previous Christmas they had lain out together on the cliffs of the east coast in wild weather, waiting to repel a phantom army ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... write seasonable verses," replied Our Festive Poet, "until I've had my Christmas dinner, and then ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Volume 101, November 21, 1891 • Various
... 'Lias once more, for the last time. Mr. Pond's buggy drove rapidly past their slow-moving hay-wagon, Mr. Pond holding the reins masterfully in one hand. Beside him, very close, sat 'Lias with his lap full of toys, oh, FULL—like Christmas! In that fleeting glimpse they saw a toy train, a stuffed dog, a candy-box, a pile of picture- books, tops, paper-bags, and even the swinging crane of the big mechanical toy dredge that everybody said the store-keeper could never sell to anybody because ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... which read 'Laugh not at all.' Holy days they knew, in number during the year fifty-four, namely, the fifty-two 'Sabbaths' and the governor's Fast and Thanksgiving days; holidays they held in utter abhorrence, deeming Christmas, especially, an invention of the devil. On 'work-days' they worked; on 'Sabbath-days' they attended the preaching of the word; otherwise, on the Lord's day, doing nothing save to eat and drink what was ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... has been stated in an even more extreme form by Archbishop Patrick J. Hayes of the archdiocese of New York. In a "Christmas Pastoral" this dignitary even went to the extent of declaring that "even though some little angels in the flesh, through the physical or mental deformities of their parents, may appear to human eyes hideous, misshapen, a blot on civilized ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... next morning—Christmas—the division moved by the Louisville pike. Captain Quirk, supported by Lieutenant Hays with the advance-guard of the first brigade, fifty strong, cleared the road of some Federal cavalry, which tried to contest our advance, driving it so rapidly, that the column had neither to delay its march, ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... burst out Jones, in a rage. "And y'u can go, for all I care—you and your Christmas-tree pistol. Like as not you won't find your cavalry friend at San Carlos. They've killed a lot of them soldiers huntin' ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... was carried out on Cuxhaven, an important German naval base, by seven British water-planes, on Christmas Day, 1914. The water-planes were escorted across the North Sea by a light cruiser and destroyer force, together with submarines. They left the war-ships in the vicinity of Heligoland and flew over Cuxhaven, discharging ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... was worth seven hundred pounds, with the use of a fine mansion; as the incumbent had a large family, he lived there. In another place the living was worth a thousand pounds, and the incumbent hired a curate, himself appearing twice a year, on Christmas day and on the King's birth-day, to preach a sermon; the rest of the time he spent in Paris. It is worth noting that in 1808 a law was proposed compelling absentee pluralists—that is, clergymen holding more than one "living"—to furnish curates to do their work; it might be interesting to note that ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... novel of Humphrey Clinker, and tells a similar story, which, founded in fact or not, shows in what estimation the minister was held: "Captain C. treated the Duke's character without any ceremony. 'This wiseacre,' said he, 'is still abed; and I think the best thing he can do is to sleep on till Christmas; for when he gets up he does nothing but expose his own folly. In the beginning of the war he told me in a great fright that thirty thousand French had marched from Acadia to Cape Breton. Where did they find transports? ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... children, but children of all countries will be the better for reading it.... In the end a double joy is waiting for the reader, for Dot finds again her home and her loving mother, and the faithful kangaroo finds its lost baby. Quite the right ending for Christmas-tide." ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... taking Nursery Days since Christmas, so I thought I would write you a letter. My birthday came a week ago Thursday. I received a watch and chain, a glove-buttoner, a penknife, and a set of ivory jackstraws. We have a cat at home whose name is Rumpelstiltzken. ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... word out of your mouth; but me and Ned is no more to him than your housekeeper or governess might be to you. That's what I'm afraid you don't understand, miss. He's no relation of ours. I do assure you that he's a gentleman born and bred; and when we go back to Melbourne next Christmas, it will be just the same as if he had ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... weaving-shed. Her knowledge of the Bible was so thorough and correct that the latter considered her the best Efik teacher she knew. Soon she gathered about her some two hundred men and women from the upper Enyong farms, who were greatly pleased with her preaching. She came over to Ikpe for Christmas, the first the household had spent in that savage land, and there was a service in the church, which was decorated with palms and wreaths of ferns. Mary told the story of Bethlehem, and the scholar lads, of their own accord, marched ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... city man's wife; and I know not how Abraham Dyson will take it. Prudence is his sister, to be sure, and it is to do her a kindness; but Jacob wants a useful wife—and, as I understood, they were resolved not to delay the marriage beyond Christmas. Rachel has been six months wed, and the house wants a mistress who can move about ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... great gulf". Amidst much that is uncertain, for instance, as to whether real devils are in hell, a real fire, and whether it be bright or dark, whether the appalling torments are ever mitigated, say on certain feasts of the Christian Church, such as Christmas Day and Easter, or whether eventually the pains ultimately die completely away and thus usher in that "happiness in hell" in which Mr. Mivart is, or was, so deeply interested five years ago—amidst all these highly ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... Promoting Christian Knowledge. Mr. Ziegenhagen, German chaplain to George II., was very kind to his countrymen, helped them in all their difficulties, and gave them directions for which they were very grateful. He made them preach in the Chapel Royal on Christmas Day. No doubt the language was German, which must have been acceptable to the ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge |
